Sur l'agenda | Manifestations scientifiques

Conference > S. Eben Kirksey : Impure Hopes: CRISPR and an HIV Cure - 15 septembre 2021

Campus Condorcet - Aubervilliers, Centre des colloques, salle 100, 17h00-19h00

Conference > S. Eben Kirksey : Impure Hopes: CRISPR and an HIV Cure - 15 septembre 2021

 Impure Hopes: CRISPR and an HIV Cure

Conference - 15 septembre 2021, 17h00-19h00
Campus Condorcet - Aubervilliers, Centre des colloques, salle 100

S. Eben Kirksey, Ph.D. is an associate professor (Research) at Alfred Deakin Institute.

https://eben-kirksey.space/writing/

The experiment in China that produced the world’s first babies with "edited" DNA comes out of an international research program aimed at producing an HIV cure. An atmosphere of secrecy surrounded this experiment at the edge of the law. Volunteers who signed up for the experiment were HIV-positive tonzghi —gay and bisexual “comrades” already living with closely guarded secrets and conflicted desires. Impure hopes—a mix of heterosexual dreams about reproductive futurity and biotech speculation about an HIV cure—drove the research forward. Volunteers were caught between dreamworlds, harboring hopes that were not entirely their own. The story of these patients is tangled up with CRISPR, a fast and cheap tool for manipulating DNA that contains tantalizing promises of medical breakthroughs for innovators and investors. Speculation in the innovation economy produced an earlier gene-editing experiment in the United States that brought HIV-positive veterans of ACT UP together with biotechnology entrepreneurs. After achieving promising results, a fickle market pushed gene-editing enterprises away from HIV cure research. Building on earlier work about impure science, this article makes an argument against purity to consider the contours of hope in ethically compromised times. Hope demands ongoing articulation work. As powerful political and economic forces threaten to steal queer hopes or simply capitalize on them, it is important to make our own ethical, political, and discursive cuts—to selectively renew some articulations while breaking other connections.

Contact : noemie.merleau-ponty@cnrs.fr

 

 


 

A consulter :

EHESS
CNRS
Sorbonne Paris Nord
INSERM

IRIS - CAMPUS CONDORCET
Bâtiment Recherche Sud
5 cours des Humanités
93322 Aubervilliers cedex
Contacts
Accès

IRIS - U. SORBONNE PARIS NORD
UFR SMBH 74 rue Marcel Cachin, 93017 Bobigny cedex
Contacts
Accès

 


 

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