Life inter vivos: modeling regeneration in the relation between bodies and biomaterials

Abstract

Biomaterials—or substances designed to interact with living tissues without stimulating an immune response—gather tissue culture technologies and regeneration research together. In doing so, these man-made materials tether the technological capacity to manipulate and modify living matter outside of bodies to the longstanding ambition in biology to comprehend, and possibly conduct, the physiological capacity of some organisms to repair or to restore themselves following injury or disease. Drawing upon participant-observation with life and material scientists in Dresden, Germany, this article presents a case of an ongoing collaboration between a neuro-regeneration laboratory researching Alzheimer’s disease and a biomaterials institute fabricating novel materials for tissue engineering. Their efforts illustrate how the current incorporation of biomaterials into experimentation on the biology of regeneration is reconfiguring previously established relations among life forms: relations within, between, and beyond the bodily bounds of organisms. In attending to the new relationships being forged between the biological and chemical sciences, their technologies for manipulating living matter, and their evolving conceptions of life, I argue for an anthropological approach to life and science inter vivos—one conceived in the relations between laboratories, disciplines, and experimental forms of both embodied and disembodied life.