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Scheffler RW, Aviles NB. State planning, cancer vaccine infrastructure, and the origins of the oncogene theory. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2022; 52:174-198. [PMID: 35100893 DOI: 10.1177/03063127211070304] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
In this article, we analyze the National Cancer Institute's Virus Cancer Programs (1964-1978). The NCI's organizational mandate established program goals that iteratively braided together both scientific research and public health outcomes. The distinctive environment of the NCI as a federal research institute made scientific programs accountable to evaluations of both experimental and administrative appropriateness. To this end, NCI scientist-administrators adopted management techniques drawn from the Cold War defense industry to direct open-ended exploratory research on virally induced cancers, aimed at developing a vaccine as a public health solution to cancer. Facing the limitations of the state of viral cancer research as simultaneously an administrative and experimental problem, the Programs launched a monumental effort to develop infrastructure for cancer virus studies through long-term planning initiatives utilizing defense-style networks of contracted academic laboratories throughout the US. The organizational mandate guiding the Programs contributed to conceptual and experimental changes that directly led to the subversion of its fundamental presupposition of viral causation in favor of the cellular oncogene theory. We thus propose a reinterpretation of the historiography of the oncogene hypothesis as a radical break from viral explanations of cancer etiology, a reinterpretation that re-centers the direct contributions this federal vaccine program made to current molecular biological explanations of cancer causation.
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‘Braining’ psychiatry: an investigation into how complexity is managed in the practice of neuropsychiatric research. BIOSOCIETIES 2021. [DOI: 10.1057/s41292-021-00242-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
AbstractNeuropsychiatry searches to understand mental disorders in terms of underlying brain activity by using brain imaging technologies. The field promises to offer a more objective foundation for diagnostic processes and to help developing forms of treatment that target the symptoms of a specific mental disorder. However, brain imaging technologies also reveal the brain as a complex network, suggesting that mental disorders cannot be easily linked to specific brain areas. In this paper, we analyze a case study conducted at a neuropsychiatry laboratory to explore how the complexity of the human brain is managed in light of the project of explaining mental disorders in terms of their neurological substrates. We use a combination of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to show how previously assigned diagnostic labels are constitutive of interpretations of experimental data and, therefore, remain unchallenged. Furthermore, we show how diagnostic labels become materialized in experimental design, in that the linking of symptoms of mental disorders to specific brain areas is treated as indicative of successfully designed experimental stimuli. In conclusion, we argue that while researchers acknowledge the complexity of the brain on a generic level, they do not grant this complexity to the brains of individuals diagnosed with a mental disorder.
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Dam MS, Sangild PT, Svendsen MN. Translational neonatology research: transformative encounters across species and disciplines. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES 2018; 40:21. [PMID: 29357046 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-018-0185-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2016] [Accepted: 01/14/2018] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
This paper explores the laborious and intimate work of turning bodies of research animals into models of human patients. Based on ethnographic research in the interdisciplinary Danish research centre NEOMUNE, we investigate collaboration across species and disciplines, in research aiming at improving survival for preterm infants. NEOMUNE experimental studies on piglets evolved as a platform on which both basic and clinical scientists exercised professional authority. Guided by the field of multi-species research, we explore the social and material agency of research animals in the production of human health. Drawing on Anna Tsing's concept of "collaborative survival", we show that sharing the responsibility of the life and death of up to twenty-five preterm piglets fostered not only a collegial solidarity between basic and clinical scientists, but also a transformative cross-fertilization across species and disciplines-a productive "contamination"-facilitating the day-to-day survival of piglets, the academic survival of scientists and the promise of survival of preterm infants. Contamination spurred intertwined identity shifts that increased the porosity between the pig laboratory and the neonatal intensive care unit. Of particular significance was the ability of the research piglets to flexibly become animal-infant-patient hybrids in need of a united effort from basic and clinical researchers. However, 'hybrid pigs' also entailed a threat to the demarcation between humans and animals that consolidates the use of animals in biomedical research, and efforts were continuously done to keep contamination within spatial limits. We conclude that contamination facilitates transformative encounters, yet needs spatial containment to materialize bench-to-bedside translation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mie S Dam
- Department of Public Health, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1014, Copenhagen, Denmark.
| | - Per T Sangild
- Department of Comparative Pediatrics and Nutrition, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Mette N Svendsen
- Department of Public Health, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1014, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Blood, meat, and upscaling tissue engineering: Promises, anticipated markets, and performativity in the biomedical and agri-food sectors. BIOSOCIETIES 2018; 13:368-388. [PMID: 34249140 PMCID: PMC7611148 DOI: 10.1057/s41292-017-0072-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Abstract
Tissue engineering is a set of biomedical technologies, including stem cell science, which seek to grow biological tissue for a diversity of applications. In this paper, we explore two emergent tissue engineering technologies that seek to cause a step change in the upscaling capacity of cell growth: cultured blood and cultured meat. Cultured blood technology seeks to replace blood transfusion with a safe and affordable bioengineered replacement. Cultured meat technology seeks to replace livestock-based food production with meat produced in a bioreactor. Importantly, cultured meat technology straddles the industrial contexts of biomedicine and agrifood. In this paper, we articulate (i) the shared and divergent promissory trajectories of the two technologies and (ii) the anticipated market, consumer, and regulatory contexts of each. Our analysis concludes by discussing how the sectoral ontologies of biomedicine and agri-food impact the performative capacity of each technology’s promissory trajectory.
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Bertorelli TE. Hope and doubt in the promise of neuroimaging: The case of autism spectrum disorder. Health (London) 2016; 20:505-22. [PMID: 27474754 DOI: 10.1177/1363459316660860] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Although neuroimaging is currently not a component of the diagnostic process for autism spectrum disorders, some scientists hail these technologies for their promise to one day replace behaviorally based psychiatric diagnostic techniques. This article examines how psychiatrists understand the potential use of neuroimaging technologies within the context of clinical practice. Drawing on 10 semi-structured interviews with child and adolescent psychiatrists, I describe the hope and doubt that comprise their discourse of ambivalence. This analysis demonstrates that the uses and meanings of neuroimaging technologies are rearticulated in ongoing debates in the field of psychiatry regarding the role of the biopsychiatric model in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. This study highlights issues surrounding the perceived biopsychiatric focus of neuroimaging technologies within clinical practice, concerns regarding misdirected research attention, and the ways in which understandings of future utility mediate perceptions of technological utility.
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Translational biomedicine in action: Constructing biomarkers across laboratory and benchside. SOCIAL THEORY & HEALTH 2016. [DOI: 10.1057/sth.2015.35] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
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Stephens N, Dimond R. Closure of a human tissue biobank: individual, institutional, and field expectations during cycles of promise and disappointment. NEW GENETICS AND SOCIETY 2015; 34:417-436. [PMID: 26740793 PMCID: PMC4685593 DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2015.1107469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2015] [Accepted: 10/09/2015] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Biobanks are increasingly being established to act as mediators between patient-donors and researchers. In practice, some of these will close. This paper details the experiences of one such bank. We report interviews with the bank's staff and oversight group during the period when the bank ceased biobanking activity, reconfigured as a disseminator of best practice, before then closing altogether. The paper makes three distinct contributions: (i) to provide a detailed account of the establishment, operational challenges, and eventual closure of the bank, which makes clear the rapid turnover in a cycle of promise and disappointment; (ii) to explore this in terms of a novel analytical focus upon field, institutional, and individual expectations; and (iii) to use this typology to demonstrate how, even after the bank's closure, aspects of its work were reconfigured and reused in new contexts. This provides a unique empirical analysis of the under-reported issue of biobank closure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neil Stephens
- Cesagene, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII, CardiffCF10 3WT, UK
- Corresponding author.
| | - Rebecca Dimond
- Cesagene, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII, CardiffCF10 3WT, UK
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Moutaud B. Neuromodulation Technologies and the Regulation of Forms of Life: Exploring, Treating, Enhancing. Med Anthropol 2015. [DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1055355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
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Davies SR, Horst M. Crafting the group: Care in research management. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2015; 45:371-93. [PMID: 26477197 DOI: 10.1177/0306312715585820] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
This article reports findings from an interview study with group leaders and principal investigators in Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States. Taking as our starting point current interest in the need to enhance 'responsible research and innovation', we suggest that these debates can be developed through attention to the talk and practices of scientists. Specifically, we chart the ways in which interview talk represented research management and leadership as processes of caring craftwork. Interviewees framed the group as the primary focus of their attention (and responsibilities), and as something to be tended and crafted; further, this process required a set of affective skills deployed flexibly in response to the needs of individuals. Through exploring the presence of notions of care in the talk of principal investigators and group leaders, we discuss the relation between care and craft, reflect on the potential implications of the promotion of a culture of care and suggest how mundane scientific understandings of responsibility might relate to a wider discussion of responsible research and innovation.
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Abstract
Neuroscientific accounts of addiction are increasingly influential in health and medical circles. At the same time a diverse, if equally scientifically focused, opposition to addiction neuroscience is emerging. In this struggle over the merits of addiction neuroscience are elements of a uniquely 21st-century public engagement with science. No longer trusted by the public as the unerring source of objective knowledge about the world, science is, at least in some contexts, increasingly treated as just one voice among many. Observing the difficulties this loss of faith in science poses for effective action on pressing issues such as climate change, philosopher Bruno Latour develops a different (ecological) approach to scientific knowledge, one that for the first time allows scientists (and other “moderns”) to understand it for what it really is and locate it “diplomatically” alongside other modes of knowing. In this article, I ask whether a similar innovation is needed to allow more effective understanding of addiction. I explore this question by analyzing two recent, widely discussed, popular books (Marc Lewis’s Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs, 2011 and Carl Hart’s High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-discovery that Challenges Everything You Think You Know About Drugs and Society, 2013) as well as reviews of these books. Written by neuroscientists, and drawing heavily on personal memoir to illustrate and ratify their competing views on drugs and addiction, both books crystallize contemporary dilemmas about science, empiricism, and the nature of evidence and truth. How are we to understand their mix of “scientific fact” and individual self-observation, what does this mix suggest about scientific knowledge, and what are its implications for dominant notions of “evidence-based” drug policy and treatment? I argue that these books both trouble and reinforce our taken-for-granted distinctions between science and personal stories, between objectivity and subjectivity, and note the lost opportunities the books represent for a more searching and productive (Latour might say “ecological”) engagement with science.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suzanne Fraser
- National Drug Research Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Fitzroy, Australia
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