Clinical research involving drugs is dependent on so-called experimental subjects, i.e. persons who are willing to face the double liminal experience between being merely a “technical object” and personal integrity, between experimental medicine and bodily intactness. The PhD project focuses on the complex figure of ‘the’ experimental subject from a decidedly sociological perspective as a complement to a hegemonic bioethical framing. Empirically and analytically I zoom in on the decision-making processes leading up to participation as well as on ‘the’ experimental subject’s entanglements in the everyday (care) labour at a dermatological research center in Germany.