What are living bodies made of? Protein modelers tell us that our cells are composed of millions of proteins, intricately folded molecular structures on the scale of nanoparticles. Proteins twist and wriggle as they carry out the activities that keep cells alive. Figuring out how to make these unruly substances visible, tangible, and workable is a challenging task, one that is not readily automated, even by the fastest computers. Natasha Myers explores what protein modelers must do to render three-dimensional, atomic-resolution models of these lively materials. Rendering Life Molecular shows that protein models are not just informed by scientific data: model building entangles a modeler's entire sensorium, and modelers must learn to feel their way through the data in order to interpret molecular forms. Myers takes us into protein modeling laboratories and classrooms, tracking how gesture, affect, imagination, and intuition shape practices of objectivity. Asking, 'What is life becoming in modelers' hands?' she tunes into the ways they animate molecules through their moving bodies and other media. In the process she amplifies an otherwise muted liveliness inflecting mechanistic accounts of the stuff of life.

About the Author
Natasha Myers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at York University.

Reviews
"Essential reading for those interested biopolitics, bioethics, science studies, and genetics, genomics, and the new omics." -- Rebecca Scott Yoshizawa * New Genetics and Society *
"One of the most exciting books published this year, Natasha Myer's Rendering Life Molecular: Models, Modelers, and Excitable Matter, is an ethnography of protein modellers, the first such study of this new and central area of biological research." -- Sherryl Vint * Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory *
"Amplifying instances of haptic and creative thinking opens avenues for a different kind of science than one may find presented in popular media.... The result is not only intellectually invigorating but also abounds in amusing curiosities. One might say 'eye opening,' but in the spirit of the book, it would perhaps be better to say 'vivifying.'" -- Jonathan G. Wald * Current Anthropology *
"Rendering Life Molecular offers an engaging view into the world of scientists who describe the unseeable." -- R. M. Denome * Choice *
"Rendering Life Molecular is a thought-provoking book, a whirlwind ethnography pregnant with epistemological and empirical insights on movements, practices, knowledge and reasoning around proteins, which can and should inform future philosophical studies of modeling as well as STS work on experimental practices in and beyond biology." -- Sabina Leonelli * Metascience *
"... logical, theoretically and methodologically iterative, and, most importantly, ethnographically rich and robust."
-- Udo Krautwurst * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822358787
Author Natasha Myers
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 476g