By Qiyuan Liang MSc Biosocial Medical Anthropology, 2022-23 When mice show up as living beings, we find it challenging to engage in the rational production of knowledge.
By
Qiyuan Liang
MSc Biosocial Medical Anthropology, 2022-23
Content notice: The following article contains descriptions and images of animal dissection in a laboratory setting.
The complexity of biological life poses a challenge to the study of its mechanisms: in lab contexts, the interpretation requires at least formal rationality, while the interpreter and its object—the researchers and animals involved—are uncertain and dynamic beings. Scientific discourse thus requires their disciplinary training. When undergraduates get gradually involved in the lab routine, contradictions emerge between the scientific discipline and daily practice. This article depicts these scenes in Prof. Hans’s neuroscience lab at a university in South China. Hou, Bao, and Zhang are three undergraduates adapting to various strategies to orientate.1
The Imagery of Life
The naively beautiful visions of biology will shatter after training. In Hou’s imagination, the interpretation of life should be poetic, analogous to the beauty he observed from its object—lives in nature. Zhang chose to learn biology because of his academic advantages. Bao had a beautiful fantasy of biotechnology. The reality is that the organisms are highly complex and sophisticated beings, while biological inquisitions mostly target their microscopic mechanisms, such as the role of a protein in one signalling pathway. The multiplicity here is a barrier to understand the laboratory, echoing the clinical setting where practice and knowledge may contradict (Mol 2002). Lab neophytes’ lack of training makes the tissues, cells, or molecules invisible to naked eyes not intuitively apparent, while lab animals as living beings become the mere interfaces to act.
Lab neophytes are expected to learn to work with mice, initially with their tacit bodies only. Neophytes of Hans’ lab are often asked to expose mice to special LED lights, a treatment believed to ameliorate neurodegenerative diseases. Most undergraduates start their lab work from this. Performing light treatment demands no special skill, but familiarises them with the vivarium facilities and the mice as muted, unopened beings. Still, the practice is embodied—the ventilation noises, animalic smell, fully-covered protection, and cleanness protocols they encounter make it an audible, visible, and tactile experience. Zhang, Hou, and Bao, who all participated in the light experiment, do not believe in its therapeutic effectiveness. Bao’s own finding proved the ineffectiveness of such treatment, but the impurity in undergraduates’ manipulation delegitimised his results. In this case, senior lab-mates corrected the storytelling to the canonical direction by suggesting possible tweaking on experiment settings. Bao complained about the light treatment:
“They let you do the light treatment, which is frustrating… It takes a lot of time, but you learn nothing. That’s it.”
Inside the vivarium. Special clothing, spaces compartmentation, and ventilation are adopted to avoid contamination.
The undergraduates should also learn to open the mice in a standardised but visually bloody way, a process appropriately coined by senior fellows as “materials acquisition”. They dissect the mouse’s body and take the desired tissue, usually the brain. This operation signifies life’s termination and the transfer of attention from the living being to anonymous tissues. It is an objective and purposeful glare into the body (Foucault 2003), but the glare can also be reflective. Hou recalled his impression of one step in materials acquisition:
“Likely because the anaesthesia was not strong enough, all mice would struggle when “crucified”… What’s more horrible was when its chest was opened, when its feet were nailed onto the foam plate… When you inserted the needle into the heart… When it lifted its head toward us, it was horrible, because the mouse was like a human.”
Although such events frequently evoke technicians’ empathy in primate experiments (Sharp 2019), in this setting “compassion fatigue” happens in a few weeks. Zhang still finds it hard to execute infant mice, but he has learned to see mice as mere objects to be opened and sources of data. Their utility lies only in the features hidden in the cells and tissues carefully controlled by experimental conditions. Not everyone can do this.
The glare into a mouse’s body. The procedure is performed under stereoscopes, where the image of the mouse was replaced by tissues to be manipulated. The surgery mimics an ischemic stroke by temporal occlusion of brain blood supply.
Research Disciplines, Knowledge Production, and Becoming Scientists
The structured biology tries to reproduce itself. A lab needs considerable funding for its survival, and this commercial nature requires trust from the university and society in the research output (Rabinow 1996). A good researcher therefore should be able to acquire publishable data. The language in science also anticipates that the researchers’ and animals’ lives are precisely regulated. However, pure truth-telling is impracticable since scientific practice is always socially entangled (Latour and Woolgar 1986). Even worse, the innate dynamics in practice negates constructional efforts (Bourdieu 1992). These can be learned from lab practices.
Fitting into scientific discourse takes effort. At group meetings, students should report what they have done as well as their future plans using a logical, structured (presumption, experiment, result), and concise language. The disciplinary training also requires control. Prof. Hans wants to see everyone in person so that he can know what they are doing. They are expected to constantly contribute to the reproduction of scientific discourse. The tricky point is that many of the laborious jobs that neophytes do are in the vivarium outside the lab, making their effort invisible unless being spoken out.
A biology lab. The half-couplet reads “Do experiments every day and produce data”. The other half not shown reads “Publish papers every year and get funding”.Neophytes are always assigned to follow one senior lab fellow. Prof. Hans supervises about ten undergraduates and has stopped accepting new students this year. He worries that neophytes cannot receive proper guidance. Bao and Zhang complained that they did not receive enough guidance and that the lab-mates tutoring them were very busy. Once participating in a research project, personal time should be compromised for experiments: the animals need to be intensively cared for for months, during which time life should centre on the timeline of the experiments. For instance, one scheme involves treating the mice every 12 hours for two weeks, which means they should work in the vivarium for two hours twice a day, in the morning and the evening. Their work contributes very little publishable data, but trains them and gives them something to report at the group meeting. If a student has done nothing, Prof. Hans will assign him or her something to do.
Launching a project provides more freedom and easy access to lab resources. Such experiences can embellish one’s CV. Opportunities available include contests and innovation programmes. However, Zhang, who is leading a national-level innovation programme, confessed that he launched the project not for enthusiasm in scientific facts, but for the influence from peers. Bao, who was suggested by Prof. Hans to lead a Life Science Contest, experienced a period of depression and decided to attend an exchange program in the UK. His intense two-month project on Alzheimer’s resulted in no credible data. Hou’s project to treat Alzheimer’s with magnetic fields never got started. Almost every undergraduate has had a project once, and those who do not are left behind. Many projects fail soon after the proposal phase, because the undergraduates have to face the risk involved in research themselves. A lab with precarity and uncertainty is gradually revealed:
“In the project I was depressed. Our mice were too bad (too “impure” for research). I realised they could not bring any meaningful results… I felt what I did was meaningless. I couldn’t accept this fact.” – Bao
“For the whole project, I can’t see its future, I mean, I can’t anticipate what’s gonna happen next… I’m just an undergrad. My current goal should be learning experiment skills rather than obtaining real experiment results.” – Zhang
“I noticed most of our experiments didn’t go well. Secondly, since we were repeating others’ experiments with only minor adjustments, I didn’t anticipate a great discovery. Thirdly, our methods were old. For these reasons, I didn’t expect any result.” – Hou
Unexpected calcium oscillation of cells (brightening signifies an increase in the cellular calcium level). Such a phenomenon is double-edged: it may lead to major scientific findings, or imply neophytes’ mistaken experiment procedures. Mostly, it is the latter.A Happy Lab
Zhang is analysing electroencephalograms data from volunteers of light treatment, the results of which will be published. He also realised that learning in Prof. Hans’ lab was an invaluable opportunity. Prof. Hans said that one published paper would make Zhang exceed his peers. His friend, however, had published a high-impact article. Most undergraduates know biology papers are not guaranteed by even years of efforts. The three undergraduates here, including Zhang, recognised the futility of it. Hou realised in his third year that this was not what he wanted to do: he was not involved in constructing a precise and complex biological discourse with great depth and width, but in making specious interpretations of phenomena. Zhang opted for data analysis, which is definite, to escape. Bao thought the light experiments he did were pointless. Zhang mentioned his fading interest in biology:
“Since you are here you must keep going. This is the easiest, the most convenient way… I had an interest at the beginning, but as time went by, this interest faded… I notice the mismatch between what I learn and what I perform… The training takes too long, meanwhile, you lose confidence or feel frustrated… You learn, and you apply, and then you feel fulfilled. I can’t feel fulfilled in biology.”
Prof. Hans also commented that biological research was not only about quantitative analysis but equally about storytelling, although his ultimate satisfaction came from the clinical potential of his works. Students had different ideas. Hou said that the capital and power involved in biological research make it difficult to produce real benefits for the public. One of the few pleasures that Zhang gained from the lab was the quietness when doing experiments alone. Bao regarded his own inquisitiveness, rather than biology’s clinical potential as what made him stay in this discipline. It is beneficial to stop being reflective. Instead, neophytes should work hard and master useful skills. Denying openness to the world relieves existential anxiety, and the days shall pass with ease. When asked about what quality learning biology requires, a PhD student wisely commented:
“Just abandon the self. I think it is easy to do so, or, isn’t it what most people are currently doing? Do not reflect. As long as you don’t reflect, it’s convenient to accept the mechanical, well-established tools…”
But he continued:
“Say you find a crack in the order, and then you gradually fix it… Then you master it, see it, and think it through… When you fix every crack, you will be the incarnated god.”
As Zhang currently works on a computer, he comes to the lab less often. He shows fatigue and lethargy, has irregular sleep, and loves computer games. When needed, he is nevertheless able to present himself appropriately. Prof. Hans has recommended him to a collaborating lab oversea as a PhD candidate. Partly because of the pandemic, Bao found a lack of learning opportunities in the lab after arriving in the UK. He failed to gain lab skills during his Master’s degree, and became unmentionable in the group after a quarrel with Prof. Hans about his school application. Also unmentionable is Hou, who is now studying philosophy in France.
Infant mice in a cage. their existence is legitimised if their birth is planned, and their biometric properties represent a universal mouse. Otherwise, they will be euthanised. Here, the innate precarity within a structured order epitomises biology.
Conclusion
In biological research, life always contrasts scientific rationality. When mice show up as living beings, we find it challenging to engage in the rational production of knowledge. The art of survival is to separate the practice of biological research from the thinking of life, or not to consider it at all. However, the imagery of life looms in daily practice as surprises and accidents, reminding us of the immeasurable complexity that life possesses.
1 All names are pseudonyms.
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