10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17494
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are incredibly small vesicles found in the fluids of the body. Released by cells, they circulate in the body and carry different kinds of molecules as cargo; consequently, they are understood to play a significant role in cell-to-cell communication and are expected to offer potential as biomarkers and agents of drug delivery. The scientific work on them in molecular biology and biomedicine is cutting-edge, connecting production of new knowledge with expectations of new clinical applications and biotech products. This article is a case study of biomedical research-and-development collaboration on EVs in Finland. The subject of the article is the hybridity of EVs as an R&amp;D object that is simultaneously thought of and enacted as an “epistemic thing” and a “technical object” (Rheinberger, 1997). In this context, EVs are a potential clinical tool, commercial product, and vehicle for upholding the continuity of research. The article argues that this kind of hybridization of research objects characterizes the practice of current life science and is closely linked to or even derived from the expectations attached to life science and biomedical research.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17494
1
en
Ilpo Helén
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
biomedical R&D
The Extracellular Vesicles as a Hybrid: Life Science and its Object
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
12
Essays
2021-11-01
2023-06-27
2021-11-01
2023-10-19
5-35
TS
Ilpo Helén
2021/11/01
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17494
5
University of Eastern Finland
2038-3460
1
biomedical R&D
en
35
The Extracellular Vesicles as a Hybrid: Life Science and its Object
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17494/16339
12
                                                                                         Essay
The Extracellular Vesicles as a Hybrid:
Life Science and its Object
               Heta Tarkkala                                    Ilpo Helén
           University of Eastern Finland, FI             University of Eastern Finland, FI
              University of Helsinki, FI



     Abstract: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are incredibly small vesicles found in
     the fluids of the body. Released by cells, they circulate in the body and car-
     ry different kinds of molecules as cargo; consequently, they are understood
     to play a significant role in cell-to- cell communication and are expected to
     offer potential as biomarkers and agents of drug delivery. The scientific
     work on them in molecular biology and biomedicine is cutting-edge, con-
     necting production of new knowledge with expectations of new clinical ap-
     plications and biotech products. This article is a case study of biomedical
     research-and-development collaboration on EVs in Finland. The subject of
     the article is the hybridity of EVs as an R&D object that is simultaneously
     thought of and enacted as an ‘epistemic thing’ and a ‘technical object’
     (Rheinberger, 1997). In this context, EVs are a potential clinical tool, com-
     mercial product, and vehicle for upholding the continuity of research. The
     article argues that this kind of hybridization of research objects character-
     izes the practice of current life science and is closely linked to or even de-
     rived from the expectations attached to life science and biomedical re-
     search

     Keywords: life sciences; objects of science; hybrid science; commercial
     collaboration; biomedical R&D.

     Submitted: February 25, 2020 – Accepted: October 29, 2020

     Corresponding author: Heta Tarkkala, P.O BOX 18, 0014 University of
     Helsinki, Finland. Email: heta.tarkkala@helsinki.fi




1. Introduction

    In this paper, we study biomedical research collaboration on extracel-
lular vesicles (EVs). These incredibly small vesicles – most of them are
under 200 nanometres in size – are released by cells in their extracellular

TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
12 (1) pp. 5-35 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                              2021
6                                                            Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

environment (Raposo and Stoorvogel 2013; Palviainen et al. 2017). EVs
can be found in the fluids of the body – for example, tears, sweat, urine,
saliva, plasma, amniotic fluid, breast milk, and blood (Mateescu et al.
2017; Kalra et al. 2012). They carry different kinds of molecules, such as
“proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and carbohydrates” (Mateescu et al. 2017,
2), as well as RNA (Raposo and Stoorvogel 2013). Several overlapping
terms are used in connection with EVs – exosomes, prostasomes, on-
cosomes, ectosomes, outer membrane vesicles, membrane particles, and
microvesicles (Palviainen et al. 2017) – but they can all be referred to as
‘extracellular vesicles’ (Palviainen et al. 2017, 76). Notably, “the contents,
size and membrane composition of EVs are highly heterogeneous and dy-
namic and depend on the cellular source, state and environmental condi-
tions” (Yáñez-Mó et al. 2015, 4).
     EVs have been identified as potential biomarkers for diseases
(Mateescu et al. 2017; Kalra et al. 2012). Furthermore, they are under-
stood to contribute to “cell-to-cell communication” and are expected to
have a role in disease progression – for example, in cancer or neuro-
degenerative diseases (Mateescu et al. 2017, 2). Their role in intercellular
communication relies on their “capacity to transfer proteins, lipids, nucle-
ic acids and sugars (…) even to sites remote to the vesicular origin”, which
is also why they are seen to influence “various physiological and pathologi-
cal functions of both recipient and parent cells” (Yáñez-Mó et al. 2015, 2-3).
In the past decade, EVs have become an actively studied subject in molecu-
lar biology and biomedicine1. They have been considered to offer medical
potential not only as biomarkers but also, because of their ability to target
very specific cells as part of cell-to-cell communication, as vaccines and ‘de-
livery vehicles’ for therapeutics (Raposo and Stoorvogel 2013; Mateescu et
al. 2017; Saari et al. 2015).
     In this study, we explore a research initiative on EVs in Finland in the
2010s that brought together experts and institutions from many special
branches of biology and medicine, biobanks, public academic institutions,
and private medical companies. The research endeavour was realized as
part of a research program on personalized medicine funded by the main
Finnish public innovation funding agency, Tekes. In this program, with
the goal of combining scientific research with R&D (see below), funding
was directed towards projects that were based on collaboration between
public research institutions and private companies. Our analysis concen-
trates on the EVs as an object of life science in this context. We demon-
strate that EVs are a hybrid object because of the way the research setting
is organized and scientific work is practiced. Since the 1980s, the concept
of ‘hybridity’ has been deployed to refer to many types of cultural mix-
tures in social sciences, especially in postcolonial and cultural studies (for
an overview, see Frello 2012), and to assign a general cultural logic of
globalization (e.g., Kraidy 2005). In addition, concepts such as ‘hybrid
practice’ (Casper 1998) and ‘epistemic hybridity’ (Ning 2012) have fig-
ured in medical STS literature. We use the concept of hybridity in a nar-
Tarkkala & Helén                                                            7
rower and more specific sense to refer to the alignment and simultaneous
presence of a scientific endeavour and the pursuits of clinical, social, and
economic utility (see Hauskeller and Beltrame 2016a, 2016b; Beltrame
and Hauskeller 2018). Such hybridity – or, rather, hybridization – can
been seen to characterize the organization of research and its objectives as
well as the object of research (see Cambrosio et al. 2009a). Our analysis
emphasizes the collaboration of scientific, clinical, and commercial part-
ners around a scientific object and the way such collaboration creates de-
pendencies, constraints, and conditions for the research work, which
make up EVs as an object that is shared yet manifold – i.e., a hybrid. Thus,
our discussion on the ‘hybridity’ of the object of life science highlights the
simultaneous presence of a variety of interests and objectives that are at-
tached to the EVs and aligned through them.
    Today, hybridization of organization, practice, and research objects is
characteristic of many life science endeavours, which implies a profound
blurring of the conventional distinction between basic and applied sci-
ence (on the constructedness of this distinction, see Calvert, 2004; 2006).
This can be seen, for example, in translational medicine, which does not
acknowledge clear borders between clinics and labs or between research
and care (Cambrosio et al. 2009b; Cambrosio et al. 2018; Tarkkala 2019).
In this paper, we study this hybridity in the life sciences by focusing on
expectations and manifold potentials associated with the object of science
in terms of further research, innovations and applications, and future col-
laborations. Our approach to the EVs combines a view of the importance
of expectations as a driver of biomedicine, realized in actions taken in the
present (e.g., Brown 2003; Brown and Michael 2003; Sunder Rajan 2006;
Tarkkala 2019; Morrison 2012), with the above concept of hybridity. Fol-
lowing this, our study focuses on hybridity by expectations. We ask first
how the unknown and manifold potentialities in an object of life science
summon a variety of actors together and modify research as collaboration.
Second, we ask how hybridity by expectations influences what EVs are
seen and defined to be and what trajectories and continuities of research
it enables and encourages.
    Our approach on EVs builds on discussions of objects of science as
‘machines to make a future’ (Jacob 1982; Rheinberger 1997; Rabinow and
Dan-Cohen 2005). Obviously, ‘future’ here refers to scientific exploration
of the ‘unknown’ in the life sciences and biomedical laboratories (Rhein-
berger 1997) as well as to the expected or promised applications of new
knowledge (e.g., Brown 2003); it also refers to efforts to build continuity
for research groups and their work (Miettinen 1998). Thus, in our article,
hybridity is tied to the interplay of future making, expectations, and re-
search tasks as they align around an object of science that is in many ways
‘unknown’. Furthermore, our case of EV research is an example of a
mode of biomedical science that ties academia, medical care, and the
pharmaceutical industry more closely together, and our analysis highlights
these intertwinements and alignments as part of knowledge production in
8                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

biomedicine (see e.g., Clarke et al. 2003; Fischer 2013; Vignola-Gagne et
al. 2017). For example, social science studies on the development of can-
cer treatments have brought to the fore the dual role of medicines both in
patient care and in producing knowledge about cancer as a disease and its
pathways (Vignola-Gagne et al. 2017; Tarkkala 2019).
    Rheinberger (1997) emphasizes that the emergence of scientific novel-
ty in the laboratory requires a carefully orchestrated setting of researchers,
previous knowledge, and suppliers of appropriate technologies and rea-
gents. Extending this view, Cambrosio and colleagues have shown that
novel developments and the consolidation of criteria for solid knowledge
in biomedicine necessitate that work in laboratories and research sites can
consistently follow specific patterns of activity, coordination, and regula-
tion (Keating and Cambrosio 2003; Cambrosio et al. 2006, 2009b). These
patterns form the basis both for the constitution of biomedical objects
and knowledge production and for hybridization that blurs the bounda-
ries of scientific and clinical work (Keating and Cambrosio 2003; Cam-
brosio et al. 2009a). The resulting biomedical platforms (Keating and
Cambrosio 2003), with their epistemic, organizational, and regulatory pat-
terns, enable the making of scientific futures in terms of scientific discov-
ery and the application of new knowledge or inventions in clinical work.
These futures have an additional dimension that Miettinen (1998) high-
lighted in discussing ‘where-to’ objects of research work. This concept
refers to the future continuity of a research group or groups and partners
of the group(s) through expanding, redirecting, and transforming their
“basic activity” (Miettinen 1998, 446) while including “the societal use of
results” (Miettinen 1998, 440) in their future visions and orientation.
Thus, Miettinen’s view of the futures in play for the objects of science is
wider than that of Rheinberger, who focuses on the inherent dynamics of
the practical pursuit of new knowledge in the life sciences.
    In our analysis of EV research, we discuss both dimensions and also
expand our scope of research objects beyond an internalistic understand-
ing of laboratory work, in a manner that parallels Tuunainen’s (2001) case
study of R&D on virus-resistant potatoes. He suggested expanding on
Rheinberger’s work (1997), underlining that “both basic scientific con-
cerns and societally significant applications” are at play in research work
in the life sciences (Tuunainen 2001, 98); he also employed the concept of
a ‘dual object’ to address the presence of both an epistemic and an appli-
cation object in research. Similarly, Saari and Miettinen (2001, 315) have
described application objects as addressing “industrial or other practical
problems, in the solution of which the phenomenon studied is used”, in
contrast to the object proper as a phenomenon “to be understood and
modeled”.
    These twofold concepts and analyses based on them are the basis for the
discussion in this paper; however, we do not want to incorporate further
dualisms to grasp the object in today’s hybrid life sciences. For this reason,
we discuss the EV as a hybrid research object and analyse the hybridization
Tarkkala & Helén                                                             9
of EVs in research practice, in which scientific exploration and the pursuit
of clinical, social, and economic utility of biomedical innovations are simul-
taneous and aligned. This approach matches with that of Tuunainen and
Miettinen, as they precisely address such simultaneity and overlap. All in all,
our conceptual approach builds on Rheinberger (1997) and analyses that
have complemented his view on objects of science and their dynamics (Tu-
unainen 2001; Miettinen 1998).
     In sum, we study a case of EV research collaboration through ‘partner-
ship’ as an example of hybridized life science research, highlighting espe-
cially the expectations involved. Collaborations are seen as the modus op-
erandi of research work in current life sciences (Penders et al. 2015, 5), and
many studies have identified and addressed an amalgamation of scientific,
clinical, and commercial interests in biomedical collaborations (e.g., Cooper
2008; Cambrosio et al. 2009a; Sunder Rajan 2012; Ong 2016; Gardner,
Webster and Mittra 2017; Aarden, 2017; Sun 2017; Beltrame and Hauskel-
ler 2018). Research has shown that the partners in such collaboration are
dependent on each other in terms of technical devices, finance, and epis-
temic authority. Moreover, Star and Griesemer (1989) have, with the con-
cept of a boundary object, addressed how such collaboration is possible
through cooperation by actors in creating a sense of a shared object, even
when local flexibility and incorporation of actors’ different viewpoints re-
main. However, as we root our analysis on Rheinberger’s thinking and con-
cepts that extend his view, our focus is slightly different. We examine col-
laborative R&D through paying attention to its object –in our case, the EVs.
We claim that collaboration that crosses academia/commerce and scien-
tific/clinical boundaries is essentially actualized on the level of mundane re-
search practices. We demonstrate this by analysing how the research object
is modified along with the unfolding of R&D work, as different scientific,
clinical, and commercial interests and objectives are attached to the EVs.
Moreover, we analyse accommodation of diverse interests and objectives in
the research consortium, in which formation of the EVs as a hybrid object
attached to multiple expectations and prospects is crucial2.The novelty of
our study is showing that hybridization of biomedical research (Hauskeller
and Beltrame 2016a, 2016b; Beltrame and Hauskeller 2018) – i.e., the
amalgamation of scientific, clinical, commercial, and social aspects – is
aligned with the hybridization of the R&D object because expectations and
assumptions of its potential greatly affect the coordination of research prac-
tices (see also Tarkkala, Helén and Snell 2019; Borup et al. 2006; Brown
2003; Brown and Michael 2003; van Lente 2012; Tamminen and Ver-
meulen 2012).
     In what follows, we present our research data and the methods applied.
We then move on to present the context of collaborative science in relation
to our case, followed by analytical sections that highlight the EV and its hy-
bridity as a research object.
10                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

2. Data and methods
    This article discusses a case in which scientific and commercial partners
came together in a research-and-development program; all partners shared
an interest in extracellular vesicles and an “aim for applicability”, meaning
that developing personalized medicine was in their interest. The SalWe EV
consortium and the partners involved form our case and site, which we will
comprehensively introduce in the following section. In this section, we in-
troduce how we ourselves approached our site and conducted our research.
    The research data utilized in this article were collected between 2015
and 2017, when the working of the consortium was most intense. The data
are of three types. First, there are 11 interviews with 10 informants connect-
ed in different ways with the SalWe program. Most were participants in a
work package representing both industry (n=4) and academic partners
(n=4), while two informants were interviewed due to their expertise in
managing SalWe and SHOK programs. Because of the low number of par-
ticipants interviewed, we only detail whether the quoted informant is a
commercial or university partner. Some key informants were interviewed
twice to get follow-up information. Second, our analysis is based on field-
notes of observations in two public conferences where EVs were presented
and discussed and in seven meetings in which project participants discussed
the undertaking: how it was proceeding, what the findings suggested, the
way forward, and so on. Finally, we incorporate scientific articles on EVs
that contextualize, describe, and discuss the developing, technology-
intensive domain of research.
    We applied systematic content analysis to the research data, also utiliz-
ing the case study approach and STS ethnography in our analysis. The latter
approaches helped us to contextualize the textual data of the interviews and
articles, guiding us to employ different types of research data to triangulate
the findings of our analysis. Comparison of interviews, fieldnotes of obser-
vations, and published research papers as well as our navigation between
them allowed us to locate our findings in their context and test their accu-
racy.
    Our content analysis of the data was fundamentally inductive, in keep-
ing with our aspiration to ‘let the data speak for itself’; however, we con-
ducted our analysis in dialogue with literature on the objects of the life sci-
ences: the hybridization of scientific practices, role of expectations, and or-
ganization of the life sciences into research platforms. Given this approach,
we first read systematically through the interviews and other material, fo-
cusing on participants’ descriptions of the EVs, of what they themselves
were doing in research, and of the workings and objectives of the consorti-
um. Three thematic framings came to the fore during this reading: ‘basic
science’, with an emphasis on technology and methodological development,
antibody development, and the EV Core facility service. During our second
systematic reading of the data, we focused on what was said about EVs
within these three framings, paying particular attention to two issues: first,
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                  11
what the participants said they know and do not know about EVs, and sec-
ond, how they characterized the EVs as an object and the potential of EVs
and EV research.
    In the analytical section, we organize our analysis of the EVs as a hybrid
object according to the aforementioned three framings. Before that, we de-
scribe the SalWe program and the context of the Finnish EV consortium
that is the site of our case study. More generally, the program is an example
of a societal framework that facilitates the hybridization of life sciences.


3. Conducting collaborative science

     The EV research consortium forms the site of our study. It was initiated
in 2012-2013 when people from two university institutions (one biomedical,
one molecular biology unit) and three companies (one producing blood
products, one antibodies, and one pharmaceuticals) came together to plan a
joint research effort. This consortium was summoned in the context of the
public innovation promotion framework called Centres for Strategic Excel-
lence (SHOK), administered by the Finnish innovation funding agency
Tekes and funded by the Finnish government. The SHOKs were relatively
independent funding bodies, and one of them, SalWe, launched a 30-
million-euro biomedical program focusing on personalized medicine, of
which the EV consortium was a major part. EV research was seen as a rising
field in international molecular biology and biomedicine, and the partici-
pants shared the view that their main purpose was to diminish organiza-
tional and technological dispersion of EV research in Finland. Yet the ini-
tial aims of the joint effort were manifold:
            The major objective of the partners in the program is to create
        standardized technology platforms for extracellular vesicle studies.
        The novel tools and platforms can then be applied on the basic re-
        search and R&D of extracellular vesicles and the identification of
        EV-derived biomarkers. In the end of the project, there will be novel
        tools for monitoring the quality of blood products and novel sensiti-
        ve biomarker methods for development of cancer diagnostics. In ad-
        dition to research tools, the utmost objective of the partners is to
        create an active and intense national public-private network around
        the extracellular vesicles that will have link to international public-
        private researchers. (SalWe, 2013)

    The work of the Get it Done (GiD) research program with SHOK
funding was carried out between 2014 and 2018 and was indispensable to
building up and consolidating the Finnish EV research milieu.
    Within this framework, work on EVs constituted an assemblage of bio-
medical science focused on new knowledge and scientific methods and of
R&D for seeking new medical products. The borders between public insti-
tutions and private business were blurred because the SHOKs’ imperative
12                                                            Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

goal was to encourage such collaboration. Indeed, there were two condi-
tions for funding: first, projects were to involve both public research institu-
tions and independent companies, and second, companies had to provide
half of the funding devoted to research. Furthermore, R&D priorities and
the interests of the private company partners were supposed to orientate
research work in the SHOK projects. This collaborative tie was not only
formal; rather, it saturated the working of the EV consortium as a whole, as
we will show in this article.
    The Finnish EV consortium exemplifies a contemporary mode of opera-
tions for the life sciences and biomedicine. As many studies have shown
(e.g., Gardner, Webster and Mittra 2017; Vallas and Kleinman 2008; Ow-
en-Smith and Powell 2001), research on medicine, molecular biology, and
the life sciences is often conducted in or closely related to settings in which
science and R&D are intertwined. The two serve each other through col-
laboration between experts and technologies in academic or public research
institutions, small and specialized innovative companies, and large multina-
tional corporations. Research endeavours in these settings are usually em-
bedded in a ‘partnership’ between public institutions and private compa-
nies for organizing, financing, and appropriating research. These are also
the main features of the Finnish EV consortium.
    One can often see another manifestation of the same phenomenon in
the promotion of public-private collaborations in knowledge societies. In
the research literature, this mode of science and its organization are refer-
enced with terms such as ‘collaborative’ (Powell, Koput and Smith-Doerr
1996; Powell et al., 2005), ‘mode 2’ (Gibbons et al. 1994), ‘entrepreneurial’
(Johnston and Edwards 1987; Etzkowitz 1998), or ‘marketized’ (Wedlin
2008); other labels are ‘triple helix’ knowledge production (Etzkowitz 2008)
and ‘academic capitalism’ (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Cantwell and
Kauppinen 2014). Many studies (e.g., Pavone and Goven 2017; Kleinman
and Vallas 2001) have suggested that the life sciences’ mainstream has
adopted this mode of ‘knowledge production’; it has also been shown that
biomedicine has become quite extensively subject to marketization and
commercialization efforts in this context (Gardner, Webster and Mittra
2017; Mittra 2016; Powell and Owen-Smith 1998). Facilitated by two
trends, this has developed and spread globally during the past half-century.
Since the late 1960s, big corporations such as multinational pharmaceutical
companies have made their R&D activities more open, seeking collabora-
tion with academic research groups and smaller, innovative, high-tech com-
panies (Mittra 2016; Mittra and Milne, 2013; Etzkowitz, Webster and Hea-
ley 1998). This growing openness has been congruent with the efforts of
international organizations, such as the OECD, and the governments of
wealthy industrialized countries to establish policies promoting science and
technological innovation as part of long-term economic and industrial plan-
ning (Miettinen 2002; Powell and Owen-Smith 1998). In the landscape of
‘innovation policy’, science was ultimately expected to result in products,
methods, or ‘solutions’ that would be practically useful and commercially
Tarkkala & Helén                                                            13
profitable. In practice, innovation policy in different countries encouraged
the organization of scientific research into ‘public-private partnerships’ with
academia and private companies as well as the initiation of governmental
programs and funding ‘instruments’ to speed up the utilization of new sci-
ences and technologies (Miettinen 2002; Powell and Owen-Smith 1998).
The SHOKs in Finland were an offspring of such policy.
    A collaborative, R&D-oriented, commerce-affinitive organizational
model of science affects actual research practices in biomedicine (see Tu-
unainen 2005 for an example from the field of biotechnology). In the case
we present, science and business are aligned or even entangled in the ac-
tual settings, procedures, and practices of biomedical research. Accord-
ingly, research design, protocols, and techniques simultaneously serve
many purposes in scientific exploration and in the further development of
research technology, clinical applications, and commercial products. Data
collection, analyses, and experiments take place in a framework of multi-
ple definitions of objectives, results, and criteria for success or failure. In
our analysis of Finnish EV research, our main interest lies in this multiplici-
ty at work in research practice, building on a line of STS research that
stresses the local practices of university research in striving for knowledge,
applications, business, collaboration, and social utility (e.g., Rheinberger
1997; Tuunainen 2005; Miettinen 1998).
    We argue that intensive future orientation facilitates the hybridization
of research. As policymakers and funding bodies encourage and even
oblige science and the scientist to be practical, productive, and receptive
to economic appropriation, much or even most of the sphere has re-
sponded by becoming overtly promissory (Helén 2013; Petersen and Kris-
tjansen 2015; Fortun 2008; Brown 2003; Brown Kraft and Martin 2006;
Morrison 2012; Martin 2015). This response is notable especially in the
life sciences and biomedicine with emerging technologies. For scientists,
research laboratories, and institutions working in these fields, there are
few chances to get research projects funded without augmenting pro-
posals by promising ample prospects of solutions to grand medical prob-
lems and giving assurances of clinical and commercial applications. These
expectations imply certain futures that are crucial for making and sustain-
ing alignments between science and business and between science and
medical treatments in biomedical R&D. Business and clinical rationales
become entangled in experiments, and research seems to be conducted on
the basis of the potential for profits and clinical applications inherent in
biomedical exploration.
    The researchers working in the EV consortium appeared to have a
positive view of the hybridity – the simultaneous presence of multiple ob-
jectives – of their research. Projects that conjoin public biomedical re-
search institutions and private companies, in which basic life science is
entangled with practical objectives of developing biotechnology or appli-
cations to serve a medical diagnosis or treatment, were mostly seen as
‘natural’ or ‘necessary’ by the researchers, although they acknowledged
14                                                              Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

that EV research is not likely to produce ‘medically useful’ results in the
near future. Nonetheless, in both public labs and private companies, re-
searchers emphasized the collaborative aspect of the work; for them, the
expansion of opportunities for collaboration is an asset of this endeavour:
           Well, it is a win-win. Synergy. Like when people have different
       viewpoints, different angles, and different needs … then we just
       get more done. There are more people with a joint interest in
       doing things and, on the other hand, knowledge and other resour-
       ces. So we are stronger than we would be as a single group or,
       what is worse, as competing groups that just fiddle around with
       their own thing and jealously look around at what others are
       doing. (Research partner)

           This is purely about networking. We are a company partner,
       and yet it is very important for us that we have contacts with basic
       research, and this is a very good way to create a wider network we
       would otherwise not necessarily come into contact with. (Com-
       mercial partner)

    Such a sentiment of ‘joining forces for future gains’ was widespread in
research practices and settings of the EV consortium, as we will show in the
following analysis. Perhaps this is why a somewhat surprising finding of
ours is that tensions or disagreement between academic and commercial
partners were not salient enough to hamper the work of the consortium. In
this particular setting, the future orientation both in building networks and
in conducting actual research tasks seemed to have the power to suspend
possible controversies to the future, and allowed partners to acknowledge
that their interests and objectives were diverted, although they shared ex-
pectations about the EVs.


4. The EV hybridized
    The EV research consortium’s objective was “to build up an interna-
tionally competitive research network in Finland to ensure high quality
research and innovations in monitoring health and disease” (SalWe,2013,
99). Under this definition, a variety of scientific, medical, organizational,
and commercial tasks, including the building and continuation of research
work and collaboration (see also Miettinen 1998), are drawn together.
Consequently, EVs are an object of multitasking. In this context, they car-
ry the potential to generate discoveries in the life sciences, new tools for
biomedical R&D, and new biotech products for clinical use, building re-
search infrastructures, and sale. Nonetheless, in practice, an ethos of basic
research was eminent in the consortium, as all participants seemed to
acknowledge that certain scientific and technical thresholds have to be
reached before any of the EVs’ potential can be actualized. This had al-
ready been emphasized in the research plan:
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                      15
            For solid and reliable diagnostic and clinical applications, the
        base of the EV technology and characteristics must be developed
        and established before biomarker development or novel EV-based
        therapies and drug delivery technologies can be developed. (SalWe
        2013, 99)

    In what follows, we analyse the work carried out and based on EVs.
We begin by underlining the prospect of scientific novelty and the need
for basic research and then address simultaneous knowledge-production
and development goals before moving on to the way future continuity of
research is embedded in the working with EVs.




Figure 1. A picture of urine vesicles taken as part of the storage study with an electron
                       microscope3. Image source: Maija Puhka.



4.1 Basic research, scientific novelty, and collaborative science

    In a public lecture at the University of Helsinki, researcher Rienk
Nieuwland described EVs as the “sleeping beauties of science” that con-
tain “clinically relevant but unexplored information” (Fieldnotes,
18.6.2016). This characterization exemplifies how EVs are charged with
expectations of medical applications while they simultaneously stand for
scientific exploration and discovery and thus are an ‘epistemic thing’
(Rheinberger 1997). Epistemic things are both “material entities … that
constitute the objects of inquiry” and entities characterized by vagueness,
since they “embody what one does not yet know” (Rheinberger 1997, 28).
In the words of Rheinberger (1997, 27), a researcher works “with a whole
experimental arrangement designed to produce knowledge that is not yet
16                                                             Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

at his disposal”. Finnish researchers also highlighted this aspect:

           We just had a meeting of the International Society of Extracel-
       lular Vesicles at Rotterdam. You could see there that there is hype
       about the utilization and application of EVs. But there is still so
       much we do not understand about what they are and what they do
       and how they work and where they go… So it is important to do
       basic research so that we understand what we are utilizing. (Re-
       search partner)

    For Finnish researchers, conducting ‘basic’ work with EVs means
working in a technology-intensive research field. Accordingly, a lot of
their expectations focus on development work in terms of standardization,
reference materials, and technology (e.g., Palviainen et al. 2017, 78).
When talking about their work with EVs as ‘basic research’ or ‘basic sci-
ence’, researchers emphasize the need for technologies that enable ad-
vances in scientific exploration with EVs, ultimately making discovery
possible.
    In Finland and elsewhere, EV research is considered a developing
field. The researchers still have significant tasks ahead in terms of stand-
ardization, validation, and development of methods and techniques – for
example, in the purification and characterization of EVs (Kalra, Drum-
men, and Mathivanan 2016; Mateescu et al. 2017; Théry et al. 2018). EV
preparations become easily contaminated (Mateescu et al. 2017; Théry et
al. 2018), and it is not known “how many functionally distinct subtypes
[of EVs] there may be” (Mateescu et al. 2017, 2) or in how many ways
they differ (Kalra, Drummen, and Mathivanan 2016, 2, 18-19). Indeed,
even being sure that one has vesicles in a sample is a challenge. Thus,
working with EVs incorporates the classic experimental dynamics of sci-
ence, as presented by Rheinberger (1997). When describing their work,
Finnish EV researchers emphasize the quest for a variety of elements that
Rheinberger (1997) calls technical objects, “characteristically determined
within the given standards of purity and precision”. Technical objects are
a precondition for experiments that might produce epistemic things, and
therefore they “determine the realm of possible representations” of what
is under study (Rheinberger 1997, 29). Similarly, Miettinen (1998, 431)
has pointed out that “an object (a microbe, an instrument, a theoretical
model, a sample of cellulose substrate) can be either a means or an object
in research activity”.
    The consortium’s scientific efforts were mainly oriented towards de-
veloping and improving technical objects in Rheinberger’s sense (1997) –
or the means of research activity, as suggested by Miettinen (1998) – and
an EV as an epistemic thing is also necessarily implied in this view. By a
focus on the improvement of methods and techniques of detection, meas-
urement, and classification of EVs and by the setting of standards, both
scientific discovery and practical applications became possible to consider
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                    17
and reach for. Thus, concentration on technical objects was a priority, de-
spite the promise EVs carry – for example, in “how they contribute to
metastasis in cancer” (research partner). EV scientists in Finland were in-
clined to evaluate research in this field as tending to be ahead of itself,
even when “basics… like storage life, measuring, and standardization
[were] missing – or not missing, but deficient” (research partner). How-
ever, this tendency is simultaneously the beauty of the field.
            This is a new and developing scientific field; everything is still
        in development, which is rare. And that excites me; everything is
        new and surprising, and it’s almost like whatever you find or don’t
        find you can report as a scientific outcome. (Research partner)

    The emphasis on technical objects was especially prominent in the
consortium sector called ‘the storage study’. This R&D work package
concentrated on studying how EVs behave – that is, their quality and
functionality, for example in red blood cells and platelets and in urine
(see Figure 1.) – during and after storage at certain time points. The prior
objectives of the study were rather practical, as a commercial partner set
the task of searching for “advanced indicators of the functionality of
blood products” and testing “how much information EVs can give of the
condition of the blood products” (SalWe 2013, 100). This, however, was
simultaneously considered basic research, essential to furthering the field.
For example, rather than searching for a new blood product per se, a
commercial partner wanted to learn whether vesicles could yield new in-
formation about already-existing items:
             We are trying to find out and clarify what really happens in the
        bag [of blood product] from the perspective of the vesicle. Quite
        the basics, that’s what this has been all about, and then whether
        there is the possibility of finding a specific vesicle or certain vesicle
        classes – or their content – that could serve as markers. (Commer-
        cial partner)

    The storage study highlighted that basic knowledge and standardiza-
tion are needed in this field, in terms both of potential epistemic things
and of developing and stabilizing technical objects. Even though the
commercial goals in life science research are often seen as leading to more
‘applied’ and ‘utility-oriented’ science (see e.g., Glenna et al. 2011 for a
discussion on the commercialization of university research), this EV pro-
ject was always framed and described as predominantly ‘basic research’ by
the interviewees. This view is congruent with the findings of social science
research about scientists’ different uses of the term. Calvert (2004; 2006)
argues that scientists tend to describe their work as ‘basic research’ flexi-
bly and with a considerable amount of ambiguity. According to Calvert
(2006, 200), “scientists can use the term to protect themselves from evalu-
ation and demands for applicability, and in this way use it to protect their
interests.” One way to use the term ‘basic research’ that Calvert (2004,
18                                                                Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

256-257) identifies is related precisely to underlining the epistemic goal of
producing new knowledge on something yet unknown. Thus, ‘basic re-
search’ as a description may be used flexibly depending on the context,
for alleviation of pressures or creation of shared understanding about the
state of the research. In the interviews we conducted, it was even suggest-
ed that given the funders’ expectations of the life sciences, the kind of
basic work done in this consortium would probably not have received
funding in more ‘scientific’ funding calls. A common understanding
among participants was that life science research proposals need to be ‘fu-
ture-oriented’ (research partner) and show novelty, yet plans of further
research building on the work done in the storage study seemingly lacked
both elements.
            This field still needs a lot of basic research … We tried to get
       continued funding [for work] related to this study; the funding
       application proceeded pretty far, but in the end we received a re-
       jection because it was said there was not enough novelty in this.
       And here we have a true misconception, because we truly have
       something new in it. Yet people just think that, yeah, the vesicles
       have been studied, but they do not realize what exactly about them
       has been studied. (Research partner)

     R&D collaboration between academic and commercial partners pro-
vided the necessary resources for the storage study, although one research
partner had the opinion that even research groups would probably not
undertake it as their primary task because they “hardly consider[ed] it
that exciting”. Moreover, the storage study required time, and ‘partner-
ship’ funding within the SalWe program was able to provide just that.
Concretely, this meant, for example, continuation of employment, as the
project was able to hire the people who actually conducted the analyses
for the duration of the study. The data collection itself took more than
two years because the samples were followed up to the two-year time
point. On top of that, there were the analytical and reporting phases.
Normally, “a research group does not have so much time to wait for the
results”, concluded a research partner.
     Due to profound work in the storage study, the participants expected
that the published article based on the results of the study would be scien-
tifically valuable. They believed that this kind of research paper could be
widely cited, as it would establish a common reference in the field.
           It is then a generally applicable reference that we stored our
       vesicles in a freezer for two years, and as has previously been
       shown, the vesicles survived. It is actually quite bizarre that no one
       has done such persevering work before, since it is the case that, for
       many labs, samples are kept a few years in a freezer. So everyone
       just assumes that the vesicles survive, but we can show that they
       really do. It is an important cornerstone for research. (Research
       partner)
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                 19

    However, this project was not just a safe haven for doing something
that could be characterized as basic research. All the academic partners
agreed that the involvement of commercial partners had an impact on the
way the project was targeted and on the work carried out. The hybridiza-
tion of the research object comes to the fore in the parallel necessities for
an “industry-orientation” and production of “basic understanding and
knowledge” (Miettinen 1998, 436). The academic partners also felt that
the company partners had a different mindset, which the academics be-
came familiar with and learned from during collaboration. Meanwhile, the
company partners also acknowledged the need to create basic building
blocks and undertake a both technical and epistemic groundwork for fur-
ther knowledge production and utilization in the field of EV R&D. A dis-
cussion between two commercial partners exemplifies this:
            Partner A: By approaching this from a basic research perspec-
        tive, we cannot go wrong. … In any case, we have displayed une-
        quivocally that the vesicles are there – for instance, in the prepara-
        tions – and they are increasing. They have significance.
            Partner B: This is not just in our heads!
            Partner A: But whether it makes any difference and whether it
        brings any utility in an applied or medical sense, that we do not
        know. But one of our goals is to find out what happens there.
            (Commercial partner)

    In general, Finnish EV research consortium partners talked a lot about
the focus on the ‘basic’. However, they also saw their basic work – both
scientific exploration and development of research technology – as insep-
arably attached to a more practical quest for EVs’ usability and commer-
cial potential. One way to understand this relationship is to think of the
basic research as creating conditions for further utilization and future col-
laborations. In this context, the EVs appear as technical object:
            If we use vesicles as biomarkers, then that is what we are loo-
        king at right now, this aging, aging of the product: can we some-
        how define that with the help of the vesicles? Through either their
        content or the number of the vesicles? (Research partner)

   The researchers also approached their work from more of an overview
perspective. From this angle, they aligned the utility potential of EVs, the
importance of technical objects in R&D on EVs, and the meaning of the
EVs as an epistemic thing. As Tuunainen (2005, 287) wrote in his study
on a biotechnology case, “theoretical, experimental and applied con-
cerns” ran throughout the whole EV project. This involved more than just
describing the same research as ‘basic’ here and ‘applied’ there depending
on the audience (see e.g., Calvert 2006). An academic researcher reasoned
over the manifold interests rooted in their efforts:
20                                                               Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)
           At the same time as we produce utility or try to search for so-
       mething the companies could utilize, we have to set up certain
       things so that we understand, methodologically, what we have. We
       cannot just take something and say that this is how it is; we have to
       know it exactly. And as these methods are very much in their early
       stages, at the same time, we have been interested in EVs in general:
       what they are and what they do and why. All of this knowledge has
       been valuable to us. (Research partner)

4.2 Biomarkers and antibodies for the clinics and for research

    One of the working packages in the EV consortium was related to
identifying possible biomarkers and developing an antibody4 that could
become a new product for a commercial partner. Scientific interest lay in
discovering simultaneously whether EVs could be a source of biomarkers
for prostate cancer and whether certain sources of biomarkers work bet-
ter for the different stages of cancer: for example, whether urine is a bet-
ter source for early stages and plasma a better source for later stages
(SalWe 2013). Thus, an objective of the project was to study “EVs in dif-
ferent body fluids” to see if there was the potential to “differentiate be-
tween slow-growing and aggressive” prostate cancers by the source of the
EVs (SalWe 2013, 101).
    Exploring the development of an antibody, a commercial partner
started to work on vesicle pools derived from the scientific partners. Some
of the derived antibodies showed promise from the beginning, and one of
the first tasks was to choose which antibodies would be chosen for further
testing and development. As some of the antibodies seemed to recognize
something, the task became to identify what exactly the ‘something’ was
which was recognized.
    This illustrates the hybridization of the EVs as a research object. It was
approached both as a potential scientific novelty and as a possible com-
mercial product. At the same time, the goal is indicative of the loop be-
tween epistemic things and technical objects (Rheinberger 1997). When
an epistemic object becomes known and stabilized – as an antibody po-
tentially could, once identified and standardized – it is possible for the
same antibody to become part of the basic equipment on which further
research and scientific exploration are built: that is, a technical object
(Rheinberger 1997).
    Simultaneous commercial and academic pursuits mean, in practice,
that the same potential results concerning antibodies and what they rec-
ognize have a different significance for different partners. For example, a
commercial partner developing and selling antibodies is not interested
solely in markers for specific types of cancer or specific diseases, even if
those markers were the program’s initial focus. For the company, an anti-
body that “sticks fast and never let’s go” could be optimal for develop-
ment into a new product, regardless of whether it strictly relates to pros-
Tarkkala & Helén                                                               21
tate cancer. For academic partners, a good result could also be identifying
an antibody and what it recognizes. In addition, an interest in these anti-
bodies from outside the joint project raised concern over whether some-
one else might publish scientifically relevant results prior to the scientific
partners involved in the project doing so. Concern also arose over wheth-
er further collaboration with the SalWe partners would occur. However,
the company sees more data and information on the substance as greater
validation in terms of developing the substance into an actual product.
    A research partner suggested that the antibodies could have twofold
uses. For example, no good antibodies currently exist that would widely
recognize vesicles, so this kind of substance would enhance practical work
in research laboratories, even if it does not make it to clinical use.
            If we found one [that recognizes antigens from the vesicle’s
        surface], we could use it to characterize the concentration or num-
        ber of vesicles or [use it] in the purification [of samples]. … But,
        yes, originally the idea was that the antibodies would recognize
        prostate cancer, and there can still be such antibodies, but we just
        are not there yet. (Research partner)

    Thus, for diagnostic potential, the antibodies could become technical
objects in the orchestration of scientific experiments. A research partner
reflecting on this twofold quality said:
            I have been interested in whether something for the resear-
        chers would come up, but of course we should know what [the an-
        tibodies] recognize. And then the diagnostics is a separate thing:
        what can be discovered in terms of the cancer. We have two pro-
        spects here. (Research partner)

    Chronologically, scientific and commercial fields do not necessarily
proceed with results at the same pace. For example, commercial partners
focus on patents first, which may take a long time. Scientific partners,
however, must publish results as soon as possible to gain academic merit.
Furthermore, what exactly the scientific partners could publish in this
case – for example, regarding the antibody development – was under ne-
gotiation. As mentioned earlier, a highlight would have been actually
identifying what the antibody recognizes. Even without that knowledge,
however, a technically oriented publication could simply report on “how-
to-do” vesicle antibodies because, as a research partner observed, “now
we have shown that there are quite a lot of methods by which vesicles may
be recognized”. This situation also relates to working methods in a col-
laborative R&D project; the scientists were expected to wrap up data the
project had collected so far instead of answering further questions the re-
sults presented.
    Additionally, the GiD program’s funding was reduced, and its dura-
tion was cut by a year in 2016. Thus, the EV consortium needed to nar-
row its focus. One element that was dropped was identifying a potential
22                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

diagnostic prostate cancer biomarker by sequencing cancer tissue vesicles’
RNA or miRNA. The idea was to isolate specific prostate cancer vesicles
from the prostate cancer tissue because other vesicles in this project origi-
nated from blood or urea. This work was abandoned, and the whole work
package’s prospect slightly changed because time was running out. None-
theless, the situation evolved similarly to how the project had proceeded:
the work’s paths and directions were always based on results from earlier
analyses, followed by an agreement on the necessary ensuing steps. This
way, the object of study nudged the research interests in certain directions:
            Largely, we conduct experiments, see what kind of results we
       got, and then consider how to move forward with them. It is sort
       of like hand to mouth, the result dictates which way to go. (Com-
       mercial partner)

    Identifying an antibody and its possible uses was one task that re-
mained after the cuts in funding and project duration. It was hoped that
the academics could eventually continue with the topics of academic in-
terest to them, but, at the same time, realities had to be faced: the funds to
continue might not exist outside of this work package because the “pipet-
ting budget” of the SalWe project enabled university partners to continue
without “having to think every time whether or not to do [something]”
because of the price of reagents and other necessities in the work (re-
search partner). Furthermore, funds for salaries might not exist, which
would mean the expertise could disappear as people moved to other or-
ganizations and labs (research partner). The commercial partners also
might be unable to continue their work on EVs because they depended
on their research partners for things such as procuring vesicles. If identi-
fying what an antibody recognizes requires vesicles, then gaining a supply
while outside the joint program could become a challenge (commercial
partner).

4.3 The Core facility and continuity

    As noted in the storage study’s context, even researchers have trouble
being certain they are dealing with EVs. Multiple tests are often done to
verify the analysis really studies what it is supposed to study (e.g., Puhka
et al. 2017). Consequently, one result of the GiD program’s work package
on EVs was founding the EV Core. This continued work from other pro-
jects, but realizing a centralized facility became possible as the GiD inten-
sified connections between involved partners. Based on the expertise of
scientific partners, the Core was to be launched in 2016. In short, the idea
was to help “people know whether they have vesicles in their samples or
not”. The Core was planned to offer expertise, isolation, quantification,
analysis services, RNA isolation and sequencing, and consultation on EV
studies. Equipment and machines were crucial. For example, “the espe-
Tarkkala & Helén                                                            23
cially sensitive flow cytometry” was obtained for researchers at the univer-
sity and could now be utilized via the Core’s service. A research partner
summarized: “There are so many research groups nowadays who need
concentration analysis, but do not have money nor willingness to buy the
device.”
    Knowledge, expertise, and the ability to use devices like the Apogee
A50-Micro flow cytometry or electron microscope had engendered sug-
gestions about collaboration, so founding the Core facility service seemed
a logical response in this situation. This response meant that “one could
do small business and, perhaps, guarantee oneself a more stable income”,
instead of trying to collaborate with everyone (research partner).




                   Figure 2. The EV Core as presented on their web page5.


    The EV Core started operation in 2016 (Palviainen et al. 2017) as “the
world’s first EV Core” providing “infrastructure, state-of-the-art and
emerging EV-technologies for research groups, hospitals, companies and
authorities in the EV-field” as well as “diverse EV isolation, purification
and characterization services and […] contacts to various downstream anal-
yses in other core facilities”5. On its web page, the Core appeared as an ana-
lytical technology platform for EV research (Figure 2). The SalWe pro-
gram’s participants saw the Core as a result that, according to a commercial
partner, “stabilizes this field in Finland” and “internationally brings aware-
ness that we have such a centre of expertise here”. Simultaneously, the EV
Core is also a space to develop, for example, isolation methods (Palviainen
et al. 2017), to participate in standardization and validation work, and to
gain insights into current events in the field. Along with the instruments at
hand, the Core provides a chance to do research and, hopefully, to build
personal career continuity inside the home institution. It also offers an op-
portunity to “stay abreast of what sort of things people are doing” with EVs
(research partner) while simultaneously offering services that meet their
24                                                                Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

needs (research partner). In a sense, founding the Core service is simultane-
ously an inevitable part of doing research and ensuring the research’s con-
tinuation, again illustrating the EV’s hybridization. Conceptually, the EV
and the EV Core include the dimension of a ‘where-to’ artefact. Miettinen
(1998) introduced this conceptualization precisely to describe how research
groups build continuation and intentionality into their work.
    The Core’s main goal is not to make a profit per se (Palviainen et al.
2017, 78) as long as it can “sustain itself” (research partner). Moreover,
the Core’s technological intensiveness is inseparable from expertise inten-
siveness. The Core connects specific expertise with specific technologies
and devices as it aligns partners to collaborate with each other:
            There are vesicles. But since we still do not specifically know
       precisely what they are, this EV Core is unquestionably important
       […]. It should be developed and invested in because, as said, this
       field is so difficult, requiring specific equipment and instruments,
       the development of the instruments, of analytic software, every-
       thing like that for us to [make it work] […]. We cannot distribute
       this to many different places in a country this small. (Commercial
       partner)

     At the end of the SalWe program, the continuation of the EV Core fa-
cility service faced a challenging situation. Continued funding was not
guaranteed for researchers who had been hands-on during the analyses.
Thus, how to move forward was uncertain, even though laying the foun-
dations for continuity was one prime goal for establishing the EV Core in
the first place. Additionally, the key researchers’ expertise with the
equipment and with hands-on work with vesicles proved to be the Core’s
actual asset.
           This Core, certain devices are connected to it. But, first and fo-
       remost, we, the researchers, have the expertise, which cannot be
       taken away from us [even] if we give the devices to someone who
       knows how they work but not how this is related to vesicles. …
       There have to be the people who know what to do with them, and
       both of those instruments are really challenging, not easy to auto-
       mate, like press this button and the answer comes. Instead, you
       have to understand how you adjust them, how you put the settings,
       and what you get out of it, and then there is still a lot of tuning up.
       And then, for example, how to purify them [vesicles] so that con-
       tamination will not become a source of error. We measure really
       small particles that contaminate if your buffers are, for example,
       not filtered. Yeah, we cannot, for instance, take people here to
       measure with those devices without first educating them extensive-
       ly about how to do it. (Research partner)

   The urgency related to funding was especially connected to expertise.
Funding cuts tend to yield a situation in which personnel are no longer
available when funding returns; such a situation “would require us to get
Tarkkala & Helén                                                            25
the same people back; we cannot start this all again from nothing” (re-
search partner). The above block quote emphasizes that expertise com-
bining technical and scientific matters with craft cannot be adopted over-
night (see Meskus 2018). A research partner explained that, even with
someone eager to learn EV techniques and interested in joining the EV
Core’s crew, considerable time is needed to master the devices and the
craft.
           You learn with your eyes and you learn from different samples.
        I am also learning all the time while I work, but I have a lot of
        grounding with which I can compare. So it is a bit… I might have
        time to educate a new person on some level, but in order to offer
        someone’s work as a Core service, that requires time and careful
        consideration. (Research partner)

    Along with the availability of expertise and skilled personnel, the fast
pace of technological development posed a challenge – technological de-
velopment makes instruments and devices outdated eventually. In this
sense, a research partner stated a need to “step on the gas”, because the
interest in the EV Core has been promising, but more efficient and better
equipment will enter the field at some point. To progress and stay rele-
vant, one must follow developments, receive funding, and keep skilled
persons on board. These issues are crucial for the EV Core to stabilize it-
self as a long-term, meaningful, well-known, and high-quality service.


5. Conclusions
    Our analysis of EV research in Finland shows that, because science
and R&D are entangled in the financing, organization, and everyday prac-
tices of EV research, the EVs are simultaneously thought of and enacted
as many kinds of objects. Therefore, they are a hybrid by expectations.
The EVs act as a genuine scientific object, ‘an epistemic thing’ (Rhein-
berger 1997). Their physiological functions and the biological mecha-
nisms in which they are involved are not fully known; consequently, scien-
tists think pursuing ‘basic’ research on EVs may lead to scientific discov-
eries in molecular biology and biomedicine when technology and research
methods allow for new knowledge to be crafted. At the same time, re-
searchers are working on stabilizing EVs and on the methods to observe
and manipulate them, so EVs can serve as a tool for scientific research, ‘a
technical object’ (Rheinberger 1997) enabling new knowledge and discov-
ery. Technical and epistemic stabilization, or even standardization, of EVs
also has a clinical arm. The expectation of EVs becoming biomarkers for
detection of, for example, cancer and EV-related biotechnology becoming
clinically useful are central to the research of the Finnish EV consortium.
The clinical aspect closely relates to the commercial one: for company
partners, research on EVs allows the development of EV-related products
26                                                                Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

for biomedical research and for the clinical market. From their perspec-
tive, EVs as biomarkers associate with a future biomedical commodity6.
    Finally, the EVs as research object are enacted in the Finnish consor-
tium as something upon which to build the continuity and sustainability
of this life science specialty (Miettinen 1998). By developing and main-
taining the EV Core as a SalWe project spin-off, EV scientists believe they
can strengthen their research’s financial and scientific foundations. They
reason that providing technical services and expertise in research methods
for ‘EV issues’ to other biomedical research groups can sustain research
collaboration, help them follow developments in the field, and even gain
revenue. This would enable further development of the SalWe project’s
work and reinforce the position and capabilities of Finnish scholars in
emerging life sciences and biotechnology fields.
    The EV object has prospects in all these fields. Within biomedical
R&D, the EV’s promise includes various modalities. Epistemically, the
EVs are unknown and have potential for scientific novelty; as prospective
biomarkers, they offer promise or even a ‘dream’ of clinical and commer-
cial utilization; as a stimulus for developing research techniques and
methods, they support sustainability. EVs exist and are worked upon
primarily through their potential, reflecting an overall orientation towards
choreographed ‘future making’ (see Rheinberger 1997) in EV research
and in biomedical R&D. Academic and commercial partners both repeat-
edly emphasized this collaboration’s predominant ‘basic research orienta-
tion’, but the rhetoric of future uses and benefits brought focus to diag-
nostic and clinical utilization in a life science project. The current work
simultaneously performs the expectation of eventual translation even
while the work concerns taking the first steps in the domain. A research
partner of the Finnish EV consortium pointed out this configuration:
           When thinking about applying for funding and so on, the ap-
       plications must be very future-oriented, and so when the grant ap-
       plications are written the potential usability of the results [in the
       future] must be very thoroughly thought through. One always tries
       to consider the potential usability of the results, but especially
       when it comes to the specificity of this field in which even the very
       basics are still part of the search, the preservation of samples is ex-
       tremely important to know and explore. (Research partner)

   Notably, the aspect of future-making also seems to have the power to
prevent tensions regarding hybrid practices and alliances in EV research
from escalating and thus paralyzing the project. As researchers share an
idea that they are working upon something in a state of becoming, the
EVs can simultaneously exist as many kinds of objects (scientific, tech-
nical, clinical, and commercial), which does not cause a problem with
R&D activities because potential controversies or mismatching goals need
not be resolved now. In other words, looking forward allows the suspen-
sion of such matters.
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                27
    In a parallel way, the focus on the technicality of EV research facilitat-
ed the maintenance of unity and the solidity of the consortium’s work,
which had multiple directions. It included and aligned scientific pursuits,
efforts to develop items or methods for clinical or commercial use, and
the organization of a facility providing biomedical research services. Ac-
cording to the researchers, the EV is predominantly a technical matter in
these three areas. They emphasized that work on EVs primarily concerns
technology and methods. Consequently, the crucial question concerns
what is allowed by research techniques and devices, whether expertise ex-
ists in certain analyses and methods, how EV preparations were crafted,
the available reagents, and how to validate the results. Technicality pro-
vided a common ground for the consortium partners’ diverse pursuits.
            B: We all have our own [focus], but then we share the object
        of study…
            A: In this work package, there has been a good situation be-
        cause it is so clear that we all have our own interests, so we do not
        have worry. We can share the whole technology topic. We can
        share many things...
            B: … and all the results we get.
            A: Yes, because we know that we all have our own domains,
        but then there is also the intersecting zone. (Commercial partners)

     To conclude, the hybridity that characterizes much of contemporary
life science results from the amalgamation of elements and domains usual-
ly considered distinct: academic and corporate elements, public and pri-
vate elements, scientific quests, clinical utility, and commercial pursuit.
This subverting of traditional boundaries concerns the financing and or-
ganization of research and its concrete practices and objects. As our anal-
ysis of Finnish EV research shows, hybrid research practices simultane-
ously pursue various objectives, and the object of the research is manifold.
Therefore, the practice and the object of life science again show the con-
ventional distinction between basic and applied science is less apt to de-
scribe the actual undertaking.
     Two of our observations on such entanglements are particularly im-
portant. First, the promissory ethos with which EV research was imprint-
ed and the emphasis on its technical character were crucial for unifying
the heterogeneous elements and objectives of EV research and mostly
prevented epistemic and other tensions. Second, subverting the demarca-
tion between basic (academic) and applied (clinical and/or commercial)
research did not subsume the scientific quest to clinical or commercial
utility. On the contrary, research and commercial partners saw EV re-
search as an emerging and immature life sciences field, so they empha-
sized that the consortium’s work was predominantly ‘basic science’. The
rationale was that biomedical companies need basic knowledge of EV sci-
ence, and the academics were there to provide such knowledge. A bit
surprisingly, academic partners were very content with the financing and
28                                                               Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

collaboration the hybrid formation provided. This arrangement allowed
them to do ‘basic science’ via investigation and experiments focused on
the basic biology of the EV and via basic research techniques and meth-
ods. According to them, such research ‘lacks novelty’ and is therefore un-
likely to attract public research funding. However, this work also provides
the only route to the expected innovations.



     Acknowledgements
    We would like to thank our informants who participated in this study and
Maija Puhka for the permission to use the picture of extracellular vesicles. We al-
so want to thank dr. Ingrid Metzler for her helpful comments on the earlier ver-
sion of this article as well as the anonymous reviewers for their comments and
suggestions. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland (project No
292408) and the Kone Foundation.



     References

Aarden, E. (2017) Making value(s) through social contracts for biomedical popu-
   lation research, in V. Pavone and J. Goven (eds), Bioeconomies. Life technol-
   ogy and capital in the 21th century, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 161-184.
Beltrame, L. and Hauskeller, C. (2018) Assets, Commodities and Biosocialities: Mul-
    tiple Biovalues in Hybrid Biobanking Practice, in “Tecnoscienza”, 9(2), pp. 5-31.
Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K. and van Lente, H. (2006) The Sociology of
   Expectations in Science and Technology in “Technology Analysis & Strategic
   Management”, 18(3-4), pp. 285-298
Brown, N. (2003) Hope Against Hype-Accountability in Biopasts, Presents and
   Futures, in “Science & Technology Studies” 16(2), pp. 3–21.
Brown, N. and Michael, M. (2003) A Sociology of Expectations: Retrospecting
   Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects, in “Technology Analysis & Strategic
   Management, 15(1), pp. 3–18.
Brown, N., Kraft, A. and Martin, P. (2006) The Promissory Pasts of Blood Stem
   Cells, in “BioSocieties”, 1, pp. 329-348.
Calvert, J. (2004) The Idea of ‘Basic Research’ in Language and Practice, in “Mi-
   nerva”, 42(3), pp. 251-268.
Calvert, J. (2006) What’s Special about Basic Research?, in “Science, Technology,
   & Human Values”, 31(2), pp. 199-220.
Tarkkala & Helén                                                               29
Cambrosio, A., Keating, P., Schlich, T. and Weisz, G. (2006) Regulatory Objectiv-
   ity and the Generation and Management of Evidence in Medicine, in “Social
   Science & Medicine”, 63(1), pp. 189-199.
Cambrosio, A., Keating, P., Bourret, P., Mustar, P. and Rogers, S. (2009a) Ge-
   nomic Platforms and Hybrid Formations, in P. Atkinson, P. Glasner and M.
   Lock (eds.) Handbook of Genetics and Society,NewYork, Routledge, pp. 502-
   520.
Cambrosio, A., Keating, P., Schlich, T. and Weisz, G. (2009b) Biomedical Con-
   ventions and Regulatory Objectivity a few Introductory Remarks, in “Social
   Studies of Science”, 39(5), pp. 651-664.
Cambrosio, A., Keating, P., Vignola-Gagné, E., Besle, S. and Bourret, P. (2018)
    Extending Experimentation: Oncology’s Fading Boundary Between Research
    and Care, in “New Genetics and Society”, 37(3), pp. 207-226.
Cantwell, B. and Kauppinen, I. (2014) Academic Capitalism in the Age of Global-
   ization, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Casper, M. (1998) The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal
   Surgery, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press.
Clarke, A.E., Shim, J., Mamo, L., Fosket, J.K. and Fishman, J.R. (2003) Biomedi-
    calization: Technoscientific Transformations of Health, Illness, and U.S. Bio-
    medicine, in “American Sociological Review”, 68(2), pp. 161-194.
Cooper, M. (2008) Life as Surplus. Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliber-
   al Era, Seattle & London, University of Washington Press.
Etzkowitz, H. (1998) The Norms of Entrepreneurial Science: Cognitive Effects of
   the new University–Industry Linkages, in “Research Policy”, 27, pp. 823-833.
Etzkowitz, H. (2008) The Triple Helix: University-Industry-Government Innova-
   tion in Action, London, Routledge.
Etzkowitz, H., Webster, A. and Healey, P. (eds.) (1998) Capitalizing Knowledge:
   New Intersections of Industry and Academia, Albany, State University of New
   York Press.
Fischer, M. (2013) Biopolis: Asian Science in the Global Circuitry, in “Science,
    Technology and Society”, 18(3), pp. 379-404.
Fortun, M. (2008) Promising Genomics. Iceland and deCODE Genetics in a
   World of Speculation, San Francisco, University of California Press.
Frello, B. (2012) Cultural Hybridity, in The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics.
    London: Blackwell Publishing.
Gardner, J., Webster, A. and Mittra, J. (2017) The ‘Entrepreunial State’ and the
   Levereging of Life in the Field of Regenerative Medicine, in V. Pavone and J.
30                                                               Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

     Goven (eds.) Bioeconomies, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 25-48.
Gibbons, M., Imonges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M.
   (1994) The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Re-
   search in Contemporary Societies, London, Sage.
Glenna, L., Welsh, R., Ervin, D., Lacy, W. and Biscotti, D. (2011) Commercial
   Science, Scientists’ Values, and University Biotechnology Research Agendas,
   in “Research Policy” 40(7), pp. 957-968.
Holmberg, T., Schwennesen, N. and Webster, A. (2011) Bio-objects and the bio-
   objectification process, in “Croat Med J.”, 52(6), pp. 740-742.
Hauskeller, C. and Beltrame, L. (2016a) The Hybrid Bioeconomy of Umbilical
     Cord Blood Banking: Re-Examining the Narrative of Opposition Between
     Public and Private Services, in “BioSocieties”, 11(4), pp. 415-434.
Hauskeller, C. and Beltrame, L. (2016b) Hybrid Practices in Cord Blood Banking:
   Rethinking the Commodification of Human Tissues in the Bioeconomy, in
   “New Genetics and Society”, 35(3), pp. 228-245.
Helén, I. (2013) Elämän politiikka biologisen muokattavuuden aikakaudella. En-
   simmäinen kartoitus, in “Sosiologia”, 50(4), pp. 327-341.
Jacob, F.(1982) The Logic of Life, New York, Pantheon.
Johnston, R. and Edwards, C. (1987) Entrepreneurial Science, Westport, CT,
   Quorum Books.
Kalra, H., Simpson, R.J., Ji, H., Aikawa, E., Altevogt, P., Askenase, P., Bond, V.C.
   et al. (2012) Vesiclepedia: A Compendium for Extracellular Vesicles With
   Continuous Community Annotation, in “PLoS biology”, 10(12), p.e1001450.
Kalra, H., Drummen, G.P. and Mathivanan, S. (2016) Focus on Extracellular Ves-
   icles: Introducing the Next Small Big Thing, in “International journal of mo-
   lecular sciences”, 17(2), p. 170.
Keating, P. and Cambrosio, A. (2003) Biomedical Platforms: Realigining the
   Normal and the Pathological in Late-twentieth-century Medicine, Cambridge,
   The MIT Press.
Kleinman, D.L. and Vallas, S.P. (2001) Science, Capitalism, and the Rise of the
     “Knowledge Worker”: The Changing Structure of Knowledge Production in
     the United States, in “Theory and Society”, 30, pp. 451-492.
Kraidy M (2005) Hybridity, or the Cultural Logic of Globalization. Philadelphia:
   Temple University Press.
Martin, P. (2015) Commercialising Neurofutures: Promissory Economies, Value
   Creation and the Making af a New Industry, in “BioSocieties”, 10, pp. 422-
   443.
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                    31
Mateescu, B., Kowal, E., van Balkom, B., Bartel, S., Bhattacharyya, S., Buzás, E.,
   Buck, A. et al. (2017) Obstacles and Opportunities in the Functional Analysis
   of Extracellular Vesicle RNA – An ISEV Position Paper, in “Journal of Extra-
   cellular Vesicles”, 6(1). DOI: 10.1080/20013078.2017.1286095
Meskus, M. (2018) Craft in Biomedical Research: The iPS Cell Technology and
   the Future of Stem Cell Science Craft, London, Palgrave Macmillan.
Metzler, I. and Webster, A. (2011) Bio-objects and their Boundaries: Governing
   Matters at the Intersection of Society, Politics, and Science, in “Croatian Med-
   ical Journal”, 52(5), pp. 648-650.
Miettinen, R. (1998) Object Construction and Networks in Research Work: The
   Case of Research on Cellulose-Degrading Enzymes, in “Social Studies of Sci-
   ence”, 28(3), pp. 423-463.
Miettinen, R. (2002) National Innovation System. Scientific concept or Political
   Rhetoric, Helsinki, Edita.
Mittra, J. (2016) The New Health Bioeconomy. R&D Policy and Innovation for
   the Twenty-First Century, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mittra, J. and Milne, C.P. (2013) Translational medicine. The Future of Therapy?,
   Singapore, Pan Stanford Publishing.
Morrison, M. (2012) Promissory Futures and Possible Pasts: The Dynamics of
  Contemporary Expectations in Regenerative Medicine, in “BioSocieties”, 7,
  pp. 3-22.
Ning, A. (2012) Epistemic Hybridity: TCM’s Knowledge Production in Canadian
   Contexts, in C. Brosnan, P. Vuolanto and J.-A. Brodin Danell (eds.) Comple-
    mentary and Alternative Medicine: Knowledge Production and Social Trans-
    formation, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 247-272.
Ong, A. (2016) Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life, Durham,
  Duke University Press.
Owen-Smith, J. and Powell, W.W. (2001) Careers and Contradictions: Faculty
  Responses to the Transformation of Knowledge and Its Uses in the Life Sciences,
  in S. Vallas (ed.) The Transformation of Work (Research in the Sociology of
  Work, Volume 10), Bingley, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 109-140.
Palviainen, M., Valkonen, S., Lindelöf, A., Puhka, M. and Siljander, P. (2017)
    Solunulkoiset vesikkelit - isoja asioita pienessä paketissa, in “Kliin lab”, 34(4),
    pp. 75-79.
Pavone, V. and Goven, J. (eds.) (2017) Bioeconomies: Life, Technology, and Cap-
   ital in the 21st Century, London, Palgrave.
Penders, B., Parker, J.N. and Vermeulen, N. (2015) When Scientists, Scholars,
   Clinicians, Physicians and Patients Meet, in B. Penders, N. Vermeulen & JN.
32                                                               Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

     Parker (eds.) Collaboration Across Health Research and Medical Care.
     Healthy Collaboration, Surrey and Burlington, Ashgate, pp. 3-12.
Petersen, A. and Krisjansen, I. (2015) Assembling ‘the Bioeconomy’: Exploiting
   the Power of the Promissory Life Sciences, in “Journal of Sociology”, 51(1),
   pp. 28-46.
Powell, W., Koput, K. and Smith-Doerr, L. (1996) Interorganizational Collabora-
   tion and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology, in
   “Administrative Science Quarterly”, pp. 41(1), pp. 116-145.
Powell, W. and Owen-Smith, J. (1998) Universities and the Market for Intellectu-
   al Property in the Life Sciences, in “Journal of Policy Analysis and Manage-
   ment”, 17(2), pp. 253-277.
Powell, W., White, D., Koput, K. and Owen-Smith, J. (2005) Network Dynamics
     and Field Evolution: The Growth of Interorganizational Collaboration in the
     Life Sciences, in “American Journal of Sociology”, 110, pp. 1132-1205.
Puhka, M., Takatalo, M., Nordberg, M. E., Valkonen, S., Nandania, J., Aatonen,
   M., and af Hällström, T. M. (2017) Metabolomic profiling of extracellular ves-
     icles and alternative normalization methods reveal enriched metabolites and
     strategies to study prostate cancer-related changes, in "Theranostics", 7(16),
     pp. 3824-3841.
Rabinow, P. and Dan-Cohen, T. (2005) A Machine to Make a Future, Princeton,
   Princeton University Press.
Raposo, G. and Stoorvogel, W. (2013) Extracellular Vesicles: Exosomes, Mi-
   crovesicles, and Friends, “Journal of Cell Biology”, 200(4), pp. 373-383.
Rheinberger, H.J. (1997) Toward a History of Epistemic Things. Synthesizing
   Proteins in the Test Tube, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
Saari, E. and Miettinen, R. (2001) Dynamics of Change in Research Work: Con-
   structing a New Research Area in a Research Group, in “Science, Technology
   & Human Values”, 26(3), pp. 300-321.
Saari, H., Lazaro-Ibanez, E., Viitala, T., Vuorimaa-Laukkanen, E., Siljander, P.
   and Yliperttula, M. (2015) Microvesicle- and Exosome-Mediated Drug Deliv-
     ery Enhances the Cytotoxicity of Paclitaxel in Autologous Prostate Cancer
     Cells, in “Journal of Controlled Release, 220, pp. 727-737.
SalWe (2013) Personalized Diagnostics and Care. Research Program Plan 2014-
   2018. 31.12.2013.
Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G. (2004) Academic Capitalism and the New Economy,
    Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press
Star, S.L. and Griesemer, J.R. (1989) Institutional Ecology, Translations' and
     Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Ver-
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                33
    tebrate Zoology, 1907-39, in “Social Studies of Science”, 19(3), pp. 387-420.
Sun, S. (2017) Socio-economics of Personalized Medicine in Asia, London,
   Routledge.
Sunder Rajan, K. (2006) Biocapital, Durham, Duke University Press.
Sunder Rajan, K. (2012) Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics, and Governance
   in Global Markets, Durham, Duke University Press.
Tamminen, S. and Vermeulen, N. (2012) Bio-objects and Generative Relations, in
   Croatian Medical Journal, 53(2), pp. 198.200.
Tarkkala, H. (2019) Reorganizing Biomedical Research: Biobanks as Conditions
   of Possibility for Personalized Medicine. Publications of the Faculty of Social
   Sciences, no: 114. Helsinki, Unigrafia, University of Helsinki. Doctoral Disser-
   tation (Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-3384-7. Accessed 21
   October 2020).
Tarkkala, H., Helén, I. and Snell, K. (2019) From Health to Wealth: The Future
   of Personalized Medicine in the Making, in “Futures”, 109, pp. 142-152.
Théry, C., Witwer, K.W., Aikawa, E., et al. (2018) Minimal Information for Stud-
    ies of Extracellular Vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018): A Position Statement of the
    International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and Update of the MISEV2014
    Guidelines, in “Journal of Extracellular Vesicles”, 7(1).
Tuunainen, J. (2001) Constructing Objects and Transforming Experimental Sys-
   tems, “Perspectives on Science”, 9(1), pp. 78-105.
Tuunainen, J. (2005) Hybrid Practices? Contributions to the Debate on the Muta-
   tion of Science and University, in “Higher Education”, 50, pp. 275-298.
Vallas, S.P. and Kleinman, D.L. (2008) Contradiction, Convergence and the
    Knowledge Economy: The Confluence of Academic and Commercial Bio-
    technology, in “Socio-Economic Review”, 6(2), pp. 283-311.
van Lente, H. (2012) Navigating Foresight in a Sea of Expectations: Lessons From
    the Sociology of Expectations, in “Technology Analysis & Strategic Manage-
    ment”, 24(8), pp. 769-782.
Vermeulen, N. (2012) Growing a Cell in Silico: On How the Creation of Bio-
   object Transforms the Organization of Science, in N. Vermeulen, S. Tam-
   minen and A. Webster (eds.) Bio-Objects. Life in the 21st Century, Farnham,
   Ashgate.
Vignola-Gagné, E., Keating, P. and Cambrosio, A. (2017) Informing Materials:
   Drugs as Tools for Exploring Cancer Mechanisms and Pathways. in “History
   and Philosophy of the Life Sciences”, 39(2). DOI: 10.1007/s40656-017-0135-4.
Webster, A. (2012) Introduction: Bio-Objects: Exploring the Boundaries of Life,
34                                                                Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

     in N. Vermeulen, S. Tamminen and A. Webster (eds.) Bio-Objects. Life in the
     21st Century, Farnham, Ashgate, pp. 1-12.
Wedlin, L. (2008) University Marketization: The Process and its Limits, in
  Engwall, L. and Weaire, D. (eds.) The University in the Market, London, The
  Portland Press, pp. 143-153.
Yáñez-Mó, M., Siljander, P.R.M., Andreu, Z., Bedina Zavec, A., Borràs, F.E.,
   Buzas, E.I. et al. (2015) Biological Properties of Extracellular Vesicles and
   Their Physiological Functions, in “Journal of extracellular vesicles”, 4(1),
   27066.




     1
      A search in PubMed reveals that there were 219 matches for the term ‘extra-
cellular vesicles’ in 2008, whereas in 2018 there were 2,333 matches
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=extracellular+vesicle, 22 May
2019). A search in Web of Science points in a similar direction, with matches ris-
ing from 209 in 2008 to 2,462 in 2018 (https://apps.webof-knowledge.com-
/RAMore.do?product=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&SID=F6To3PL5pR
KjctlbHze&qid=1&ra_mode=more&ra_–
name=PublicationYear&colName=WOS&viewType=raMore, 22 May 2019).
    2
      Studies on bio-objects have also discussed the hybridity of objects in the life
sciences (e.g., Vermeulen et al. 2012). This work has underlined that bio-objects
“tend to disrupt the conventional boundaries and identities of biological forms
and categories” (Metzler and Webster 2011 649), such as animal and human or
viable and non-viable; thus, the concept helps to show the openness of “bounda-
ries around “the living” (Holmberg, Schwennesen and Webster 2011, 742) and
the movements “backwards and forwards between different life-statuses” (Web-
ster 2012, 2). This discussion emphasizes that bio-objects are also characterized by
their status as “contested socio-technical objects” (Holmberg, Schwennesen and
Webster 2011, 741) and highlights processes of bio-objectification that engender
such status and contestation in actual settings of research and usage. Our ap-
proach to the hybrid character of life science objects is in many ways affinitive to
the ideas of bio-objectification, especially where organization of science is trans-
formed (Vermeulen 2012). In this paper, we highlight the practical hybridity of
the R&D object derived from the amalgamation – or hybridization – of scientific,
clinical, commercial, and social objectives in the work of the life sciences.
    3 Electron microscopy is a characterization technique used in EV studies that
also allows researchers to visualize and quantify the EVs present in a preparation.
The scale of the image is in nanometres, which are one billionth of a metre.
    4
      Antibodies are produced by the body in response to, for example, disease,
and in this way their presence can be used for diagnostic purposes and to indicate
the composition of certain samples.
    5
      Available at https://www.helsinki.fi/en/research-groups/extracellular-vesi-
Tarkkala & Helén                                                                  35


cles/ev-core (retrieved 17.9.2018)
    6
      Despite apparent similarities, the research object’s ‘hybridity’ discussed in
this paper differs from Annemarie Mol’s (2002) idea of multiple ontology of dis-
eases. She claims that a disease as a medical object is multiple or “more than one
and less than many” (Mol 2002, 82) because of various enactments upon a disease
in different medical practices and sites via different devices. This specific kind of
ontology is not our focus. Our analysis of the EVs’ hybridization emphasizes the
collaboration of scientific, clinical, and commercial partners around a scientific
object, and we focus on how the collaboration creates dependencies, constraints,
and conditions for the research. This moulds the EVs as an object that is shared
yet manifold, i.e., a hybrid. Our discussion about the hybridity of the research ob-
ject highlights the simultaneous presence of various interests and objectives
aligned through the EVs.
