Biohacking and Cyborg Rights: Coping with Promise & Peril

Biohackers use, learn, and play with biological science and technology outside of academic and other institutional labs. Biohacking includes two types of activities: DIY Bio and Bodyhacking. Those doing DIY Bio use plasmids, yeast, jellyfish genes, to make glow in the dark beer, fish, and plants. Some are amateur scientists. Many are professional scientists. Bodyhackers include those who insert magnets, RFID chips, lasers, and genes into their bodies, seeking to enhance human capacity and redefine themselves as cyborgs. Biohackers often explain their activities in political and legal terms: extending democracy, exercising autonomy, and claiming rights as cyborgs. Professor Ikemoto examines the implications of “cyborg rights” for law and for defining the human.

Lisa Ikemoto, JD, LLM, is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. She teaches bioethics, health care law, public health law, reproductive rights, law and policy and marital property. Her research areas include reproductive and genetic technology uses, health care disparities and public health law. More specifically, she focuses on the ways that race and gender mediate access to and influence biomedical technology use and health care. Her recent work addresses reproductive tourism, the ways in which human gamete use links the fertility and biotechnology industries and the privatizing effects of informed consent. Prof. Ikemoto is a Bioethics Associate of the UC Davis Health System Bioethics Program and a Faculty Associate of the UC Davis Center for Science and Innovation Studies.