Adam Bencard

I am employed as researcher and curator at the The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research and at the Medical Museion. My work is split evenly between practical science communication (mainly curating exhibitions and teaching) and research. I have been employed at the Medical Museion in various positions since 2001, and acheived my Ph.D. here. My academic background is in philosophy and history.

My research revolves around materialism and materiality. I trace the complex meanings and effects of material thinking in three different contexts: post-genomic metabolism research, philosophy, and science communication. And I attempt to develop these ideas in experimental practice within the museum.

I am interested in what I call “molecular being.” This concept revolves around the idea that we, as human beings, are fundamentally a part of an expansive, material network, stretching inside and outside of our bodies. These new developments have important consequences for how we understand biological organisms, and by extension what it means to be human. I am currently particularly interested in microbiome research, which provides a key point of intervention in this relational biology. Studies of the microbiome have profound consequences on how life is understood, and ultimately how treatment and managing of the human body will take place.

I use this post-genomic, microbial and material conception of life to develop and rethink practices in science communication, museum practice and philosophy – in essence, I try to work out what it means to think materially across a range of disciplinary and practical boundaries.