Human Tissue
Morrison M.
Abstract While the use of human tissue in medicine has a long history, it is only during the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries that widespread mobilization and utilization of human tissues for medical purposes has become possible. A diverse assortment of human cells, tissues, organs, and fluids is currently sourced from patients and members of the public for medicine and medical research, including, blood, oocytes (eggs), solid organs, bone marrow, corneas, breast milk, skin, umbilical cord blood, fetal and embryonic tissue, heart valves, and spermatozoa (sperm). These tissues serve a range of ends including therapeutic transplantation, fertility treatment, research materials and tools, and as the basis of novel living‐tissue‐based therapies. This expansion in scope has necessitated, and been facilitated by, the implementation of large‐scale social management of human tissues. Accompanying these changes in scope and scale of medical use of human tissues is an increasing entanglement in relations of economic and commercial value. As the life sciences become ever more intertwined with practices of economic investment, speculation, and capital generation, human tissues and cells are becoming reconfigured as sources of “biovalue” to be unlocked by (bio)technological manipulation and transformation – mobilizing body parts as the raw material in new, global tissue economies.