Introduction

This case study will take place in a European research laboratory where an international team of molecular biologists, chemists and physicists are working together to create a new technology that they call “nanoreactors”. These reactors make it possible to carry out tests in an isolated environment and select cells or enzymes where a reaction has occurred. This technology has potential applications in the pharmaceutical industry, in developing alternative energy sources and in detecting chemical contamination.

In order to produce and use these nanoreactors the team must jointly develop the microfluidics technology, and this is dependent on contributions from both physicists and biologists. They have developed a microfluidics station that consists of microscopes, high speed digital video cameras, lasers and software which they have written themselves. This combination of technologies makes it possible to see and analyze biological reactions, not normally visible to human eye. This case study will investigate the emerging practice related to the development of this technology and tool use (in general) by the team of scientists in the laboratory.

Research focus – questions

The case study’s research focus will be to explore evolving practice and the role played by the tools and instruments in the development of knowledge:

1. Exploring collaborative development of instruments and how this might affect cohesion in a multidisciplinary team.
2. Understanding the role of tool-embedded knowledge in sharing expertise and for collective knowledge advancement.

Significance of the case study

The starting point will be to explore organization of work related to the development and use of the tools supporting the scientific work in the laboratory. Most of the researchers have individual projects; however all of them are dependent on collaboration to develop microfluidics technology, otherwise they cannot carry out their experiments. Since the reactors they are working on are not visible to the human eye, everything they do in their experiments is recorded by high-speed digital video camera and displayed on a PC-screen and stored digitally. They have developed their own specialised software to steer the microfluidics station and to record and store the lab experiments. They also use some more “traditional” ICT in the form of electronic lab books, research papers, communication- and presentation software. This has resulted in a rich and diverse technological environment, which is continually under development. A longitudinal investigation of their knowledge practices around the evolving microfluidics technology will give the opportunity to observe the more gradual development of practices and the role of tools in the knowledge creation process of a multi-disciplinary team.

The lab is relatively new and many of their practices are still under development, therefore this study will focus on some of these evolving practices.  Unlike traditional product development those responsible for developing the tool – the microfluidics technology - and those wanting to use it (physicist, molecular biologists and chemists) are all part of the same team. This makes it particularly interesting to explore their emerging practices.

As well as the close contact the team have in the lab, they also collaborate with three other partners, located in the UK, France and US.  The long-term aim is to investigate the learning in these diverse collaborative relationships and in particular their mediating tools and role of physical proximity in their efforts to develop the technology.