Public concerns about innovative biomedical health technologies, such as human therapeutic cloning, have been the subject of a rapidly expanding social scientific literature. A prominent argument within much of this literature is that ‘the social’ is itself undergoing fundamental transformation in the context of what some have called ‘the age of biological control’. This article interrogates the question of how social relationality is being transformed, or relocated, within the cell line itself by examining the recent merger between Geron Corporation and Roslin Biomed. Arguing certain social concerns are being built in to the cell line, the question of ‘biological control’ is refigured as one of social relationality.
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