In recent years, a number of large population-based biobanks – genetic databases that combine genetic information derived from blood samples with personal data about environment, medical history, lifestyle or genealogy – have been set up in order to study the interface between disease, and genetic and environmental factors. Unsurprisingly, these studies have sparked a good deal of controversy and the ethical and social implications have been widely debated.

This groundbreaking book makes clear that biobanks are a phenomenon that cannot be disconnected from considerations of power, politics, and the reshaping of current practices in governance. It will be a valuable read for scholars and students of genetics, bioethics, risk, public health and the sociology of health and illness.

Mit dem Aufkommen der Biotechnologien ist die Natur des Menschen scheinbar verfügbar und manipulierbar geworden und die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von biologischem Leben und menschlicher Lebensform rückt zunehmend ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit. Bios, das spezifische Leben einzelner Wesen, und Zoë, die einfache Tatsache des Lebens, scheinen immer stärker auseinanderzutreten. Der interdisziplinäre Sammelband stellt den Überlegungen bekannter europäischer Autoren die Positionen namhafter Vertreter der angelsächsischen Science Technology Studies gegenüber und bietet so einen aufschlußreichen Überblick über die aktuelle Auseinandersetzung der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften mit dem Phänomen der Lebenswissenschaften und ihren biotechnologischen Anwendungen. Mit Beiträgen u. a. von Dieter Birnbacher, Bruno Latour, Gianni Vattimo, Herbert Gottweis, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Karin Knorr Cetina, Nicholas Rose, Paul Rabinow und Chris Thompson.

This study traces the development of internationally circulating arguments for and against stem cell research, and the various transnational bioethical spaces that have opened up to try and steer these arguments towards compromise and implementation. It considers the flow of embryonic and reproductive biological materials from south to north, and the ways these flows play into broader relations around global biopolitics. It investigates the place of transnational regulatory bodies like the EU and the UN in organizing and modifying the international and national debates around stem cell science, and ways in which national debates and policies influence each other. It makes a major contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of power that fuels the emergence of global regenerative medicine in the age of biotechnology.