Documenting the doable and doing the documented: Bridging strategies at the UK Stem Cell Bank

Neil Stephens; Paul Atkinson; Peter Glasner

doi:10.1177/0306312711423306

Documenting the doable and doing the documented: Bridging strategies at the UK Stem Cell Bank

Neil Stephens^*, Paul Atkinson, Peter Glasner

^*Corresponding author for this work

Social Policy and Society

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We explore the local negotiation of regulatory practice at the UK Stem Cell Bank, the first Bank of its type in the world. Basing our empirical work on a detailed analysis of one aspect of the Bank's regulatory commitment - the completion of the Cell Line Information form - we make visible the necessary judgements and labour involved in interpreting and operationalizing externally imposed regulation. The discussion opens by detailing the problems encountered when the Bank completes the form: reconciling a bureaucratic system of accountability with craft-like laboratory skills involving multiple kinds of tacit knowledge. We follow this by explicating the emergent 'bridging strategies' pursued by the Bank to address these issues, highlighting their reliance upon the formation of trust and social networks. The closing discussion emphasizes the contingent assembly of regulatory practices that emerge in the local setting.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	791-813
Number of pages	23
Journal	Social Studies of Science
Volume	41
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312711423306
Publication status	Published - Dec 2011

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The paper reports the work of two wider projects, both funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – ‘Curating and Husbandry in the UK Stem Cell Bank’ (Project No. Res-00022-1136; 1/3/05–28/2/06) and ‘The UK Stem Cell Bank – An Institutional Ecology’ (Project No. Res-349-25-0001; 1/3/06–28/2/09). The support of the ESRC is gratefully acknowledged. This work is part of the Research Programme of the ESRC Genomics Network at Cesagen (ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics). We also thank the editor and six anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

Keywords

cell culturing
regulation
stem cells
STS
trust
UK Stem Cell Bank

ASJC Scopus subject areas

History
General Social Sciences
History and Philosophy of Science

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10.1177/0306312711423306

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abstract = "We explore the local negotiation of regulatory practice at the UK Stem Cell Bank, the first Bank of its type in the world. Basing our empirical work on a detailed analysis of one aspect of the Bank's regulatory commitment - the completion of the Cell Line Information form - we make visible the necessary judgements and labour involved in interpreting and operationalizing externally imposed regulation. The discussion opens by detailing the problems encountered when the Bank completes the form: reconciling a bureaucratic system of accountability with craft-like laboratory skills involving multiple kinds of tacit knowledge. We follow this by explicating the emergent 'bridging strategies' pursued by the Bank to address these issues, highlighting their reliance upon the formation of trust and social networks. The closing discussion emphasizes the contingent assembly of regulatory practices that emerge in the local setting.",

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Documenting the doable and doing the documented: Bridging strategies at the UK Stem Cell Bank

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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