Preface  ix

Acknowledgments  xiii

Introduction  1

Part One. Laboratory Entanglements

1. Crystallographic Renderings  35

2. Tangible Media  74

3. Molecular Embodiments  99

Part Two. Ontics and Epistemics

4. Rending Representation  121

5. Remodeling Objectivity  136

Part Three. Forms of Life

6. Machinic Life  159

7. Lively Machines  182

8. Molecular Calisthenics  204

Conclusion: What Is Life Becoming?  230

Appendix: A Protein Primer  239

Notes  243

Bibliography  277

Index  299

"Essential reading for those interested biopolitics, bioethics, science studies, and genetics, genomics, and the new omics."  — Rebecca Scott Yoshizawa, New Genetics and Society

"One of the most exciting books published this year, Natasha Myer’s Rendering Life Molecular: Models, Modelers, and Excitable Matter, is an ethnography of protein modellers, the first such study of this new and central area of biological research." — Sherryl Vint, The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"Amplifying instances of haptic and creative thinking opens avenues for a different kind of science than one may find presented in popular media.... The result is not only intellectually invigorating but also abounds in amusing curiosities. One might say 'eye opening,' but in the spirit of the book, it would perhaps be better to say 'vivifying.'"  — Jonathan G. Wald, Current Anthropology

"Rendering Life Molecular offers an engaging view into the world of scientists who describe the unseeable." — R. M. Denome, Choice

"Rendering Life Molecular is a thought-provoking book, a whirlwind ethnography pregnant with epistemological and empirical insights on movements, practices, knowledge and reasoning around proteins, which can and should inform future philosophical studies of modeling as well as STS work on experimental practices in and beyond biology." — Sabina Leonelli, Metascience

"... logical, theoretically and methodologically iterative, and, most importantly, ethnographically rich and robust."
  — Udo Krautwurst, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Essential reading for those interested biopolitics, bioethics, science studies, and genetics, genomics, and the new omics."  —Rebecca Scott Yoshizawa, New Genetics and Society

"One of the most exciting books published this year, Natasha Myer’s Rendering Life Molecular: Models, Modelers, and Excitable Matter, is an ethnography of protein modellers, the first such study of this new and central area of biological research." —Sherryl Vint, The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"Amplifying instances of haptic and creative thinking opens avenues for a different kind of science than one may find presented in popular media.... The result is not only intellectually invigorating but also abounds in amusing curiosities. One might say 'eye opening,' but in the spirit of the book, it would perhaps be better to say 'vivifying.'"  —Jonathan G. Wald, Current Anthropology

"Rendering Life Molecular offers an engaging view into the world of scientists who describe the unseeable." —R. M. Denome, Choice

"Rendering Life Molecular is a thought-provoking book, a whirlwind ethnography pregnant with epistemological and empirical insights on movements, practices, knowledge and reasoning around proteins, which can and should inform future philosophical studies of modeling as well as STS work on experimental practices in and beyond biology." —Sabina Leonelli, Metascience

"... logical, theoretically and methodologically iterative, and, most importantly, ethnographically rich and robust."
  —Udo Krautwurst, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Bodies in motion—bodies of all kinds and at all scales—dance together in the act of coming to palpable, knowable attention. Further, mindful bodies think best and build richer worlds of knowledge and practice when play infuses work in the symbiosis called science. In this astute and beautifully written book, it is protein models and their people and machines that dance together, tuned to the visceral sensibilities, vital affections, and kinesthetic energies that make the sciences of molecular biology work. Rendering Life Molecular shows in just how many ways biology is a full-bodied practice. Readers will be excited in all the best ways." — Donna Haraway, author of When Species Meet

"With a lively and engaging style, a commitment to a feminist and phenomenological analysis, and an extraordinary attention to the specificity of scientists' embodied, material, and affective engagement in the creation of knowledge, Natasha Myers takes the study of the biosciences in a new direction. Rendering Life Molecular expands the laboratory studies canon as it re-animates our sense of the dynamic contingencies and relationalities of all biological entities."
— Lucy Suchman, author of Human-Machine Reconfigurations

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