Biocapital by Kaushik Rajan and the Network culture of Terranova Essay

Biocapital by Kaushik Rajan and the Network culture of Terranova - Essay Example Deciding that he did not want to pursue a career in laboratory-based experimental research, he shifted into the humanities and social sciences and obtained his Ph.D. in the History and Social Studies of Science and Technology from the STS Department at MIT in 2002. His background in biology deeply informed his choice of dissertation research topic. He claimed to have initially started following the Human Genome Project in mid-199 and that this was a particularly interesting time to be following the project, which had a year previously resolved into a race to sequence the human genome between the public-funded five-nation Human Genome Consortium and the private sector genome company, Celera Genomics (Rajan, 2005) (Paraphrasing made). He appeared to have found the taking out patents on gene sequences, where he said that the genome sequencing race was not just a race for credit, but was a race for ownership as well, and the legal, institutional and market contexts within which this rese arch was being performed was evidently crucial to understanding the larger technoscientific event that was unfolding (Rajan, 2005) (Paraphrasing made). Q1. What does Rajan learn in his investigations in Hyderabad and Bombay, in Silicon Valley, and in the company GenEd about the relationship between science and capitalism, and between nationalism and globalization? Briefly, describe his investigations in each of these locations and summarize what he learns about these relationships in each instance. Rajan (2005) claimed that his interest in sequence the human genome and the subsequent events in 1999 led his interest in corporate genomics, and he started especially following the business practices and strategies of genome companies in the United States. He claimed that it became clear to him very quickly that these practices and strategies could not themselves be adequately conceptualized without situating them in the larger context of the drug development marketplaces.