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Contribution short abstract:

Here I explore the connectedness between distinct bioprospecting projects for the development of new immunotherapies and their therapeutic and regulatory experiences in Brazil and Europe. I focus on aspects of the mobility, re-hierarchization and use of liminal substances that were once ostracized.

Contribution long abstract:

While the standard use of palliative immunosuppressants to treat diverse immunopathologies has been questioned by multiple actors over decades not only at centres of knowledge production in Western countries but also in the Global South, substances that were previously tabooed seem now to reappear as potential therapeutic agents. That seems to be the case for those such as deltorphine, melittin, beta-glucana, and cannabinoids, among others, which are undergoing processes of gradual rehabilitation conducted by experimental biomedical actors, occasionally together with non-biomedical experts. If so, how is this taking place and what would that mean?

In this paper, I report on my anthropological comparative investigation of distinct bioprospecting projects for the development of new immunotherapies and their therapeutic and regulatory experiences in Brazil and Europe. My aim is to analyse from a transnational, historical and relational perspective aspects of the mobility, re-hierarchization and use of substances with potential antigenic power that were once forbidden and/or stigmatized; particularly in the context of disputes between immunosuppression and immunostimulation as competing therapeutic models, and of related commercial, moral and legal frictions. For that, I use research materials co-produced through longitudinal fieldwork to discuss evidence-making practices.

One of my points of reflection consists in paying attention to the connectedness of promissory liminal substances to medical colloidal perspectives that co-shaped the development of so-called biotherapies in the interwar period. With it, I seek to unveil oft-unseen connections between multiple substances that are mostly addressed independently from each other, such as their common properties as unspecific immunostimulants.