Alison Kraft

From Bedside to Bench? Communities of Promise, Translational Research and the Making of Blood Stem Cells

Abstract Contemporary science and technology policy is concerned with improving the diffusion of knowledge from basic science into the clinic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the emerging field of Regenerative Medicine. In this paper we critically explore the changing relationships between the bench and the bedside through the development of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). In the history of HSCs over a 50-year period, the relationship between basic science and clinical research communities has been based on a two-way flow of knowledge; clinical innovation has played a key role in the translation process. Concepts from the sociology of expectations illuminate the ‘communities of promise’ which are formed around such emerging technologies. From this case study, we challenge assumptions underpinning many contemporary policy initiatives.

Blood Ties: Banking the Stem Cell Promise

Abstract This paper explores the banking of cord blood stem cells by new parents, a growing phenomenon that raises a number of questions for scholars interested in the role of expectations in innovation. In particular, we focus on the relationships between imagination and materiality, the way in which todays expectations of a future stem cell revolution have become embodied (materialised) in an ever-growing number of deposited cord blood samples. In addition, the case raises interesting questions about agency and authorship in the construction of the stem cell dream and the production of new ‘blood ties’—new future-oriented parental duties and responsibilities. Here, parents are encouraged to think themselves into a future in which their newborns are ‘at risk’, but also a future populated by an innovative range of regenerative medical treatments.

The Promissory Pasts of Blood Stem Cells

This article explores the changing expectations and contested identity of blood stem cells (haematopoietic stem cells or HSCs). While much social science critique has of late been focused on embryonic stem cells, relatively little attention has been given to the historical emergence of stem cell biology, especially the importance of blood innovation stretching back through the middle of the twentieth century and beyond. Present-day stem cell networks inherit much from the historical engagement of medical technology with blood, especially in the contexts of blood processing, bone marrow transplantation and, more recently, gene therapy. In making sense of the shaping of blood stem cells this article draws on perspectives in the ‘sociology of expectations’ in exploring the way current expectations of stem cells are historically constituted. In this way we examine the way biological entities—HSCs in this case—become the focus and bearers of future value in contemporary global stem cell economies.

Corporate venturing: the origins of Unilever's pregnancy test

Large established corporations face many challenges to develop and sustain dynamic capabilities in innovation and the creation of new businesses because of constraints arising from technological and resource lock-ins, and routine and cultural rigidities. From the 1960s large corporations became increasingly aware of such problems. Heavy research spending was not translated into successful new business creation. The formation of autonomous entrepreneurial units within large corporations was one response. The origins of Unilevers home pregnancy test, Clearblue, which was launched in 1985, is used as a case study to examine the viability of one version of this strategy. Unilever was able to translate its extensive knowledge base in immunology into a successful branded product in medical diagnostics by creating a separate corporate entity, Unipath, with a distinctive culture, shielded from the mainstream Unilever organisation, yet able to draw on corporate capabilities in marketing, and financial resources. Yet the very distinctiveness of Unipath orphaned it within Unilever, and the business was divested in 2001.

'Equal though different': laboratories, museums and the institutional development of biology in late-Victorian Northern England

Abstract Traditional accounts of the emergence of professional biology have privileged not only metropolis over province, but research over teaching and laboratory over museum. This paper seeks to supplement earlier studies of the ‘transformation of biology’ in the late nineteenth century by exploring in detail the developments within three biology departments in Northern English civic colleges. By outlining changes in the teaching practices, research topics and the accommodation of the departments, the authors demonstrate both locally contingent factors in their development and continuities with existing traditions in natural history. The appointment of Arthur Milnes Marshall in preference to Louis Miall to the new zoology chair in Manchester in 1879 casts light on contemporary views of the laboratory and museum as ‘equal though different’. The transformation in biology, in Northern England at least, was shaped more by such local institutional changes than by a phoenix-like rise of the laboratory from the ashes of the museum—more by the rhetorical construction of a professional academic community than any dramatic shift in sites. In this period the biology laboratory supplemented, rather than eclipsed, the museum, and the dichotomy between the ‘naturalist’ and the ‘experimentalist’ was far from clear-cut.

Pragmatism, Patronage and Politics in English Biology: The Rise and Fall of Economic Biology 1904–1920

The rise of applied biology was one of the most striking features of the biological sciences in the early 20th century. Strongly oriented toward agriculture, this was closely associated with the growth of a number of disciplines, notably, entomology and mycology. This period also saw a marked expansion of the English University system, and biology departments in the newly inaugurated civic universities took an early and leading role in the development of applied biology through their support of Economic Biology. This sought explicitly to promote the application of biological knowledge to economically important problems and especially to agriculture. The impact of Economic Biology was felt most strongly within Zoology, where it became synonymous with entomology. The transience of Economic Biology belies its significance, for example, in providing a means for the expansion of biology at the civic universities. More broadly, it opened up new research and employment opportunities within the life sciences. In late Edwardian Britain, newly available state funds for agriculturally relevant biological disciplines transformed the life sciences. This paper examines the impact of these funds – mobilized either under the 1909 Development Act, or under the auspices of colonial interests – on Economic Biology and the institutionalization of applied biology. The rise and fall of Economic Biology casts new light on the way in which institutional and political alignments profoundly shaped the development of British biology.

Understanding the ‘Productivity Crisis’ in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Over-regulation or Lack of Innovation?

Concern over productivity and innovation in the modern pharmaceutical industry has a long history (Abraham, 1995: 36–86). However, it first gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s when the industry itself and various academic/professional commentators on both sides of the Atlantic claimed that government regulatory activity in Western Europe and North America was stifling innovation. One national pharmaceutical industry association after another pointed to how its national regulatory agency was too slow and inefficient in approving new drugs on to the market compared with other countries. For example, during the 1980s, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) complained that the British drug authorities’ ‘over-regulation’ was detrimental to the British economy because drug development work was going abroad. In Germany and Sweden, the pharmaceutical industry also pressed their drug regulatory agencies to accelerate drug approvals and reduce regulatory checks in order to promote innovation (Abraham and Lewis, 2000: 43–79).

Breaking with Tradition: The Reform of British Veterinary Education 1900-20.

What obstructions stand in the way of our universities in their endeavours to develop higher courses in veterinary medicine cannot be realised by Parliament and the general public. These obstructions are due to the continued existence of regulations which should have been swept away long ago, and, I must add, to the most regrettable inertia of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. It is intolerable that courses of instruction rendering a candidate eligible to practise as a veterinary surgeon can only be given by the universities of this country provided they receive the approval of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Is the Biotechnology Revolution a Myth

Science and technology policy and industrial strategy relating to drug discovery, development, and clinical practice has in recent years been shaped by expectations of a revolution in biotechnology. This has had wide-ranging impacts on investment decisions. In this chapter we examine the evidence for a biotechnology revolution in terms of scale, scope, and speed to assess the validity of this model of technical change. Drawing on a wide range of metrics and contemporary literature we provide an assessment of the impact that biotechnology has had to date on the therapeutic innovation process. We conclude that despite a rapid transformation in early stage drug discovery, advances here have not widely translated into new therapies, and there has not been a widespread transformation in drug development or medical practice. However, there are signs of a steady and incremental flow of benefits from biotechnology, including notable advances in treatments for a range of diseases based on new therapeutic modalities provided by biotechnology. The promise of rapid and far-reaching change remains unproven. More than 30 years after the emergence of recombinant DNA and monoclonal techniques, this pattern of technical change appears consistent with the historical precedents for enabling technologies (such as electricity), rather than a technological revolution.