Modelling gene regulation: (De)compositional and template-based strategies.

Although the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary biological sciences has been addressed by philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, the different ways in which engineering concepts and methods have been applied in biology have been somewhat neglected. We examine - using the mechanistic philosophy of science as an analytic springboard - the transfer of network methods from engineering to biology through the cases of two biology laboratories operating at the California Institute of Technology. The two laboratories study gene regulatory networks, but in remarkably different ways.

Flattening and Unpacking Human Genetic Variation in Mexico, Postwar to Present.

Argument This paper analyzes the research strategies of three different cases in the study of human genetics in Mexico - the work of Rubén Lisker in the 1960s, INMEGEN's mapping of Mexican genomic diversity between 2004 and 2009, and the analysis of Native American variation by Andrés Moreno and his colleagues in contemporary research. We make a distinction between an approach that incorporates multiple disciplinary resources into sampling design and interpretation (unpacking), from one that privileges pragmatic considerations over more robust multidisciplinary analysis (flattening). These choices have consequences for social, demographic, and biomedical practices, and also for accounts of genetic variation in human populations.

Building the genomic nation: 'Homo Brasilis' and the 'Genoma Mexicano' in comparative cultural perspective.

This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects--the 'Genoma Mexicano' and the 'Homo Brasilis'--both of which sought to establish national and genetic profiles. Both have reproduced and strengthened the idea of their respective nations of focus, incorporating biological elements into debates on social identities.

País de gordos/país de muertos: Obesity, death and nation in biomedical and forensic genetics in Mexico.

This article provides a comparison between genomic medicine and forensic genetics in Mexico, in light of recent depictions of the nation as a 'país de gordos' (country of the fat) and a 'país de muertos' (country of the dead). We examine the continuities and ruptures in the public image of genetics in these two areas of attention, health and security, focusing especially on how the relevant publics of genetic science are assembled in each case. Publics of biomedical and forensic genetics are assembled through processes of recruitment and interpellation, in ways that modulate current theorizations of co-production.

[Scientific approaches to the Mexican mestizo].

The colonial category of mestizo was an ideological tool that shaped national identity in the post-revolutionary period in Mexico. The Indian-mestizo axis functioned to organize the ethnic and political interactions of the state. Doctors and anthropologists reinforced this dual taxonomy in studies of human populations, using biomedical markers to produce differentiated descriptions of the Indian and the mestizo.

The old man and the sea urchin genome: theory and data in the work of Eric Davidson, 1969-2006.

Eric Davidson's work from 1969-2006 illustrates a period in the study of gene regulation that marked a transition from the gene to the genome and from theory-driven to data-intensive science. To make sense of this transition, I address Davidson's work during a first, predominantly theoretical, episode and contrast it with a later chapter in his research devoted to sequencing the California purple sea urchin genome and, more recently, to the computerized analysis of sea urchin development. By comparing these two approaches I offer some thoughts on how work configuration and material organization in the study of metazoan gene regulation have changed over the past forty years.