This article is based on an illustrated talk I presented at the British Museum as part of the lecture series ‘Making things better’. The central exhibit in the newly opened Wellcome wing of the museum was ‘Cradle to grave’, a 40-foot table displaying in black net fabric the 14,000 pills taken by a British man and woman over their lifetimes. I trace the historical development of personhood in relation to psychotropic drugs over the last few decades in the US. ‘Pills’ or, more accurately, ‘tablets’ and ‘capsules’, are described as products of manufacturing, as means of enhancing personal capacities and as objects in exhibits. In particular, I analyze the underside of pills—their ‘side’ effects—in relation to fears and desires characteristic of contemporary US culture.

In recent years, growing sociological interest has been directed towards patients’ organizations as key sites where practices of identity formation and socio-political activism intersect. This article focuses on one salient aspect of patients’ organizations: the increasingly important political and economic role they are playing in biomedical research. These forms of political activism and investment in science are often directed by the hope of speeding the processes by which cures or therapies are developed. For those affected by a range of human pathologies, the hope invested in science is not only an aspiration, but can also be thought of as having a political and economic materiality that seeks to bring to fruition the many future possibilities inherent in the science of the present. This realm of activity can be characterized as a political economy of hope in which becoming knowledgeable about science, in addition to activism, fundraising and heightening awareness of a particular disease are significant locales for helping to realize the objects of individual and collective hopes. Central to this political economy is how patients’ associations sponsor the value of transforming blood, tissue or DNA into resources for the generation of biovalue, as well attempt to shape the field of biomedical research in accordance with their collectively shared ideals.

Genetics for the human race was the title of a special supplement of Nature Genetics published in November 2004. This was based on a meeting held at Howard University on 15 May 2003, entitled ‘Human genome variation and “race”—the state of the science’. A month earlier, on 14 April 2003, announcing the release of the ‘essentially completed’ human genome sequence, Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute had said, ‘All of this study of genotypes will have profound consequences on our understanding of race and ethnicity’ and told scientists they were obligated to translate what they learn about race, ethnicity and genetics into ‘information that will be usefully included as part of the often-contentious dialogue about race in our society’.At the heart of these concerns lay a crucial question—would the genomics of the twenty-first century resurrect,or finally lay to rest, the scientific racism that has played such a formative and bloody role in the history of our present?

The long-standing concerns about the measurement and communication of race and ethnicity in genetic research have spilled over into the editorial columns of a growing number of biomedical journals. Nature Genetics has played a prominent role in this debate with a series of editorials published between 2000–2004, culminating in the publication of an open-access Special Issue (Genetics for the human race) in November 2004. The Special Issue brought together contemporary research on the relationship between race, ethnicity and genetic variation, and a range of views on the social and ethical implications of this research. In this article we analyse interviews with each of three the editors in charge of Nature Genetics during this period to show that scientific concerns related to the measurement and communication of race and ethnicity in genetic research had been responsible for making this a ‘special issue’ for the journal. Two broad strategies for tackling these concerns were identified from an analysis of contributions to the Special Issue: continuing to use racial and ethnic categories until such time as these become obsolete; or replacing racial and ethnic categories with alternatives based on socio-cultural and geographical ancestry. We also identified additional suggestions for improving the communication of genetic findings disaggregated by race or ethnicity, which were: developing guidelines for measurement and interpretation; and greater ‘community engagement’. We argue that neither of the broad strategies and neither of the suggestions for improving communication can be wholly effective. We suggest that this is because these proposals do not adequately confront the notion that race and ethnicity are difficult concepts to operationalize or examine in scientific research precisely because they have meanings and uses which exist beyond the domain of scientific practice or control.

Human genome research has indeed re-ignited the sparks of long-standing discourse and debate on the definition, measurement and existence of human ‘races‘. On the one hand, this genome revolution is increasingly challenging the notion that the groups traditionally called races are truly and innately biologically distinct (Jorde and Wooding, 2004; Tishkoff and Kidd, 2004), yet, on the other, one could argue that it is facilitating the reification of race (Duster, 2005). While it is undeniable that the latter part of the twentieth century ushered in a scientific era brimming with new technology, new data and new terminology, many elements of the ‘race and biology’ controversy are not at all new and still it appears that a resolution is not yet within reach. One might ask: ‘Why?’ ‘How will current knowledge about human genetic variation inform the treatment of race and ethnicity in science, medicine, and society?’ ‘Is it even possible to come to consensus on some of the fundamental issues?’

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.

The purpose of this article is to comment upon an interesting gap in the criticism heaped upon Woo Suk Hwang following the revelation that his apparently groundbreaking stem cell research involved both the falsification of data and the unethical recruitment of egg donors. It is, of course, unsurprising that his fraudulent research and a possible breach of the Helsinki Declaration have come under considerable scrutiny. More interesting, in my view, is that there has been very little interest in the fact that human embryos may have been pointlessly destroyed. It is generally believed that research involving human embryos is legitimate only when it serves an important scientific purpose. Hwang’s research could serve no useful scientific purpose, and hence it would be difficult, if not impossible, to justify the destruction of embryos. I ask whether the comparative lack of interest in this aspect of the Korean stem cell research scandal points to a shift in our attitudes towards the instrumental use of the early human embryo.