The journalistic stereotypes of BGI (the world’s largest sequencing centre) as a Chinese state venture, and of Singapore’s Genome Institute of Science (GIS) as a neoliberal platform, are inverted. Methodologically, by looking at qualitative networks, charismatic leaders and research strategies, this essay proposes a finer grained, meso-level, ethnographic analysis that allows for multi-scalar tracking and juxtaposition as generators of comparative insights. It deploys a social hieroglyphic analysis of the leaders of BGI and an updated account of the post-2010 ‘industrial re-alignment’ of GIS to highlight the role of cross-national networks in the construction of what are usually seen as national science projects, as well as the roles of mixed state and market strategies, and mixed clinical, basic science, biotech and big pharma protocols and platforms of the contemporary life sciences. It pays particular attention to the small worlds of the scientific republic and the charismatic voices of leaders forging new institutional arrangements.
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