The Social Life of DNA

We can mark the start of the genomic era with the launch of the Human Genome Project (HGP) by the United States Department of Energy in 1990, during the administration of George H.W. Bush, or with the 2003 announcement of the successful completion of a full genome sequence and digital tools to analyse it, during the early months of the presidency of George W. Bush. Postgenomic, therefore, may be both an institutional and a chronological indicator, suggesting the where and the when of the genome and its afterlives (Richardson 2013). Postgenomic may mark a range of sociotechnical developments as well: Sarah S. Richardson and Hallam Stevens offer that the term captures ‘new methods and approaches’ in life sciences research, including the ‘advent of whole-genome technologies as a shared platform for biological research across many fields,’ (3) ‘funding and investment’ strategies premised on the anticipated efficacy of genomic analysis, and even an affect of humility, as techniques such as genome-wide association studies yield more questions and mysteries, than answers (3–5). Evelyn Fox Keller further suggests that the postgenomic is characterized by a conceptual shift from the gene to the genome as the predominant unit of analysis, with a concomitant reckoning that the genome is ‘a dynamic and reactive system’ and not merely a static structure (Keller 2015: 10).