Interdisciplinary collection of essays on the influence and development of new medical technologies.

1. Introduction Alberto Cambrosio, Allan Young and Margaret Lock; Part I. Epochal Transitions? Biomedicine and the Transformation of Socionature: 2. Beyond nature and culture: modes of reasoning in the age of molecular biology and medicine Hans-Jorg Rheinberger; 3. Epochs, presents, events Paul Rabinow; Part II. Laboratories and Clinics: The Material Culture of Biomedicine: 4. Trustworthy knowledge and desperate patients: clinical tests for new drugs from cancer to AIDS Ilana Lowy; 5. Pathology and the clinic: an ethnographic presentation of two atheroscleroses Annemarie Mol; 6. 'Real compared to what?': diagnosing leukemias and lymphomas Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio; 7. History, hystery, and psychiatric styles of reasoning Allan Young; Part III. Technologies and Bodies: The Extended Networks of Biomedicine: 8. Screening the body: the Pap smear and the mammogram Patricia A. Kaufert; 9. Extra chromosomes and blue tulips: medico-familial interpretations Rayna Rapp; 10. When explanations rest: 'good-enough' brain science and the new sociomedical disorders Joseph Dumit; 11. On dying twice: culture, technology, and the determination of death Margaret Lock; 12. The practice of organ transplants: networks, documents, translations Veena Das.