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Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork in a Brazilian molecular biology lab, this paper investigates the demands made on scientists by sugarcane. I analyze the regimes of care that guide biologists as they attempt to control contamination and stimulate growth of their GM in vitro organisms.

Paper long abstract:

Sugarcane has been central to Brazilian economic and agricultural experimentation practices for centuries. As scientists attempt to bolster the nation's production of biofuels in an era of climate change-oriented energy policies, they are looking to genetically modify sugarcane—one of the most photosynthetically-efficient plants—to optimize their ability to convert sunlight into liquid fuel. However, the sugarcane genome, yet unmapped, is much larger than those of other commonly experimented-upon crop plants, and therefore confounds scientists' efforts to manipulate its genetic structure through routine modification protocols. In laboratories, sugarcane requires novel, experimental models of care in order for scientists to promote certain kinds of biological mixture while limiting others.

Based on long-term fieldwork in a Brazilian molecular biology laboratory, this paper investigates the demands made on scientists by this perplexingly complex ancient crop plant. By learning the everyday practices required to create and cultivate transgenic sugarcane, I analyze the regimes of care that guide these molecular biologists as they attempt to control contamination and stimulate growth of their in vitro "Frankenstein" organisms and the transgenes they insert into the plants' genetic structure. By investigating the ways that the mixing of organisms—in GM plants and in contaminated Petri dishes—is central to transgenic science, I argue that care, in the form of controlling contamination, is a vital part of scientific practice and of scientific reputation-making in a global South context, where biotechnology scientists experience anxiety about future funding and job procurement.