«Υγρός βιολογικός χρυσός»: Κριτικές προσεγγίσεις των τραπεζών ομφαλοπλακουντιακού αίματος από το πεδίο «Επιστήμη, Τεχνολογία, Κοινωνία»

In this paper, we present the ways umbilical cord blood banking practices interrelate with the institutional forms of umbilical cord blood banks.The differing modes of utilizing umbilical cord blood are connected to the establishment of public and private banking. The public and private banks are associated with different social meanings. Public banks are associated with the principles of redistributive economy, while, the private banks with that of market economy. The practices of umbilical cord blood banks, as it has been demonstrated by studies from the interdisciplinary field “Science, Technology, Society”, render less rigid the distinction between public and private banking.By focusing on the mobility of the umbilical cord blood cells in a wide network of infrastructure and organizations that surround its utilization, we intend to show the factors that make problematic the binary and opposed consideration of the public-private character in the two modes of umbilical cord blood banking.