Human Genetic Biobanking and Life Assemblages in Asia: Transnational Moral Economies of Health, Progress and Exploitation

Abstract

The nature of the relation between medical research and society is changing in fundamental ways. The focus of medical research has moved away from the study of individual bodies as physical entities to medical studies based on networks of data, information and archival systems, such as biobanks. A shift is taking place, then, from the hospital as the site of biomedical research to the laboratory. At the same time, the management of public and individual healthcare has come to depend on technologically advanced systems for maintaining healthcare data, and blood and tissues in biobanks, requiring new methods of data collection, maintenance and management. A seemingly contradictory process is occurring in the management of healthcare data and tissues. On the one hand, body tissues and data are processed, stored and standardised so as to become applicable to broad categories of potential patient populations. On the other hand, data and tissues are re-assembled to fit the specific individual in tailor-made medicine (Waldby and Mitchell, 2006). Biobanks, then, are central to the organisation, maintenance and manipulation of data and tissues from laboratory and hospitals. This chapter focuses, in particular, on the collection of medical data and tissues in biobanks, and its consequences for different life assemblages.