Chapter 7 The Commodification of Knowledge Exchange: Governing the Circulation of Biological Data

in science, with particular attention to the boom in bioinformatic resources characterising contemporary biology and medicine. I show how the ongoing commodification of the life sciences affects the ways in which data are circulated across research contexts. The necessity for scientists to develop ways to communicate with each other and build on each other’s work constitutes a powerful argument against at least some forms of privatisation of data for commercial purposes. Science exists in its current form thanks largely to the modes of open communication and collaboration elaborated by scientists and their patrons (be they monarchs, churches, states or private institutions) throughout the centuries. As ‘big science’ research blossoms and expands

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