Rossmann Sophia, Müller Ruth
Department of Science, Technology and Society, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Economics and Policy, TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
J Biosoc Sci. 2025 Mar 27:1-19. doi: 10.1017/S0021932025000227.
Air pollution exposure and its health effects are a central concern of environmental epigenetic research with birth cohorts. This article explores why researchers have turned to the placenta as a research object to study the dynamic interactions between in utero exposure to air pollution and future child health. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, particularly the bio-object concept, this article analyses the transformation of the placenta into a technologically manipulated postgenomic bio-object through scientific discourse and practice. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an institute of epidemiology and public health in Spain, we analyse how researchers deal with the tension between the placenta's promises for epigenetic research and the practical research realities in postgenomic sciences. First, researchers discursively call upon the placenta as a suitable research object that embodies air pollution exposure and becomes entangled with and responds to this exposure via epigenetic changes. Studying the placenta promises to elucidate the temporally dynamic and environmentally embedded process of disease development as one of postgenomics' core epistemic concerns. Second, in practice, however, accessing and preparing the postpartum placenta for epigenetic analysis defies its promise as a postgenomic bio-object. The constraints of research with birth cohorts, such as only having access to the postpartum placenta at birth, limit what researchers can know about the dynamic process of disease development. Third, we show how researchers deal with these limitations by assembling additional data in and around this organ to recontextualise the epigenetic analysis performed in the postpartum placenta and revive its postgenomic character. We conclude by discussing how ethnographies of epistemic practices provide entry points to collaboratively reflect upon the theoretical and methodological opportunities and challenges in birth cohort research to study biosocial dynamics. We suggest avenues for using qualitative social science perspectives for future biosocial research and collaboration between the social and life sciences.
空气污染暴露及其对健康的影响是出生队列环境表观遗传学研究的核心关注点。本文探讨了为何研究人员将胎盘作为研究对象，以研究子宫内空气污染暴露与儿童未来健康之间的动态相互作用。借鉴科学技术研究，特别是生物对象概念，本文分析了胎盘如何通过科学话语和实践转变为经过技术操控的后基因组生物对象。基于在西班牙一所流行病学与公共卫生研究所进行的人种志田野调查，我们分析了研究人员如何应对胎盘在表观遗传学研究中的前景与后基因组科学实际研究现实之间的紧张关系。首先，研究人员在话语层面将胎盘称为一个合适的研究对象，它体现了空气污染暴露，并通过表观遗传变化与之纠缠并做出反应。研究胎盘有望阐明疾病发展的时间动态和环境嵌入过程，这是后基因组学的核心认知关注点之一。其次，然而在实践中，获取产后胎盘并为表观遗传学分析做准备却违背了其作为后基因组生物对象的前景。出生队列研究的限制，比如只能在出生时获取产后胎盘，限制了研究人员对疾病发展动态过程的了解。第三，我们展示了研究人员如何通过在这个器官及其周围收集额外数据来应对这些限制，以便重新定位在产后胎盘中进行的表观遗传学分析，并恢复其后基因组特征。我们通过讨论认知实践的人种志如何为共同反思出生队列研究中研究生物社会动态的理论和方法机遇与挑战提供切入点来得出结论。我们为未来生物社会研究以及社会科学与生命科学之间的合作提出了运用定性社会科学视角的途径。
