Paper long abstract:

Translational research has become an important impetus in contemporary biomedical science and represents a route to making futures for knowledge, communities and objects. The translational agenda initially focused on moving knowledge from laboratory to clinic: from 'bench to bedside'. This linear idea has been critiqued from within and from outside medicine and the processes are recognised by some as more complex. Translational research can be understood as a response to post-genomic accountability in science and as spurred by globalisation and capitalism (Rajan & Leonelli, 2013). The use of 'translation' has also been broadened, partly by technosciences outside of medicine, wanting to make future use of knowledge. In the UK context funding bodies are creating specific mechanisms for funding 'translational research'.

Synthetic biology is an emerging technoscience applying design principles to biology with the aim of modularising and simplifying the engineering of life. This paper analyses data gathered while 'following' synthetic biologists in the laboratory and in their wider work. One notable element in synthetic biology's vision of translation, apparent in the Roadmap for the UK (2012), is a focus on 'industrial translational' rather than clinical. The paper outlines the ways in which translational research is defined and made 'doable' in synthetic biology.

The main argument is that translational research represents one type of future that shapes, and is itself reshaped, by local research practices which in turn lead to the materialisation of an object embodying these futures.