Introduction: Biomedical Trans-Actions, Postgenomics, and Knowledge/Value

This essay examines the notion of “translational research,” which has become a dominant form of the institutionalization and practice of contemporary biomedicine, as an entry point into theorizing questions of knowledge, value, and their articulations. We are interested in locating translational research in a conjuncture that is marked, on the one hand, by a “postgenomic” moment in the life sciences and, on the other, by the capitalization of biomedicine. We argue that knowledge should be considered in terms of its mobility, rather than simply in terms of its ability to produce “truth,” and that translational research is a signifier of a contemporary biomedicine that operates “in the trans-,” under the sign and context of various movements across domains that see the production, articulation, and problematization of knowledge and value. This argument introduces the three essays in this dossier.