At the beginning, I will explain my interest in the curious existence of epistemic things as hybrids of materiality and conceptuality. Then, I propose an outline for a typology of the different forms that scientific objects can take in the life sciences. First, I discuss preparations, a form of scientific objects that accompanied the development of modern biology in different guises from the seventeenth century to the present: as anatomical-morphological specimens, as microscopic cuts, and as biochemical preparations. Second, I discuss the characteristics of models in biology. A few remarks on the role of simulations – characterizing the life sciences at the turn from the twentieth to the twenty-first century – will conclude my reflections.