Event 2 - The Construction of the Environment in Epigenetics Research

Clemence Pinel background information

On May 9, 2018, I went to listen to Clemence Pinel who came from King's College in London in the Life Science building on campus to talk about the environment of epigenetics research. It was very interesting to see what actually goes on in the business aspect of a lab. She mentioned how researchers can be entrepreneurs and they try to focus the most on ethnographic studies. She mentioned how her study involved two different labs (Pinel, 5/9/18). Lab A consisted of a breast cancer research lab which focused on gylcobiology and epigenetics and around two genes or our genes.Lab B was about computational biology so it involved epigenetics, microbiome, and transcriptomics and it was centered around their twins data. She also mentioned how scientists and researchers focus on certain environmental factors in their study. One thing that she mentioned that I was able to understand really well was how scientists are "wild" capitalists because they are mobile and invest in only profitable research areas. In a way it's like if you think about a very successful business person, he/she will only invest in companies that they know have a bright future and a lot of upside. Pinel was explaining how she was trying to draw comparisons between these scientists that are wild capitalists and it gives them different forms of capital and then the researchers who would do the collaboration portion (Pinel, 5/9/18). The collaboration usually gives more versatility for a lab's research because it gives more opinions from different people about what they think about the lab. 

Clemence Pinel presenting

This event correlated with the ideas that have been presented in the units about BioArt and MedTech (Levy). Also having classes such as LS3 make understanding what was going on in this presentation much more comprehendible. Through all the funding from economic capital it enables the labs to do a lot more. Also if you look at it from a technological standpoint, it is a huge profit from all these new type of epigenetics because they are coming up with new research collaborations and research entrepreneurships. Through all the entrepreneurship opportunities I was able to connect the main reason why these labs gain so much out of these studies because they gain more insight and it gives them a better understanding of what the labs do. 

My friends and I taking a selfie at the event

Sometimes during the presentation, it felt weird that we weren't welcomed in the even because we weren't experts in the areas that Clemence Pinel was presenting on. Some of the people who understood the environment of epigenetic research were giving us weird looks and I didn't feel the most comfortable being in the room. They had limited seats and didn't expect a big turn out from the students of DESMA 9. I would recommend this event to anyone who is actually interested in learning more about the ins and out of a research lab or you if you want to make a profit from research and want to be an entrepreneur. That is one of the few ways I see this benefitting anyone 

The UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, socgen.ucla.edu/events/the-construction-of-the-environment-in-epigenetics-research-a-social-study/.

“Epigenomics and Epigenetics Research.” Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project (Past Initiative), epi.grants.cancer.gov/epigen.html.

Levy, Ellen. “Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications.”Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts. Eds. Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, and Victoria Vesna. University of Chicago Press: 2011.