Szymanski Erika Amethyst
Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Chisholm House, High School Yards, Edinburgh, EH1 1LZ, UK.
Life Sci Soc Policy. 2018 Jul 14;14(1):15. doi: 10.1186/s40504-018-0080-3.
Synthetic biology, a multidisciplinary field involving designing and building with DNA, often designs and builds in microorganisms. The role of these microorganisms tends to be understood through metaphors making the microbial cell like a machine and emphasizing its passivity: cells are described as platforms, chassis, and computers. Here, I point to the efficacy of such metaphors in enacting the microorganism as a particular kind of (non-)participant in the research process, and I suggest the utility of employing metaphors that make microorganisms a different kind of thing-active participants, contributors, and even collaborators in scientific research. This suggestion is worth making, I argue, because enabling the activity of the microorganism generates opportunities for learning from microorganisms in ways that may help explain currently unexplained phenomena in synthetic biology and suggest new experimental directions. Moreover, "activating the microorganism" reorients relationships between human scientists and nonhuman experimental participants away from control over nonhuman creatures and toward respect for and listening to them, generating conditions of possibility for exploring what responsible research means when humans try to be responsible toward and even with creatures across species boundaries.
合成生物学是一个涉及利用DNA进行设计和构建的多学科领域，通常在微生物中进行设计和构建。人们往往通过隐喻来理解这些微生物的作用，即将微生物细胞比作机器，并强调其被动性：细胞被描述为平台、底盘和计算机。在这里，我指出这些隐喻在将微生物塑造为研究过程中某种特定类型的（非）参与者方面的功效，并且我认为采用能使微生物成为不同类型事物的隐喻是有用的——即在科学研究中成为积极的参与者、贡献者甚至合作者。我认为这个建议是值得提出的，因为让微生物活跃起来能创造机会，以有助于解释合成生物学中目前无法解释的现象并提出新实验方向的方式向微生物学习。此外，“激活微生物”会重新调整人类科学家与非人类实验参与者之间的关系，从对非人类生物的控制转向对它们的尊重和倾听，从而为探索当人类试图对跨越物种界限的生物负责甚至与之共同负责时负责任的研究意味着什么创造了可能性条件。
