Craftwork as Soulwork: Sanctifying Scientific Practice among Genetics Researchers

This pilot project proposes to establish proof of concept for a model of spiritual formation for genetics researchers, whether they identify as secular or religious. Working with scientists from three participating labs, alongside experts in spiritual formation, we seek to collectively identify and recast a set of established techniques from a range of spiritual traditions to help researchers bring the technical dimensions of their work into a deeper and more integral relation to their own quest for spiritual purpose and collective responsibility. Following tracks laid down by monastic traditions of “craftwork as soulwork,” these efforts are designed to address a double bind at the heart of genomics and genome editing, today, and their looming impact on the meaning and purpose of human life. In view of the potential for radical transformation, scientists are being asked to take responsibility for our collective biological future, even while being expected to actualize and commodify those futures in the process. Navigating similarly turbulent crosscurrents has long been a mainstay of spiritual practice across traditions. We thus ask: how might traditions of craftwork as soulwork help scientists navigate the cultural call to be both responsible and entrepreneurial by refashioning their craftwork as a very means of spiritual growth? And how might productive answers to that question be regularized and scaled? The primary output of our experimental efforts will be an open-access and revisable toolkit for other researchers to deploy in their own labs. The outcome of the project, if successful, will be the advance of more integral relation of craftwork and soulwork with the expectation that making explicit the tacit dynamics of spiritual formation will better prepare those in the advanced life sciences to navigate the power they wield, technically and socially, in a way that tunes scientific attention to the “big questions” at stake in genomics and genome editing.