Science and Technology in Society

Science and Technology in Society
Author: Daniel Lee Kleiman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2009-02-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1405148195

This thoughtful and engaging text challenges the widely held notion of science as somehow outside of society, and the idea that technology proceeds automatically down a singular and inevitable path. Through specific case studies involving contemporary debates, this book shows that science and technology are fundamentally part of society and are shaped by it. Draws on concepts from political sociology, organizational analysis, and contemporary social theory. Avoids dense theoretical debate. Includes case studies and concluding chapter summaries for students and scholars.

Genetically Modified Food

Genetically Modified Food
Author: Jeri Freedman
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Total Pages: 67
Release: 2009-01-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1435856740

Throughout the world today the debate still rages over whether genetically modified food is a blessing or a curse. On one hand, genetically modified food allows farmers to grow crops in places where standard crops won't grow. They can also reduce people's reliance on dangerous pesticides. On the other hand, there is much that is still unknown about such foods, and their effects on human and animal health, the environment, local economies, and biodiversity. In this book, readers learn about all these issues and concerns so that they can gain an understanding of the effects that raising and consuming genetically modified organisms have on the environment and on their bodies.

Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Author: John M. Walker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 458
Release: 1988
Genre: Biotechnology
ISBN: 9780851864532

A study of recent developments in molecular biology and biotechnology, including enzyme technology, genetics and various applications, for example in fermentation technology, protein technology, genetic engineering and product recovery.

Life as Surplus

Life as Surplus
Author: Melinda E. Cooper
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0295990317

Focusing on the period between the 1970s and the present, Life as Surplus is a pointed and important study of the relationship between politics, economics, science, and cultural values in the United States today. Melinda Cooper demonstrates that the history of biotechnology cannot be understood without taking into account the simultaneous rise of neoliberalism as a political force and an economic policy. From the development of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s to the second Bush administration's policies on stem cell research, Cooper connects the utopian polemic of free-market capitalism with growing internal contradictions of the commercialized life sciences. The biotech revolution relocated economic production at the genetic, microbial, and cellular level. Taking as her point of departure the assumption that life has been drawn into the circuits of value creation, Cooper underscores the relations between scientific, economic, political, and social practices. In penetrating analyses of Reagan-era science policy, the militarization of the life sciences, HIV politics, pharmaceutical imperialism, tissue engineering, stem cell science, and the pro-life movement, the author examines the speculative impulses that have animated the growth of the bioeconomy. At the very core of the new post-industrial economy is the transformation of biological life into surplus value. Life as Surplus offers a clear assessment of both the transformative, therapeutic dimensions of the contemporary life sciences and the violence, obligation, and debt servitude crystallizing around the emerging bioeconomy.

Biotechnology

Biotechnology
Author: Sean D. Sutton
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2009-07-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1438426607

Considers the ethics and challenges of biotechnology.

Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals

Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals
Author:
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 744
Release: 2013-12-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 111817979X

Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals: Transforming Proteins and Genes into Drugs, Second Edition addresses the pivotal issues relating to translational science, including preclinical and clinical drug development, regulatory science, pharmaco-economics and cost-effectiveness considerations. The new edition also provides an update on new proteins and genetic medicines, the translational and integrated sciences that continue to fuel the innovations in medicine, as well as the new areas of therapeutic development including cancer vaccines, stem cell therapeutics, and cell-based therapies.

Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development

Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development
Author: Toby Freedman
Publisher: CSHL Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2008
Genre: Biotechnology
ISBN: 0879697253

An essential guide for students in the life sciences, established researchers, and career counselors, this resource features discussions of job security, future trends, and potential career paths. Even those already working in the industry will find helpful information on how to take advantage of opportunities within their own companies and elsewhere.

Fables and Futures

Fables and Futures
Author: George Estreich
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262351803

How new biomedical technologies—from prenatal testing to gene-editing techniques—require us to imagine who counts as human and what it means to belong. From next-generation prenatal tests, to virtual children, to the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, new biotechnologies grant us unprecedented power to predict and shape future people. That power implies a question about belonging: which people, which variations, will we welcome? How will we square new biotech advances with the real but fragile gains for people with disabilities—especially when their voices are all but absent from the conversation? This book explores that conversation, the troubled territory where biotechnology and disability meet. In it, George Estreich—an award-winning poet and memoirist, and the father of a young woman with Down syndrome—delves into popular representations of cutting-edge biotech: websites advertising next-generation prenatal tests, feature articles on “three-parent IVF,” a scientist's memoir of constructing a semisynthetic cell, and more. As Estreich shows, each new application of biotechnology is accompanied by a persuasive story, one that minimizes downsides and promises enormous benefits. In this story, people with disabilities are both invisible and essential: a key promise of new technologies is that disability will be repaired or prevented. In chapters that blend personal narrative and scholarship, Estreich restores disability to our narratives of technology. He also considers broader themes: the place of people with disabilities in a world built for the able; the echoes of eugenic history in the genomic present; and the equation of intellect and human value. Examining the stories we tell ourselves, the fables already creating our futures, Estreich argues that, given biotech that can select and shape who we are, we need to imagine, as broadly as possible, what it means to belong.

Private Science

Private Science
Author: Arnold Thackray
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1998-01-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780812234282

Private Science is a contribution to that debate, focusing particularly on the relationships among corporations, universities, and national governments involved in biotechnological research.

Biotechnology and the Human Good

Biotechnology and the Human Good
Author: C. Ben Mitchell
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2007-04-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781589012769

Some of humankind's greatest tools have been forged in the research laboratory. Who could argue that medical advances like antibiotics, blood transfusions, and pacemakers have not improved the quality of people's lives? But with each new technological breakthrough there comes an array of consequences, at once predicted and unpredictable, beneficial and hazardous. Outcry over recent developments in the reproductive and genetic sciences has revealed deep fissures in society's perception of biotechnical progress. Many are concerned that reckless technological development, driven by consumerist impulses and greedy entrepreneurialism, has the potential to radically shift the human condition—and not for the greater good. Biotechnology and the Human Good builds a case for a stewardship deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theism to responsibly interpret and assess new technologies in a way that answers this concern. The authors jointly recognize humans not as autonomous beings but as ones accountable to each other, to the world they live in, and to God. They argue that to question and critique how fields like cybernetics, nanotechnology, and genetics might affect our future is not anti-science, anti-industry, or anti-progress, but rather a way to promote human flourishing, common sense, and good stewardship. A synthetic work drawing on the thought of a physician, ethicists, and a theologian, Biotechnology and the Human Good reminds us that although technology is a powerful and often awe-inspiring tool, it is what lies in the heart and soul of who wields this tool that truly makes the difference in our world.