Joan H. Fujimura - US grants

This NSF Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant funds dissertation research focusing on the emergence of nanotechnology in China. The project is using the case study of China to reconsider social theories of science, modernization and globalization. Under this grant, the doctoral student will gather ethnographic data to address several postcolonial debates in social studies of science and literatures on China's socio-economic transformation. The researcher will specifically investigate two metropolitan Chinese cities: Beijing and Shanghai, and attempt to show how local politics and situated mentalities can significantly shape research practice among Chinese scientists in nanotechnology. The project will examine how their intellectual networks, especially with ethnic Chinese scientists overseas, help them overcome language barriers, acquire useful information and obtain other help to conduct nanotechnology research for an increasingly international audience. The project also exams how academic exchanges between overseas and local Chinese scientists mutually shape the research practice of each other. To supplement the data collection, the student will also interview a smaller number of scientists in U.S. and Hong Kong, and will collect ethnographic data from participant-observations in professional conferences and meetings in U.S., China and Hong Kong. Finally, the student will visit several special collection sections in Chinese libraries during the research trip for documentary analysis. China is currently undergoing rapid socio-economic transformations. Scientific research has benefited from rapid advances in telecommunication and transportation in that country, but not much is known about Chinese science actors. In addition, the country continues to possess enormous within-country variations, but we do not know how such variations manifest in high-technology development in China. As the global emergence of nanotechnology will involve China, this project's findings will help identify the various kinds of opportunities, constraints and debates in front of Chinese scientists. The understanding will be useful materials for transnational comparisons. The project will also shed new light to postcolonial studies of science. To date, no studies have used postcolonial theories to examine high technology development in China. Research findings from this study will be used as teaching materials for college and graduate courses, particularly in social studies of science. In addition, results of this research will be disseminated to other scientists, social scientists, as well as the general public.

This project, funded by the Ethics and Values Studies in Science, Engineering and Technology component of the Science and Society Program, will document and analyze the practices through which human genetic variation researchers operationalize the concept of "a human population." The study will also map the various practical and ethical implications of current practices for designating and operationalizing "population." It will employ ethnographic field observations and interviews in leading laboratories where researchers study human genetic variation. The study will also draw on participant observation at scientific conferences and an analysis of primary scientific literature and government reports and guidelines. Human genetics research employs notions of "population" which are critical to these projects. However, notions of human populations are often not clearly defined, nor are they standardized across or within projects. Further, it is impossible to specify notions of human populations that do not overlap with one another. The proposed project will investigate how populations and population variations are conceived and constructed. More specifically, this research will examine the conceptualization and operationalization of the notion of population in
the design, data collection, and analysis processes of basic human genetic variation research studies. The project has two primary aims: to create new knowledge about how scientists choose and institute categorization schemes and about how different concepts of population influence the design, data collection, and analysis of human genetic variation research projects; and, to create new knowledge about the social, ethical, political-economic, and institutional dimensions of scientific research that incorporate concepts of population in their studies. This investigation will result in journal articles and a book, and will contribute to the literature on human genetic variation as well as on bioethics, social studies of genetics, science policy, and statistical and linkage methods. It will also add to the literature on specific fields of research including standardization in science, scientific classification and categories, the effects of values in science, the practices of knowledge production, the shape and effect of scientific work organization and especially interdisciplinary collaboration in science. The study's findings will be disseminated to researchers at academic and policy-oriented conferences as well as to public groups interested in social and ethical issues related to new genetic technologies. It will also provide a description of differences and similarities between the statistical procedures used by different researchers together with an analysis of how researchers incorporate the concept of population as a research variable.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project explores a new direction in our larger research on the use of human genetic variation studies in the search for biomedically related genetic markers. Broadly, the aim of the new add-on project and the original project is to understand how human genetic variation researchers operationalize the concept of "a human population." Together, these studies will provide empirical information that will help geneticists and bioethicists to understand whether there may be potential downstream social and biomedical consequences of different conceptualizations. Through these studies we are investigating how the concept of population is operationalized during sample collection and analysis both within and across scientific research projects. Our research methodology involves primarily ethnographic observation, interviews, and documentary analyses, which will be employed in the proposed study. The proposed project will study how data in different human genetic variation studies is collected and analyzed and how different aspects of scientific work (e.g. sample collection design and practices, statistical analysis of data, etc.) influences the definition and operationalization of genetic populations. We are especially interested in scientists'efforts to avoid the reification of social categories such as race in human genetic variation studies, especially as they relate to disease variant research. The proposed project will provide data from two laboratory field sites that complement the laboratory field sites we are currently studying. These two new sites are crucial for understanding how the selection of groups from whom DNA samples are collected for genome wide association studies impacts the way researchers operationalize the concept of human populations. It will provide information on DNA sample collection processes, for comparison with DNA analysis processes, and will add research on several ethnic groups that are absent from our current research sites. These include groups of individuals in the U.S. who self identify as Latinos/Hispanics, Native Hawaiians, and Japanese. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE - The proposed project will investigate the conceptualization and operationalization of the concepts of population in the data collection design and practices at the front end of human genetic variation research on disease related genetic variants. That research aims to provide better tools for health related genetic research. The aim of the proposed project is to provide information and analyses that will be useful towards improving the reliability of these public health-related genetic variation studies.

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5). The project funds a Small Grant for Training and Research in Neuroscience and Public Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Three graduate students are supported annually who are engaged in integrated training and research in neuroscience and public policy in the recently established Neuroscience and Public Policy graduate program (N&PP) at UW-Madison. The N&PP is a dual-degree graduate program that leads to a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience, granted by the Neuroscience Training Program (NTP) and a Master of Public Affairs degree (M.P.A.), with an emphasis on Science and Technology Policy, awarded by the La Follette School of Public Affairs. The Program is based on two strongly held beliefs: (1) that sound science and technology policy is essential for the well being of society; and (2) that a step toward ensuring such policy is to train future scientists who are informed about the making of public policy and are prepared to participate in doing so.

The N&PP brings together faculty from the NTP and the La Follette School to train students for a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience and a Masters degree in public affairs (public policy). The training is accomplished in a program that integrates classroom and laboratory research training in neuroscience with a classroom-based education in public policy. In addition to fulfilling all of the requirements that have been established by the NTP and the La Follette School for the Ph.D. degree in neuroscience and the M.P.A. degree, respectively, N&PP students also are required to take the Neuroscience and Public Policy Seminar, which meets monthly, during each of the years that they are enrolled in the N&PP. Thus even after students have completed the requirements for the M.P.A. degree, typically by the end of the third summer, and are working full-time in the last two years of the Program on their doctoral research they maintain an involvement with issues related to public policy. N&PP students also are required to write a critical paper on a topic that bridges neuroscience and public policy as part of the Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. degree, and complete a summer internship in an agency or organization that is directly involved in science policy.

The N&PP trains future neuroscientists who will have strong research and public policy skills. Currently, there is no other integrated graduate program in the country with goals comparable to those of the N&PP. It is anticipated that one of the major impacts of the N&PP nationwide will be to serve as a model for other institutions who decide to develop similar graduate programs that will integrate training in public policy with neuroscience, genetics or other appropriate biological or physical sciences.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project explores how researchers in the new and growing arena of gene- environment interaction (GxE) research operationalize the concept of a human population. The proposed project will add critical information about how traditional epidemiologists and genetic epidemiologists, using different kinds of data, work together to operationalize groups in their biomedical studies of disease. This phase of our research will investigate the challenges and complexities faced by researchers during a) the design of populations when environmental variables are integrated into genetics studies, and b) when research centers pool samples along similarities in genetics or environmental exposures. The project will examine the social and ethical dimensions of analyses and results generated by GxE research. This is particularly important as these GxE studies aim to integrate genetic data with environmental variables that may be connected to socio-cultural categories like race and ethnicity, including diet and lifestyle. The GxE research sites to be studied have longitudinal information on environmental exposures from about 70,000 individuals of mostly under-represented racial and ethnic backgrounds, and have recently added DNA and tissue materials. This combination of GxE variables, diverse populations, and the large size of the cohort makes their repository one of the most desirable in the US for samples for GxE studies. The research methodology for the proposed study involves primarily ethnographic observation of work processes in these laboratories, interviews with scientists, and documentary analyses. This project will provide a broader base of empirical information from which the scientific community, bioethicists and policy makers can understand the potential impact of using different frameworks for grouping people and defining populations in biomedicine. Its findings will be useful to scientists in efforts to recognize and deliberate about their usage of concepts of population in future studies. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed project will investigate the conceptualization and operationalization of concepts of population in studies of gene-environment interactions in human genetic epidemiology research. The project will analyze the practices and problems faced by researchers as they work to compare genomic data with information on environmental factors to understand gene-environment interactions. Some of the challenges faced involve analyzing pooled data collected using different categories. The aim of the proposed project is to provide information and analyses about different uses and notions of population in biomedicine, which will be useful for improving the reliability and relevance of public health-related gene-environment interaction studies for different individuals and groups.

SES- 1360241
Joan Fujimura
Kjell A Doksum
University of Wisconsin-Madison


In recent years, many US universities have been seeking to promote creativity and innovation within the academy by bringing researchers together to transcend disciplinary boundaries. "Innovation," "collaboration" and "interdisciplinarity" have become focal points for researchers interested in finding new ways to increase the pace of scientific discoveries and invention. They are hoping that these strategies will both move research from with researchers with narrow expertise toward the production of solutions for biomedical and environmental problems. They also hope that these approaches will ensure that the US maintains a competitive edge in higher education and in the global marketplace. But are these initiatives successful in achieving their goals? If so, how? This project aims to answer these questions through a longitudinal and comparative study of two new interdisciplinary and collaborative scientific research institutes on university campuses.

The interdisciplinary project team uses comparative, ethnographic, historical, documentary, and quantitative methods to study the science and the research organization before, during and after the transition of independent laboratories to the new interdisciplinary research institute. The research focuses on four questions: 1. Within the context of new institutional models for doing interdisciplinary science, how are collaborations structured, nurtured, changed, maintained, hindered or abandoned? What are the barriers posed by differing disciplines, and specialties? 2. Do these new organizational forms for collaborative scientific research help to generate new knowledge and applied products? 3. What are the conditions that limit wider institutional adoption of interdisciplinary approaches? 4. What metrics can be agreed upon for measuring the effectiveness of this new approach? This project examines how a new organizational form built for interdisciplinarity, collaboration and innovation affects knowledge production and university academic structures. It will yield knowledge and methods for understanding and measuring how organizational structures affect the kinds of knowledge produced. The study is also novel because it compares two research institutes. Finally, the study addresses whether new efforts to organize interdisciplinary collaboration lead to a hardening or softening of the boundaries of fields and disciplines in the university. This is an ongoing process that requires the longitudinal and ethnographic methods of this study.

Broader Impacts

The study will generate real-time analyses about how the processes and content of university scientific knowledge production are influenced by concerted institutional organization around ?innovation? and interdisciplinary collaboration in science. Research findings have the potential to inform decisions about future research organization policies. These findings will be useful to university administrators, policy makers, public and private research organizations and planners, and both academic and industry researchers in the biological and engineering sciences. Study findings will be reported in conference presentations, and via journal articles in the science of science, sociology of science, sociology of organizations, science policy and statistics, and the sociology of education. Findings will be distributed to the researchers studied, as well as researchers at academic and science policy conferences and meetings, and public groups interested in social and ethical issues related to biosciences research enterprises and their outputs.