The Open Insulin Project and the Promise of Antibiocapital
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ BIOLOGICS OF RESISTANCE: THE OPEN INSULIN PROJECT AND THE PROMISE OF ANTIBIOCAPITAL A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in SOCIOLOGY with an emphasis in ANTHROPOLOGY by Andrew I. Murray September 2020 The Dissertation of Andrew I. Murray is approved: Professor Jenny Reardon, chair Professor James Doucet-Battle Professor Nancy Chen Professor Julie Guthman Quentin Williams Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Table of Contents List of Figures iv Abstract vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Biologics of Resistance 1 Chapter 1 – Opening Insulin: Contradiction and the 24 Prospect of Antibiocapital Chapter 2 – “Trickiness All Around”: Open Insulin 80 and Biocapital’s Compelling Sociopolitical Order Chapter 3 – Open to Interpretation: Branding 140 Bioconstitutionalism in Amateur Bio Chapter 4 – Hacking Sociology 203 Conclusion: Open Bio Logics 254 Appendix: Open Insulin in Society information packet 266 – Open Insulin: Social Science Best Practices References 268 iii List of Figures Introduction: Biologics of Resistance 1. The banner that hangs prominently inside Counter 1 Culture Labs. 2. Some of the lab benches at CCL. The biosafety cabinet is 6 visible at back left. 3. Some of the lab benches at CCL, with a sign for the Real 6 Vegan Cheese Project and the lab’s humming freezers along the wall. 4. Some lab equipment, with one machine simply marked 6 “PCR.” 5. Some lab equipment, including an assortment of 6 glassware and a microwave (“NO FOOD”). 6. Some of the assorted crated of jars from the 7 Fermentation Station Project. 7. Some of CCL’s storage shelves, including a container 7 marked “EBOLA SUITS.” 8. Average Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC) for several 12 insulin analogs between October 2012 and October 2016. 9. The prices per unit of various types of basal insulin 13 analogs and native human insulin from 2012-2016. 10. A representation of the various costs and payments in 13 the insulin supply. 11. The primary Open Insulin Project logo. 14 12. Graphic demonstrating the Open Insulin Project's 15 estimation of the number of diabetics who could be served by a single setup of their proposed small-scale production system. Chapter 1 – Opening Insulin: Contradiction and the Prospect of Antibiocapital 13. One of the Open Insulin Project's logos, described by 24 one team member as "our militant logo" and by another as “retro communist.” 14. A Theranos-acquired cart bearing their logo and a load 62 of nitrile lab gloves. 15. The Theranos sticker on the back of Yann's laptop. 63 16. Some of Counter Culture Labs' UCSF-branded 66 glassware. iv 17. One representation of microbes standing in for 70 factories, from the lab of Stanford University professor Christina Smolke. 18. Another representation of a microbial "factory” 70 (Futurism 2016). 19. The author holding an Erlenmeyer flask containing 71 Pichia cultures modified to produce proinsulin glargine. 20. Yann, the Project's lead scientist, demonstrating how to 71 feed cultures of Pichia using methanol. 21. A comparison of the insulin precursor proinsulin, which 72 contains the A chain, B chain, and C peptide, with mature insulin, in which the C peptide has been cleaved and removed. 22. A logo design for one of the Project's proposed names: 76 Open Source Insulin. Chapter 2 – “Trickiness All Around” – Open Insulin and Biocapital’s Compelling Sociopolitical Order 23. Some of the more dejected graffiti in the Counter 80 Culture Labs restroom. 24. An example of cellular transformation from the plasmid 118 banking nonprofit organization Addgene. This protocol genetically modifies bacteria. 25. A photo of one of Yann's "Science Workshops," featuring 131 mostly non-biologists (including the author, grinning far left) learning how to conduct gel electrophoresis. Image credit: Open Insulin Project. Chapter 3 – Open to Interpretation – Branding Bioconstitutionalism in Amateur Bio 26. The projector screen dedicated to the corporate 142 sponsors of the second-annual Global Community Bio Summit. 27. My folded, crumpled, and uncompleted raffle ticket 143 from the second-annual Global Community Bio Summit. 28. T-shirt design for Biohack the Planet 2018. 165 29. The group photo of participants at Global Community 173 Bio Summit 3.0 (author pictured back left). 30. Global Community Bio Summit Statement of Shared 179 Purpose (Version 3.0). 31. Statement of Purpose Version 3.0 on display at Bio 181 Summit 3.0. v 32. The "Law Enforcement" sheet of the GCBS 2.0 ethics 186 activity at the end of the Summit. 33. The "Law Enforcement" and "Genetic Modification" 187 spectra at the end of GCBS 2.0. The post-its on the wall off to the posters’ sides have no clear space on either spectrum. 34. The large Millipore Sigma banner at GCBS 3.0. 189 35. The remaining unclaimed nametags and lanyards at 189 registration on the third and final day of GCBS 3.0. vi Abstract BIOLOGICS OF RESISTANCE: THE OPEN INSULIN PROJECT AND THE PROMISE OF ANTIBIOCAPITAL Andrew I. Murray This dissertation attempts to understand the emergence and development of the Open Insulin Project, a community laboratory-based project to create an open-source protocol for affordable bioengineered insulin. It seeks to situate this effort within broader trends in the capitalization of the biosciences and biomedicine and to explore its potential and struggles as a resistance effort working against these prevailing trends. It draws on roughly three years of ethnographic study, including participant- observation within the Project and interviews with key members and associates. It argues that the Open Insulin Project is the product of a contradiction within biocapital and that it represents a new phenomenon: antibiocapital. It further explores the ways in which appropriating bioengineering constrains a would-be antibiocapitalist Project and compels such an effort to conform to the sociopolitical order of biocapital. Situating the Project within a broader trend of amateur bio, it argues that the emergence of amateur bio social movements creates the potential for reimagining rights and governance in the contemporary biosciences, though this potential may be limited by the presence and influence of powerful interests. Finally, it argues that this Project and efforts like it vii provide unique opportunities for collaboration between the social, natural, and engineering sciences that could overcome some of the limitations of past efforts, including those under the banner of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications/Aspects (ELSI/A) research and “post-ELSI” efforts in synthetic biology. Such collaborations challenge the approaches of both social scientists and projects like Open Insulin. viii Acknowledgements I must first and foremost thank the members of the Open Insulin Project from whom I have learned so much, and I hope that we continue to learn together. Second, I would like to thank my dissertation committee for their support and feedback. I would especially like to thank my dissertation chair and adviser Jenny Reardon, who helped provide focus, rein in some of my bad habits, and make me a better writer and researcher. I would also like to thank the many fellow graduate students who provided camaraderie, commiseration, and community that vastly improved my time in graduate school. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my supportive family members who have been not merely tolerant, but proud of my academic pursuits. Special gratitude goes to my partner Colleen, who moved across the country and back with me and our animal companions and who was more gracious and understanding in the face of research trips, late nights writing, and precarious stacks of books than I could have dared to hope. ix Introduction: Biologics of Resistance Figure 1. The banner that hangs prominently inside Counter Culture Labs. Most of the key members of Open Insulin were huddled around one of the large folding tables at Counter Culture Labs.1 A sheet of plywood leaned vertically against a set of shelves on the side of the table opposite the lab benches. We had gathered for a strategy session to help chart the course of the Project. We all received post-it notes and markers. The first part of this exercise was called “divergence” and focused on brainstorming. On these post-it notes, we wrote goals, objectives, and action topics for the Project. These ideas about the future of the Project proliferated. The organizers tried to organize these into categories: End Users, Lower Cost, New Paradigm, Production/Distribution, Humanitarian Advocacy, Prototype, Org Network. 1 Murray, fieldnotes, January 13, 2019. 1 At least broadly speaking, the organization’s large-scale goals were relatively clear: Open Insulin was ultimately focused on making insulin more accessible. But members didn’t always agree about the best way to make this happen, or what other steps they might need to take to get there. Ultimately, the group decided that the best way to proceed was by developing a timeline.2 To build the timeline, most agreed that the group’s “scientific milestones” would make the best benchmarks. Once this decision was made, things started humming along as members started indicating the benchmarks they needed to hit, the most imminent of which members seemed to agree was producing pure insulin for the first time, which could happen as soon as the following month. After that, it was a matter or purifying and scaling up to small batch production. After that… things got a bit more complicated. Would the group seek FDA approval? “We’ll see,” Anthony,3 the Project’s co-founder, said. Open Insulin’s approach was a bit of a gray area when it came to FDA oversight. Should the group share the protocol? Ideally, yes, but this depended on legal advice and strategy.