Former ISG Postdoctoral Fellow, Ruha Benjamin, has recently published a book called “People’s Science: bodies and rights on the stem cell frontier”(Stanford University Press). Benjamin is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American studies at Boston University and an American Council of Learned Societies fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Science, Technology, and Society Program. Book…
A research team, led by the Institute of Zoology of Chinese Academy of Sciences and BGI Shenzhen presented the most complete reconstruction of the giant panda’s genetic history to date in the journal Nature Genetics. The whole genome resequencing of 34 wild giant pandas produced genetic evidence of the previous resistance of panda ancestors to climate variations and indicates that human encroachment and genetic adaptation have played the majority…
Shirley M. Tilghman, President of Princeton University, and Keith Wailoo, the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs, are co-teaching a course called “Modern Genetics and Public Policy for the first time this semester. Together, they possess a wealth of knowledge to explore the topic. Tilghman, a professor of molecular biology, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on genetics; Wailoo draws upon insights gained from his work…
The core premise of the leading model of cancer therapy is that cells become malignant when they develop mutations that make them proliferate uncontrolled. Find a molecule that targets the “driver” mutation, and a pharmaceutical company will have a winner and patients will be cancer-free. In the new study, however, scientists found that despite having identical genetic mutations, colorectal cancer…
ISG faculty member Dr. Hannah Landecker published her paper, “The Life of Movement: From Microcinematography to Live-Cell Imaging” in The Journal of Visual Culture, a special issue on Documentary and Science, edited by Joshua Malitsky and Oliver Gaycken. Abstract: How do we see life after the century of the gene? This article argues that the post-2000 postgenomic turn was and is a thoroughly visual…
Congratulations to ISG faculty Stefan Timmermans and Mara Buchbinder on the publication of their book, “Saving Babies?: The Consequences of Newborn Genetic Screening (Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries)”. Abstract: It has been close to six decades since Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA and more than ten years since the human genome was decoded. Today, through the collection and analysis…