Governing Molecules

Governing Molecules – Taming Risks.
Perspectives on risk research and biotechnology regulation in Europe and
the United States

Paris, 16-17 march 2007
The conference will take place in the Jardin des Plantes. 57, rue Cuvier
Paris (Metro Jussieu, line 7 or 10)
Amphithéâtre Rouelle (bâtiment de la baleine, near the zoo).

FRIDAY, MARCH 16TH.
13h    Registration
13h15    Welcome (Jacqueline Carroy, Director of the Centre Koyré)
13h30    Comparing ways of governing biotechnology
Chair : Christine Noiville (Cnrs and Univ. Paris 1)
Herbert Gottweis (Vienna Univ.)
    Comparative biotechnology governance: trends and perspectives
Pierre-Benoît Joly and Christophe Bonneuil (Inra-TSV and Centre Koyré)
    Ways of governing biotechnology: why and how compare?
General discussion introduced by Jean-Paul Gaudillière (Cermes, Inserm)

15h45     Coffee break
16h15    The dynamics of AgBiotech biosafety research and risk
assessment across the Atlantic
Chair : Antoine Messean (Vice-Chair of the Commission du Genie
Biomoléculaire, France)
Javier Lezaun (Amherst College, USA)
    Bureaucratic nominalism: incommensurable regulatory regimes across
the Atlantic
Joy A. Hagen and Anna M. Zivian (Univ. California Santa Cruz)
    Mobilizing and framing GM crops biosafety research in the USA
Karen Kastenhofer and Peter Wehling (Augsburg Univ)
    Epistemic cultures, non-knowledge and GMO risk assessment in Germany
General discussion introduced by Christophe Bonneuil (Centre Koyré, France)

SATURDAY MARCH 17TH
9h30    Shifting ontologies of the gene and the constitution of unruly
entities as objects of biosafety research, regulation and intellectual
property
Chair : Michel Morange (ENS, France)
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (MPIWG, Berlin)
    From the ‘central dogma’ to the fluid genome
Christophe Bonneuil (Centre Koyré d’Histoire des Sciences et des
Techniques, Cnrs, France)
    When genes go wild. The making of (trans)gene flow as a scientific
object
Jane Calvert and Pierre-Benoît Joly (Egenis, Exeter Univ. and Inra-TSV)
    Shifting ontologies of the gene and patenting DNA
Eric Deibel (Free Univ. Amsterdam)
    Open genetic code and its gene regimes: re-defining the new biology
as a common property
General discussion introduced by Evelyn Fox-Keller* (Visiting prof.,
chaire Blaise Pascal & Rehseis)

12h30    Lunch
14h-16h30    Emerging global norms and forms of governance
Chair : Christophe Charlier (GREDEG, Cnrs, Nice, France)
Filippa Lentzos (London School of Economics)
    BioRisk Management: The Emerging Focus on BioSecurity
Les Levidow (Open Univ.)
    The WTO agbiotech dispute: contentious links between science, policy
and law
Mariachiara Tallachini (Univ. Cattolica, Piacenza)
    Softening legality, hardening normativity. Non-law and the
regulations of molecules
General discussion introduced by Didier Torny (Inra-TSV)

Free entrance – No fees – Participation libre

Conference theme
Genetic engineering and the new biology have brought into our landscapes
and daily lives a multitude of new living entities. These new entities
transgress many borders  - between nature and culture, between species,
between countries (through uncontrolled transgene flows), etc -  and
circulate at increasing speed in a globalized world.
Since Asilomar, it has been presumed that genetic engineering require
new or specific modes of risk assessment and regulation. But the
construction of such unruly entities as Genetically Modified Organisms
into objects of risk research and regulation has been everything but
straightforward, as public controversy over the commercialisation of
transgenic entities coincided with a paradigm shift in biology, from the
“central dogma” of classical molecular biology to the ‘fluid genome’ of
the post-fordist age.  New views of the place and role of DNA generate
new and fruitful metaphors of control – or lack thereof – and challenge
traditional regulatory perspectives. Furthermore, biosafety research and
regulatory cultures on transgenic organisms have evolved along distinct
trajectories across different countries.

Bringing together scholars from policy studies and from science and
technology studies, the conference will analyse the rise (and demise?)
of GMOs as an object of risk research and as a target of regulation,
explore comparative approaches of biotechnology risk regimes and
cultures, and map emerging norms and forms of global governance.
Conference organized by
•    Christophe Bonneuil (Centre Koyré d’Histoire des sciences et des
techniques, Cnrs, Paris, France)
•    Pierre-Benoît Joly (Inra-TSV, Ivry, France)
•    Javier Lezaun (Amherst College, USA)
•    Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Max-Planck Institut für
Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany)

The conference is organised in the framework of the project « Une
histoire comparée de la construction des savoirs sur les risques des
plantes transgéniques (USA, Union Européenne, Allemagne, France ;
1983-2003) » funded by CNRS’ « Histoire des savoirs » program.

More information : bonneuil@damesme.cnrs.fr

--
Christophe BONNEUIL
Chargé de recherche au CNRS et chercheur associé INRA-TSV
bonneuil@damesme.cnrs.fr
http://www.koyre.cnrs.fr/article.php3?id_article=194

Centre Koyré d'Hist. des Sciences et des Techniques (UMR CNRS-Ehess-MNHN)
MNHN CP25. 57 rue Cuvier. 75231 Paris cedex 05