The social relations of a “basic” life science laboratory, its relations to the other life sciences, to the physical sciences, to clinical medicine, and to the economic imperatives of the present era are examined. This work attends to some of the "day to day" activities of this group as it transitioned to a state-of-the-art, architecturally “open” and strategically situated research facility designed to enhance "unplanned" interactions among its variously trained occupants. These activities are situated within a broader discussion of this laboratory's primary disciplinary influences and the specific epistemic contests in which it was primarily invested. A theorization of these relations is carefully distinguished from prior approaches in "science studies" and elsewhere, thereby providing a new framework for analyzing inter-scientific relations.