Bidirectional Shaping and Spaces of Convergence

Interactions between Biology and Computing from the First DNA Sequencers to Global Genome Databases

Bibliographic Data

ID5337267
AuthorsPeter A Chow-White (0000-0002-6045-5774, Simon Fraser University, corresponding author), Miguel García-Sancho (0000-0001-5101-6027, Department of Science, Technology and Society, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain)
Year2012
Volume37
Issue1
Pages124-164
Publication date2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243910397969
OpenAlexW2140389499
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited77

This article proposes a new bi-directional way of understanding the convergence of biology and computing. It argues for a reciprocal interaction in which biology and computing have shaped and are currently reshaping each other. In so doing, we qualify both the view of a natural marriage and of a digital shaping of biology, which are common in the literature written by scientists, STS, and communication scholars. The DNA database is at the center of this interaction. We argue that DNA databases are spaces of convergence for computing and biology that change in form, meaning, and function from the 1960s to the 2000s. The first part of the article shows how, in the 1980s, DNA sequencing shifted from passively incorporating computers to be increasingly modeled in digital coding and decoding. Information retrieval algorithms, reciprocally, were altered according to the peculiarities of DNA in the first sequence-storage databases. The second part of the article investigates the impact of these reciprocal interactions and globalization on the organization of research centers, ways of conducting big science, and scientific values. Through convergence and new technologies such as data mining, biology and computing were transformed technologically, institutionally, and culturally into a new bio-data enterprise called genomics

Big data · Biology · Data science · Evolutionary biology · Reciprocal · Social science · Sociology · Technological convergence · Telecommunications · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · History of Computing Technologies · Scientific Computing and Data Management

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