BIOS News Issue 4. Michaelmas 2006

Life, humanness and thechallenges of interdisciplinarity

BIOSIssue 4 • Autumn 2006

BIOS News

Editorial 1

Conceptualisingregulation, by Filippa Lentzos 2-3

Science and discovery as political arena by Kerstin Klein 3-4

The BIOS experiment– part 2,

by Mathew Kabatoff 5

BIOS welcomes stem cellscientists from China,by Lamprini Kaftantzi 6

An elusive evidence base? by Ayo Wahlberg 7

Research updates 8-9

Postgrad pages 10-11

Postcards from BIOS visitors 12-13

Publications andconferencepresentations 14-15

Upcoming events 16

In this issue

It is now three years since BIOS wasofficially launched with a public lectureby Dr Sydney Brenner entitled ‘Personsand Genomes’. A lot has happenedsince then and the past few monthshave provided us with various occasionsto take stock. For one, the BIOSexperiment described in issue 3 of BIOS News was carried through to aprovisional culmination (see MathewKabatoff’s follow-up article in this issue)as a lead up to a panel BIOS wasinvited to prepare entitled ‘Producingcollectivity’ for this year’s ‘ReviewingHumanness’ EASST conference inLausanne (23-26 August). ProfessorsSarah Franklin and Nikolas Rose were

Welcome to the Michaelmas term and a new academic year at BIOS. And although we haveall hopefully had the chance to revitalise our energy supplies in the summer months, inmany ways the summer break was far from a holiday!

invited keynote speakers in Lausanneand quite a few research students alsopresented papers.

Only a few weeks later, BIOS providedthe setting for a research studentworkshop on the challenges ofinterdisciplinarity in the social study of the life sciences (5-6 September)reviewed in the postgrad pages byChris Hamilton. This research workshopwas immediately followed by VitalPolitics II (7-9 September), aninterdisciplinary conference organisedby BIOS following the first Vital Politicsheld three years ago. Further to paperpresentations, the conference washighlighted by three plenaries, eachpairing a life scientist with a socialscientist to discuss the key themes ofthe conference – neuroscience,regenerative medicine and biocapital.And interestingly it seems that the titleof Brenner’s 2003 lecture was very aptas the different ways in which the lifesciences and persons interact, comeinto tension and/or enter into allianceshave indeed become central researchthemes for BIOS.

In this issue you will also find afeature by Dr Filippa Lentzos ondistinctions between centred and de-centred regulation in her work ondual use biological R&D. Kerstin Kleinreflects on reading science historybetween the lines while LampriniKaftantzi reports on a visit by leadingChinese stem cell researchers to BIOS.Ayo Wahlberg provides a review of atwo-day symposium held at the LSE inJune on the rise of Evidence-BasedMedicine and Randomised ControlledTrials in Psychiatry.

Having bid sad farewells to Dr CarlosNovas as well as visitors Dr PriskaGeisler and Anelis Kaiser during the

summer, BIOS is pleased to welcome11 new members in the comingacademic year. Dr Ilina Singh will bejoining us as the first recipient of aWellcome Trust University Lectureshipin Bioethics and Society; Dr KevinBurchell joins us as the ResearchOfficer and Co-applicant (withProfessor Sarah Franklin) on a three-year Wellcome Trust grant toinvestigate biomedical scientists’perceptions of communication anddeliberation in the context of publicengagement initiatives; Joy Zhang(Wellcome studentship) and ShahanaSchmid will join the BIOS PhDprogramme (working on stem cells in China and reproductive technologyin Switzerland, respectively); andProfessor Nikolas Rose will be workingin the BIOS Centre for the period ofhis sabbatical leave. Dr AndreasRoepstorff (Aarhus), Dr AlondraNelson (Yale), Professor Janice Graham (Dalhousie) and Dr Wei Liu(China Stem Cell Bank – CheveningFellowship) will be joining us as BIOS Visiting Fellows during the year, and we are very happy to bewelcoming back Professor Lene Koch. A big welcome also to thisyear’s MSc in Biomedicine, Bioscienceand Society students!

Annette VB Jensen, Lamprini Kaftantzi,David Reubi, Ayo Wahlberg

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‘Is regulation solely a state activity, and once separatedfrom the state no longer regulation, but something else?’

‘You know it,because that’s the

way things aredone. It’s not

because it’s a rule.It’s just that’s the

way things aredone and you do

them that way’

2 BIOS News Issue 4 • Autumn 2006

Conceptualising regulationBy Filippa Lentzos

What is regulation? For sure it is actsof parliament and their statutoryinstruments. Guidance andexplanatory notes developed byregulators to assist in theimplementation of these could also be labelled regulation. As couldgovernment guidelines, like the NIHguidelines for recombinant DNA, eventhough they only apply to researchersin receipt of NIH funding. But whatabout professional guidelines orstandards like the British MedicalAssociation’s ‘code of conduct forprivate practice’ or the BioIndustryAssociation’s ‘code of best practice’;do these count as regulation? Andwhat about standard operatingprocedures, accreditation regimes, or professional norms? Is regulationsolely a state activity, and onceseparated from the state no longerregulation, but something else?

The neo-classical model of regulationderived from economics argues thatthis is indeed the case: regulation isstate intervention through law. Oftenreferred to as the ‘command andcontrol’ approach to regulation –involving the command of the law

and the legal authority of the state – regulation is seen as the naturalopponent of the market. In theabsence of regulation, it is assumedthat there would be marketcompetition and that organisationswould behave unchecked. Regulationis therefore viewed as intervention torestrain competition, either to remedymarket failure or to preventundesirable outcomes and protectpublic goods.

Yet, this ‘centred’ understanding of regulation relates poorly to what I have found in my research onregulatory influences and oversightstructures in the research labs ofbiotechnology firms. Of coursestatutory regulation, like health andsafety legislation, plays a key role inthe development of structures andprocedures to manage the researchtaking place. But in addition, I havealso found a number of other, moreinformal, regulatory systems thatoversee biological research.

The keeping of laboratory notebooks is one example. Laboratory notebooksform the primary record of experiments

being carried out, and of experimentscarried out in the past. The concept,intent and design of experiments arerecorded, as are observations duringthe experiment and any resulting data,where it is practical to do so, otherwisea reference is made to where the data is stored. A fairly elaborate set ofcompany-specific rules exists aroundlab notebooks, concerning how tomake the records, how they should besigned, what needs to be witnessedand how, where lab books are stored,how often lab books are microfilmed,even, as one researcher said to me,‘what to do with blank spaces andwhat kind of pen you can use’.

Another informal oversight systemregulating research activities incorporate labs is the matrix ofprofessional norms, researchpractices, experience, and commonsense (which interestingly oftencorrelate tightly with the routines,procedures and precautionarymeasures prescribed by statutoryregulations). As one scientist toldme: ‘Everyone also just generallybrings in experience if they’recoming from another academic labor from a different industrial setting.They bring experience with them interms of how something in the labwas handled in their past life and thesafest way of handling it, you know,if that safety issue can also be usedhere.’ Or as others said: ‘Proper labetiquette is basically just commonsense – wear gloves and goggles, no eating in the lab, etc.’; ‘You knowit, because that’s the way things aredone. It’s not because it’s a rule. It’sjust that’s the way things are doneand you do them that way.’

A third sort of informal oversightsystem is peer observation. Onescientist I spoke to used the term ‘in-house policing’, noting that ‘ifsomeone does something reallystupid – and occasionally thathappens – then everybody gets in

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BIOS News Issue 4 • Autumn 2006

Science and discovery as politicalarena: reading science historybetween the linesBy Kerstin Klein

Conceptualising regulation (cont)

3

on that individual or gets them toclean up their act or else.’ Similarly,another scientist at a differentcompany explained that he knew‘pretty much what everyone is doingand what they’re working on; howfrequently they work with theradioactivity; what kind ofexperiments they do’ and that thisprovided fairly effective supervisionof the research undertaken.

I would argue that the informaloversight systems overseeingbiological research also constitute

a form of regulation. However, once regulation is understood to be‘decentred’, ie not tied exclusively to the state, but rather diffusedthrough society, it becomes difficultto say where its boundaries lie as asocial practice. Is regulation, forinstance, all mechanisms of socialcontrol or influence affecting allaspects of behaviour from whateversource, whether they are intentionalor not? This particular conceptionprovides no boundaries as to whereregulation might end and some otherinfluencing factor take effect, and is

therefore of little help as an analyticaltool. So, would it perhaps be helpfulto relabel all decentred forms ofregulation as something else, saycontrol, oversight or, dare I say it,governance? Or would this merelyshift the debate to the level ofcontesting labels, rather thanproviding an understanding of theconcepts to which those labels mightrefer? I look forward to continuingthis discussion in the upcoming set of reading group meetings dedicatedto governmentality.

Reading with much pleasure in thedusty germs of science history/historicalworks on genetics and cytology, I wasstruck by what I would like to call thedifference between the actual and theso-called factual in official sciencenarratives. To roughly sketch my waythrough the field: I started with thebeginnings of cell theory in the early19th century and Darwin’s andMendel’s ground-breaking works onthe natural rather than divine origin ofspecies (1859) and laws of geneticinheritance (1865/6); moving on via the

transatlantic race of three researchgroups in Cambridge University (FrancisCrick and James D Watson), King’sCollege London (Maurice Wilkins andRosalind Franklin), and Caltech (LinusPauling) for the discovery of DNAstructure a century later; and endingup in the presence of modern lifescience and its latest hot spot ofembryonic stem cell science.

Two things I found particularlystriking: first, an achy sense of tragedyof individual scientists, who dedicatedtheir life’s work to advance theirscience, without always (and forvarious reasons) getting the creditthey deserved. In some cases, theywere even witnesses to how theirwork was sacrificed for the sake ofmore prominent and influentialcontemporaries, as happened in thecase of Alfred Russel Wallace forinstance who with similar butseparate work prompted Darwin and his circle of friends to acceleratethe publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of NaturalSelection, which went on sale on 22 November 1859.

Second, what was hard to swallowwas to see the workings of timelessmechanisms of social selection; basedon class (which is why Wallace wasrather grateful that Darwin withouthis permission arranged for a ‘joint’publication of a paper written byWallace), or based on ethnic origin. Inthe already anti-semitic 19th centuryGermany, Robert Remak, a Jew, was

barred from teaching and theacademic profession by Prussian Law,and although his work had beenahead of co-cytologist RudolfVirchow, it is the latter today who is the prominent figure for thediscoveries of their time. In thefollowing, I will elaborate on thesetwo cases with more detail.

1 Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) Wallace, a naturalist, was travelingfrom 1854-62 through the MalayArchipelago (now Malaysia andIndonesia) to collect specimens. He met Darwin only once, very briefly, but both were in regularcorrespondence. It was known toWallace that Darwin was interested inthe question how species originateand trusted his opinion on the matter.He therefore sent him for review hisessay On the Tendency of Varieties toDepart Indefinitely From the OriginalType. The essay did not use Darwin'slater term of natural selection, butwas essentially similar to theoryDarwin had been working on fornearly 20 years. Darwin was hesitantto publish his world-shattering views,being aware of the public outcry hewould provoke from a society which,much like he had prior to hisobservations of nature when travelingon the Beagle, believed in divinecreation. When Darwin on 18 June1858 received the manuscript, hewrote in a letter to his close friendCharles Lyell, that Wallace could not have made a better abstract.Although Wallace did not ask nor give

BIOS Reading Group’s nextsessions on ways of governing in the life sciencesDuring the summer term, a few reading groupsessions were held on the theme of liberalism andhow one might understand and analyse it in relationto the life sciences. Out of the discussions thatemerged, participants debated to what extent onecould distinguish a governmentality approach tostudying social aspects of the life sciences from anSTS (or perhaps more appropriately Actor-NetworkTheory) approach. In the Michaelmas Term we willcontinue discussing this theme using practical texts.

20 September: ANT and the life sciences

11 October: Governing the life sciences

1 November: Governmentality and ethics

22 November: Risk

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permission for publication of hispaper, Lyell and Joseph Hooker weredetermined to publish Wallace’s essay,together with excerpts from a paper that Darwin had keptconfidential since 1844. Theypresented On the Tendency of Speciesto form Varieties; and on thePerpetuation of Varieties and Speciesby Natural Means of Selection to theLinnean Society of London on 1 July1858, highlighting Darwin's priority.Darwin himself was absent, becausehis son had died a few days before.Wallace accepted the arrangement,after the fact, grateful to be includedat all. Being born into an upper classfamily of a doctor, Darwin's social andacademic status was far greater.Wallace thought it unlikely that hisviews on evolution would have beentaken seriously by Britain’s moreexclusive 19th century scientific circles.Perhaps one can say that Wallace,who at the time was downgraded tothe position of co-discoverer, by nowhas even lost that fame.

2 Robert Remak (1815-65)If Darwin and Mendel are associatedwith the discovery of genetics, nosingle individual can be granted sucha central role in the discovery of celltheory, and of the founders of thefield Robert Remak is probably one of the most remarkable butleast known. As cytologist andembryologist he is mostlyremembered for discovering andnaming the three germ layers of theearly embryo: the ectoderm, themesoderm and the endoderm in1842. As mentioned before, he was Jewish, born in the ghetto ofPoznan. Remak, who as a result ofearly legal Anti-Semitism in Germany

was prohibited to teach, wasplanning to apply to Paris, butAlexander von Humboldt (perhapsill-advisedly) urged him to stay inBerlin. There, he was forced to workas unpaid assistant in Johannes PeterMüller’s laboratory at the Universityof Berlin, supporting himself throughmedical practice and microscopylessons. He made several attempts to gain higher academic positionsand sent a direct petition to theKing, but all he was granted wasa lectureship. In 1841, he wrote of cell division in red cell formation in the chick embryo, and between1850 and 1855 he wrote his studieson the development of vertebrates(Untersuchungen ueber dieEntwicklung der Wirbeltiere, 1855), a treatise in embryology. He concluded the book withevidence for cell division as a means of cell generation. Althoughgroundbreaking, his thesis initiallyfailed to achieve general acceptance,and only did so after forcefulendorsement by Rudolf Virchow. The more prestigious promoter ofcell division of the two, Virchowarticulated what Remak hadannounced a short time before,without acknowledging Remak’soriginal contribution up until threeyears later when Virchow publishedDie Cellularpathologie 1858. What is more, not only was Remak left inVirchow’s shadow in his biologicalwork, he would also lose outprofessionally. Firstly, when Remak,unwilling to accept the law, appliedfor the position as prorector of auniversity medical hospital in Berlinin 1846, the position was eventuallyawarded to Virchow, his junior by six

years. And secondly, in 1856 when Virchow and not Remak wasappointed chair of pathology at the University of Berlin.

In conclusion, I would like recall JaneMaienschein (2003), who suggeststhat scientific progress is not somuch about revolutions and ‘greatleaps of theory and interpretationthat carry us forward to newunderstanding’, rather it is a‘painstaking accumulation of data(and) advancement of techniquesand equipment’. Beyond acceptingscience as a contested arena –where politics, power and socialselection play equally crucial rolestoday in shaping individuals’ careersand scientific legacies – perhaps it is exactly for this desire to think ofscientific advancement in granderterms of discoveries and revolutions,that narratives of science historyoften do not tell us enough aboutthe ‘painstaking accumulation’carried out by so many. As much asit would be ethical not to engage inpower techniques or intentionallygain advantages from cultural capitalto use Bourdieu’s term, in ourgenealogies and narratives of thehistory of the present we, and I amusing a thought articulated by BtihajAjana, should not let the author die.

Science and discovery as political arena (cont)

Images: stock.xchng

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BIOS News Issue 4 • Autumn 2006 5

The BIOS Experiment – Part 2By Mathew Kabatoff

The BIOS Experiment was presentedby five BIOS members (Megan Clinch,Sarah Franklin, Nikolas Rose, MathewKabatoff and Ayo Wahlberg) in apanel session dedicated to BIOS at theEASST 06' conference. It was attendedby approximately 40 conferenceparticipants and lasted 2 hours.

The Experiment was sparked from adiscussion between Nikolas Rose fromBIOS and Anthropos at the Universityof Lausanne in conjunction withEASST 06. This discussion, wasconcerned with what it meant toestablish a research centre working atthe intersection of society and scienceand led to an invitation to submit anabstract for a panel presentation atEASST. This invitation was taken backby Rose to BIOS and it was decided bythe group that an ‘experiment’ wouldbe conducted to investigate howresearch functioned and performedwithin BIOS.

This experiment consisted of twoparts: the first was series of groupdiscussions on the general themes orshared research practices within theBIOS centre; these sessions followedand worked off of the energy fromten bi-weekly roundtable discussionsthat featured presentations by BIOSmembers. The second was to provideempirical support to the generaltypology developed during thediscussion sessions; this data wasobtained by sending out two shortsurvey’s to BIOS members askingeach to identify key concepts,sources, methods and questions they were working with. The surveywas not designed to discover theabsolutes of the working practices ofBIOS members (ie reasons for doingthe research, aim of research withina broader context) but how theresearch was conducted.

What did this data reveal? The key findings of the survey’s and theexperiment discussions concernedfour broad topics: (1) BIOS’srelationship to tradition andinnovation; (2) a focus on text-basedanalysis and methodology; (3)interdisciplinary practices betweenscience and social science; and (4)the broader relationship to scienceand technology studies, publicpolicy/politics and bioethics.

(1) Tradition and innovation: in aresponse to a question at the end ofthe panel presentation Nikolas Rosesaid that research in BIOS possessedmodest realism, in that the descriptionof science and its social implicationswas discussed with little irony andwithout being wrapped in grandtheoretical claims. This fits with theconclusions developed around traditionand innovation. From the researchquestions, methods and sourcespresented by BIOS research members it was suggested that BIOS memberswere very much concerned withinvestigating contemporary practices,controversies and innovations withinscience. These investigations were,however, performed by analysing thedata of the scientific or socialphenomena first.

(2) Text-based analysis: the type ofanalysis that tended to take place inBIOS involved the analysis of text.This analysis was performed eitherthrough the examination of scientificwriting, policy, legislation or throughthe analysis of interviews with keyactors. This analysis was not arhetorical analysis nor did it drawfrom phenomenology inspiredtheories about the performance oflanguage as language itself. The texthere was tied more closely to theempirical operation of the debate.

(3) The Interdisciplinary: a questionwas asked about the role of critiqueand/or irony within social scienceresearch. An audience member didnot believe that critique or ironycould be absent from the discourseof science and society (a point thatwas made in the BIOS presentation).

In issue three of BIOS News I wrote a brief introduction to the BIOSExperiment due to be presented on August 26 2006 at EASST, held atthe University of Lausanne. The following is a summary of the contentsof the presentation, the progress that was made leading up to EASSTand a set of remarks on the Experiment and the BIOS Centre.

Sarah Franklin answered thisquestion by appealing to what shecalled ‘inter-literacy’. That is, critiqueor problematisation was somethingthat remained within social sciencediscourse but there was an obligationon the part of the social scientistinvestigating science to come to grips with the facts, concepts,discourses scientists use along withthe discourse of social impact.Furthermore she also indicated thatscientists themselves (and there arescientists working in BIOS) were quiteaware of the social implications oftheir work. This seems to fit with ageneral BIOS strategy which does notshy from controversies but is intenton dialogue.

(4) Relationship to STS, public policy,bioethics: the key point that can beused to address these three fields thatcame out of the BIOS experiment wasthat research at BIOS was problemfocused and that there was an aim todevelop sets of concepts to addressthe problems at hand. This means thatBIOS research was more focused onthe development of arguments fromphenomena than specific outreachinto the STS, public policy/politics orbioethics worlds. This makes sensegiven the commitment to empiricalanalysis in the research that goes on atBIOS. It also means that, if called uponor under individual initiative a BIOSmember could contribute to any ofthese three areas, given topicalrelevance. The BIOS Experiment, as anexperiment can be regarded assuccessful. Successful since as a groupBIOS members were able to produce acollective document and uncover arich data-set that pertained to theworking practices of 19 of its mostactive members. Hopefully we canmake further use of this data, andcontinue to draw conclusions as thecentre develops.

Images: Bettina Bock von Wulfingen

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BIOS welcomes leading stemcell scientists from ChinaBy Lamprini Kaftantzi

On the 12th of June, BIOS welcomedProfessor Guangxiu Lu and her teamfrom the Institute of HumanReproduction and Stem CellEngineering, Changsha, China.

Professor Lu is one of China'sforemost experts in the field andmember of the National Committee ofthe Chinese People's PoliticalConsultative Conference (CPPCC). Sheis the Director of the National Centrefor Human Stem Cell Research andEngineering and President of theInstitute of Reproduction and StemCell Engineering at Central SouthUniversity in China’s Hunan province.In addition, Professor Lu is the founderand President of the largest and mosteminent fertility clinic which is locatedat the CITIC-Xiangya Reproductionand Genetics Hospital (the firstmodernized large-scale reproductionand hereditary hospital of China). Theaim of Professor Lu’s team was toacquire first-hand knowledge aboutthe facilities and materials that are used in the development,characterisation, handling and storageof human stem cell lines, as well as oncurrent UK quality control methods,international patent depositary status and methods of worldwidedistribution of the stem cell line stocks(stored in UK Stem Cell Bank) underInternational Quality Standards.

Professor Lu is also a partner in BIONET,a Chinese-European collaboration onethical governance of the life sciencesand biomedicine that is being

coordinated from BIOS, LSE. BIONET(which is officially launched in October2006) is funded by the EuropeanCommission under its Sixth FrameworkProgramme, and involves 21 partnersfrom China and Europe, and aims to bring together researchers,practitioners, ethicists, social scientistsand policy makers from China andEurope, to explore key issues in theethical governance of advancedbiomedical research and to evaluateresearch and evidence oncontemporary policies and ethicalpractices among Chinese andEuropean practitioners and researchers.

Professor Sarah Franklin headed theBIOS team for Professor Lu’s visit,which involved a number of BIOS PhD students researching the ethical governance of stem cellresearch/technologies in UK, Europeand Asia. The group’s first visitincluded the HFEA (Human Fertilisationand Embryology Authority), the UK’sindependent regulator overseeing safeand appropriate practice in fertilitytreatment and embryo research andPOST (Parliamentary Office of Scienceand Technology) during which thegroup was updated on current UK and EU regulation on both IVF andstem cell research.

The following day Professor Franklinintroduced the team to Dr StephenMinger one of UK’s leading scientistsin the field of stem cells andregenerative medicine and Director ofKing's Stem Cell Biology Laboratory.The team had the opportunity todiscuss with Dr Minger, tour his stateof the art laboratory at the WolfsonCentre for Age-Related Diseases andlater in the evening participate in oneof the famous London RegenerativeMedicine Network meetings that areheld monthly at the Centre.

On the final day, the team visited theUK Stem Cell Bank which is based atthe National Institute for BiologicalStandards and Control (NIBSC) inHertfordshire. The Bank provides arepository for stem cells derived fromadult, fetal and embryonic tissuesfrom various laboratories all over the world. The UK Stem Cell Bankoperates under accredited qualitysystems, in accordance with strict rules

of governance, and is inspected by theMedicines and Healthcare productsRegulatory Agency (MHRA). Dr GlynStacey (Director, UK Stem Cell Bank)and Dr Charles Hunt (OperationsManager) explained the Bank’smanagement and organisation systemand Penny Carter (Cell Biology QualityAssurance Manager) shed light on thetechnological issues involved in thepreservation, characterisation, andquality assurance of the lines.

A three-hour workshop was held atthe LSE on the same afternoon entitled‘Regulation and Standardisation ofStem Cell Research in the UK andChina: a comparative assessment witha view to greater harmonisation’. Theworkshop was sponsored by the BIOSCentre as part of ongoing activitiesrelated to the social and economicimplications of stem cell science andwas primarily aimed to address theissue of harmonisation throughstandardisation and regulation ofpractices, in the context of the rapidscientific advances in the field of stemcell research. During the workshopProfessor Lu addressed themechanisms and protocols that arebeing developed and put in place inChina to ensure ethical as well asquality standards in the derivation,handling and storage of hES. She alsospoke about the construction of a newStem Cell Bank with a possible role inthe distribution of lines and cells acrossChina and eventually worldwide.Professor Sarah Franklin and ProfessorNikolas Rose followed with a jointpresentation on UK approaches to anational strategy of hES derivation andbanking with an emphasis on issues ofethics and translation.

Collaboration with China is a priorityfor BIOS, and this is taking a numberof forms. In addition to the BIONETpartnership, which will host a numberof workshops and conferences inChina, several BIOS research studentsare engaging in research onbiomedicine in China. Moreover,Professor Franklin is collaborating withChinese partners on the regulation,standardisation and commercialisationof stem cells, and we are very pleasedto be hosting a 9-month visitingfellowship for Dr. Wei Liu (from theCITIC – Xiangya team) in BIOS.

Above: Dr Stacey explains thecryopreservation system

Below: Workshop on ethical governance ofbiomedical research

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‘Among the mostdebated topicswere whether ornot ‘evidencebases’ could everbe complete bothas regards thesafety and efficacyof a new drugunder currentregulatory regimeswhere commercial,regulatory andpatient concerns donot necessarilyconverge.’

In early June, an interdisciplinary group of about 50 philosophers,psychiatrists, clinical researchers,sociologists, anthropologists as well asregulators gathered in LSE’s RobinsonRoom for a two-day symposium. Atstake was the much acclaimed rise of randomised controlled trials as a‘gold standard’ in the building up ofevidence about the effectiveness of a certain treatment or medicine inpsychiatry. The event grew out of last year’s successful collaborationbetween BIOS and the Institute ofPsychiatry, King’s College on a seminarseries about the placebo effect, andwas made possible by the NuffieldFoundation as well as the Foundationfor the Sociology of Health and Illness.

As might be guessed, the twelvepresentations held over the course of the two days set the stage for lively discussions among participants.Among the most debated topics werewhether or not ‘evidence bases’ couldever be complete both as regards thesafety and efficacy of a new drugunder current regulatory regimeswhere commercial, regulatory andpatient concerns do not necessarilyconverge. Professor David Healyargued that relations between industryand researchers, often mediated by a new breed of organisationsspecialising in the ‘presentation ofhealth information’ was leading to a degradation of clinical researchpractice, especially as concernsaccurate reporting of safety data. Dr Tim Kendall of the NationalCollaborating Centre for MentalHealth showed some of the hurdleshis organisation was facing whenattempting to translate evidence intoclinical practice in the form of NICEguidelines in mental health. Kendallpointed out that 85 per cent of drugtrials in mental health are funded bydrug companies and that these arefive times more likely than non-industry trials to claim efficacy.Moreover, many drug trials are notpublished which raises questionsabout how complete evidence basesactually were.

From a sociological perspective, Dr David Armstrong highlighted thedifferences between ‘medical elite’and ‘field practitioner’ strategies for

An elusive evidence base?By Ayo Wahlberg

underpinning the trust that the publichas in doctors. While the formerstrategy relied on what ProfessorNikolas Rose called the ‘lure of theobjectivity of numbers’ which appearsto be controlled by ‘neutral’ andunbiased processes, the latter focuseson the individual needs of patientswhich can only be determined throughdoctor-patient encounters. Both agreedthat EBM constituted a new form ofgoverning clinical judgement which inpart arose out of the need to protectpatients from the iatrogenic dangers of medicine itself.

In considering just what it is thatconstitutes an evidence base, ProfessorNancy Cartwright argued that RCTs are not the only game in town andthat as a gold standard method fordetermining efficacy its conclusionswere necessarily limited in scope. In her talk, Cartwright distinguishedbetween clinchers (eg RCTs, certaineconometric methods) which mayclinch a conclusion but are narrow in their range of application, andvouchers (e.g. ethnographic methods,qualitative comparative analysis) whichvouch for a conclusion but are broad intheir applications. Following this notion

of different forms of evidence,Professor Andrew Webster argued thatassessment should be based not juston experimental evidence but alsoevidential (from ‘practices of use’) andexperiental (‘patient values’) evidence.

Finally, psychiatrist Ivan Eisler arguedthat randomised controlled trials canhelp practitioners by helping them to build up conceptualisations of a therapy and models of change.Changes in clinical practice, heargued, require changes in theunderstanding of how treatmentswork, something RCTs couldcontribute to. Professor Derek Boltonsuggested that this limited use ofRCTs was related to a dialectical playbetween generality and uniqueness.

The two-day symposium certainlyachieved its aims which were topromote interdisciplinary debateabout the usefulness and role ofRCTs and EBM in psychiatry. TheInstitute of Psychiatry and BIOS arecurrently in discussions about how to continue collaborations in thecoming year following successfuljoint efforts to debate and discussthe placebo effect and RCTs.

Images: Nikolas Rose

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Research updates

Btihaj AjanaPhD Candidate Biopolitics and Bioethics ofBiometrics: ID cards and the will to Low Risk Bodies

My project is concerned with theproposal of Biometric ID Cards in the UK. Through an analysis ofpolicy documents, media texts andthe various debates by civil libertiesgroups, I am aiming to explore howforms of identity and modes ofidentification are being redefinedand reconfigured through the use of biometric technology; understandthe changing logic of security andrisk management; and articulate theways in which media discourses andthose of civil liberties and the like are ‘shaping’ the debates over theimplications of biometric ID cards.

I spent most of the first academic yearreading through the relevant literatureand trying to tighten up my researchquestions and determine theappropriate research methodologies. I also attended various courses offeredby the Methodology Institute in orderto strengthen my research skills. Partof my endeavour was to ‘negotiate’what is ‘sociological’ about myresearch project. Coming from thebackground of Cultural/Media Studiesand Computing Science, my initialtake on the issue of biometric ID cardswas rather conceptual/philosophical.As such, I had to think of how tomake the theoretical nature of mypreliminary research proposal lessabstract without compromising,nevertheless, my desire to engagewith the philosophical aspects of thesubject matter. With the help of mysupervisor, I managed to find amiddle-ground whereby both theempirical and the philosophicaldimensions can be brought together.

In this academic year, I am intendingto conduct some empirical work bycollecting and analysing various dataand research material. In addition, I am planning to present papers at a number of conferences such as Embodiment and the State inDenmark. In terms of publications, I just published last month a paperentitled ‘Immigration Interrupted’ in the Journal for Cultural Research.

The paper provides a critique ofimmigration policy in Britain andelsewhere by drawing on the workof Nancy, Levinas and Derrida.

But in spite of the promising prospectsof my research project as well as myacademic achievements, I did notreceive any financial assistance fromthe Department of Sociology this year,which was truly a big surprise and ahuge disappointment. My only wishnow is that I will manage to subsistand complete my PhD despite the lackof financial aid!

Annette V B JensenPhD CandidateThe discursively embedded politicsof dignity in assisted death

‘From Mercy Killing to HumanDignity' is the title of my doctoralresearch because I initially show how the question of euthanasiathroughout the last century shiftedin terms of values and perceptions of the individual: from mercy, wherethe person is object for externalcompassion, to dignity where thevalue of life is related to a person’ssubjectivity. However, dignity is acontested notion with multiplemeanings and it is unclear whatit serves of function as well as which actions it legitimates. To get a better understanding of this I am undertaking an analysis of thediscursively embedded politics ofdignity in a sociological space ofinvestigation named Assisted Death.

So far, the research has shown thatdignity embodies contemporaryideas of mental capacity, of choiceand autonomy. It operates as a verypowerful notion, often equallyimportant or more important thanthe right to self-determination.Where mental capacity/personhoodis contested or lacking, a uniformperception of an individual is soughtpreserved, and dignity is ensuredthrough past wills, external norms and even use of coercion. Wherepersonhood and competence isintact the quantity of life can be and is articulated as a risk. Oneargument developed on the basis of these findings, is how an

undignified individual today posesthreats to the social just as much asthe social is threatening the dignityof the individual.

Carrying out this research has notbeen easy or uncomplicated. Often I have wondered about the reasonswhy; Was it the character of thesubject? Was it the craziness ofembarking on a PhD; or was it me?!The latter frequently seemed the best bid in particular at the outset of my studies. I, of course, carefullyabstained from sharing my concernswith my supervisor. But he, wise andexperienced, and on a few occasions,has gently put my worries intoperspective, and me back in my deskchair to work. So what at first – andfor a while I should add – appeared to be a failure to grasp a body ofliterature, as endless procrastination or de-routes into obscure peripheralalleys of knowledge, later turned outto be quite fruitful for how the workhas developed. This comforts as wellas excites me when looking ahead onthe work I still have in front of me toreach a happy ending.

Besides the research I am spendingsome time coordinating andorganising ‘Health and Citizenship,’a conference for research studentsfrom UK and the Nordic Countriestaking place 18-20 January, 2007 in Elsinore, Denmark. You can findmore information about this event in this issue.

David ReubiPhD CandidateConstructing an Ethical Market – Ethics, Public Opinion and theCirculation of the Human Body in Britain and Singapore

The last year has been a pretty busyone for me. In June, after manymonths writing up, I successfullypassed my upgrade. The writing ofthe three chapters which constitutedmy upgrade materials has helped me to both clarify my theoreticalapproach and to further focus thetheme of my research. Using agovernmentality framework, the latter looks at some of the rationalitiesand technologies of government

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currently being deployed to regulatethe collection and circulation ofhuman cells used in biomedicaltherapy and research. Theserationalities and techniques constitutea heterogeneous style of governancemade of bioethical notions of dignity,public opinion surveys and informedconsent forms. Through theexploration of this mode ofgovernance, my research alsoattempts to map out the image of thesubject which underlies it, a subjectwhose body is the source of the parts used in therapy and research.

My second chapter argues that before the current mode ofgovernance, the modern West hadexperienced two other systems togovern the circulation of the humanbody for research and therapy. Usingas illustrations for these two systemsthe 1832 English Anatomy Actdrafted by Jeremy Bentham as well asRichard Titmuss’ 1970 book The Gift

Relationship: From Blood to SocialPolicy, I explore the characteristics ofthese two styles of government inorder to understand the particularitiesof the rationalities and techniquescurrently in place. My third chapterexplores the emergence of this currentmode of governance of body parts inthe Euro-American context. Analysingdifferent policy documents, it arguesthat an anxiety about a market inhuman cells and the commodificationof the human body constituted animportant trigger and shapingelement in the development of thisstyle of government.

Since my upgrade I have beengathering materials for my nextchapters. These look at twoinstantiations of this novel mode ofgovernance: the regulation of thecollection and circulation of humanstem cells in Britain and Singapore.While both countries have madestem research a priority to enhance

their position in the globalknowledge economy, their historical,cultural and geographical differencesarticulated within wider discoursescontrasting East and West maketheir comparison worthwhile. Thedata collection should be finished by early April, leaving the remainingmonths of 2007 to write up andsubmit my PhD.

Apart from gathering data, I havealso attended and presented papersat a few conferences in the pastmonths. Drawing on my two firstsubstantive chapters. I havepresented papers at the EuropeanAssociation for the Study of Scienceand Technology’s Annual Conferencein Lausanne (August 2006), at theBIOS Centre’s Second Vital PoliticsConference as well as at theUniversity of Brighton’s Centre forApplied Philosophy, Ethics andPolitics’ Inaugural Conference (bothSeptember 2006).

Research updates (cont)

BIOS is pleased to announce that we have been awarded £220,000 bythe Wellcome Trust (award numberGR080201MA) for a three-year projectentitled From communication todeliberation: the impacts of new formsof public engagement on biomedicalscientists. The project takes placeagainst a UK background of increasingreliance on deliberative and inclusiveapproaches to policy-making (DIPs)with respect to science andtechnology research trajectories andpolicy-making that involves scientificknowledge. Broadly, DIPs involve theexchange of views, concerns andknowledge between scientific experts,policy-makers, the public and otherstakeholders. They tend to beadvocated, variously, as: essential for public confidence in science and technology, a route to betterpolicy and to the development oftechnologies that have greater socialvalue, and as a democratic imperative.

For scientific experts, thisdevelopment requires a potentiallychallenging shift from technocratic,expert-focused approaches to policy-making and public engagement thatconsists of straightforward sciencecommunication. Within this context,the goal of the project is to provide

From communication to deliberationBy Kevin Burchell

rigorous policy advice concerning theopportunities and barriers that areencountered by biomedical scientistswith respect to the development and establishment of DIPs withinbiomedical science. To achieve this,the research objective is to collectdata on the understandings of,experiences of and responses to DIPs of scientists working in thebiomedical sciences. Moreconceptually, the objective is toexamine these issues within the socialpsychological frameworks of identityand representation. These arepotentially fruitful conceptualframeworks because they are able to deal with changing relationshipsbetween individuals and societies inways that are politically, sociologicallyand psychologically informed.

The project commenced on 1 September, 2006 and is managedby Dr Kevin Burchell (reporting toProfessor Sarah Franklin), who joinsBIOS from the Department ofGeography and Environment at LSE.Broadly speaking, Kevin’s backgroundis in science and technology studies,(critical approaches to) publicunderstanding of science, andenvironmental risk. This project bringstogether Kevin’s two more specific

interests: analysis of theaforementioned policy trajectories(from expert-focused policy-makingand science communication to DIPs),and analysis of the discourses ofscientists themselves (especially withrespect to advocacy of their ownwork, and relationships betweenscience and society). For furtherinformation about the project, pleasecontact Kevin at [email protected].

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Interdisciplinarity is one of the keywords for the social study of the lifesciences. As researchers in the field,we need to become literate in writingsand languages of disciplines that arenot our own. Conversely, we seek tocommunicate through disciplinaryconventions that are often illegible to our collaborators from otherdisciplines. How these new kinds ofrelationships emerge and become‘interliterate’ is a process that mirrors awider set of engagements – betweenpatients and genetic counsellors,scientists and the ‘general public’,expert and ‘lay’ communities, activistsand policymakers, and a myriad ofother sites of interaction. How do we forge these interdisciplinaryrelationships? What can we expect tolearn from them? How is the conceptof interdisciplinarity misused? What is‘best interdisciplinary practice’?

Thanks to a grant from the WellcomeTrust, it was a discussion of theseissues that brought a group ofpostgraduate students from severalinstitutions together on the 5th and6th of September for a workshoporganized by BIOS PhD students ChrisHamilton, Megan Clinch, and AyoWahlberg. The workshop had twomain objectives. The first was toprovide a space for postgraduatestudents to discuss and exchangeideas about their nascent research,conceptual frameworks andmethodological strategies in acollegial and productive environment.The second was to embark ondiscussions where the definition andimplementation of interdisciplinaritycould be explored. The workshop wasorganized around five core sessions,which dealt specifically with differentaspects of interdisciplinary research:

1 What does interdisciplinaritymean and how do we do it?

a) Does interdisciplinarity entailreforming the disciplines involved?

b) If so is this a compromise, an actof innovation, or something else?

2 Ethical practice throughmultiple sites

a) How do we deal with differentcodes of ethics (formal, informalor otherwise) that might prevail indifferent settings?

b) How might an interdisciplinaryteam working on a researchproject come to a sharedunderstanding of ‘ethical practice’

c) How should we share ourfindings with our collaborators?

Postgrad pagesThe challenges of interdisciplinarity – tools for studying the life sciencesBy Chris Hamilton

Images: Annette V B Jensen

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11BIOS News Issue 4 • Autumn 2006

3 ‘Inter-literacy’

a) How do we, as interdisciplinaryresearchers become literate in the writing and languages ofdisciplines that are not our own(eg biomedical research, clinicalpractice law, sociology etc.)?

b) How do we communicate our own thoughts and ideaswhich are often embedded in our own disciplinary conventionsand languages?

c) How do these relationshipsimpact on how we carry out our research?

4 Interdisciplinary disseminationof findings

a) How do we communicate our findings through disciplinaryboundaries (both our own and others)?

b) Is there a politics of dissemination,and how could this shape the ‘endproduct’ of our research?

c) How do we ensure thisdissemination is most effective, andhow is this effectiveness defined?

5 Gaining access and negotiating sites

a) How is access gained, and what are some of the challengesin this process both practically and intellectually?

b) What are our key sites? Arethey only spatial? If not, whatforms can they take?

Postgrad pages (cont)

The first two issues of BioSocieties: an interdisciplinary journal for socialstudies of neuroscience, genomics andthe life sciences, published for the LSEby CUP, March and June 2006.

www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_BIO

BioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSOut now!

The workshop sessions werefacilitated by more experiencedacademics, who generously donatedof their time, expertise andintelligence to ‘workshop’ these ideas with a spirited group ofpostgraduates. It was widelyacknowledged that the success of the workshop, with its format of discussion-focused sessions, was entirely contingent on theapproaches of the participants.Overwhelmingly, it was the feeling of the organizers, and indeed ofthose participants and facilitators who spoke to us afterwards, that the participants and facilitators alike rose to the challenge andcontributed to lively, interesting andvaluable discussions in the sessions.There was a great deal of interest in furthering the momentum built

up in this workshop, and there arenow a variety of options aboutfurther discussion and outputs being explored.

The workshop organizers would liketo extend a very special thanks tothose facilitators who generouslygave of their time, their patience,and especially their willingness todiscuss their engagement with these issues in their work: ProfessorNikolas Rose (BIOS), Professor Richard Ashcroft (Queen Mary), Dr Michael Barr (BIOS), ProfessorSarah Franklin (BIOS), Professor Derek Bolton (IoP), Dr Filippa Lentzos (BIOS), Dr Ilina Singh (BIOS), Dr Karen Throsby (Warwick) and Dr Bronwyn Parry (Queen Mary).

‘How do we, asinterdisciplinaryresearchers becomeliterate in thewriting andlanguages ofdisciplines that are not our own’

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12 BIOS News Issue 4 ● Autumn 2006

It was while looking at the postcardscenery surrounding Lausanne, that I started missing BIOS… I had comehere for the EASST-conference,where the STS-community wasgathered, after having just re-occupied my office in the oldobservatory building of ETH Zurich.Checking whether the telescope inthe cupola of the building was stillthere, I remembered the London eye,which I had seen on so many days,always wondering whether it wassecretly serving Foucault’s panopticrole of looking back at us, gazingthrough to BIOS, in tower 2.

But here I sat, staring at thewonderfully blue lake of Geneva,admiring the amazing mountains,and felt moved. What I somehowhad taken for granted for a coupleof months, those people and ideasaround me, nearly everyday, startedto ache as lacking. Most certainlythere is email these days, but would I ever get back into discussing thedifferences between botany andgardening with Carlos through thenet? Would I hear so spontaneouselaborations on rational modernity inthe health system of Vietnam againfrom Ayo? Would I elaborate on‘true’ democracies with Kerstin?Would I go out desperately hungryto look for some proper continentalmeal during lunchtime with Anelis?

It hadn’t been easy to get into thismicrocosm of an internationaluniversity and to bear the chaos and‘grind of London’ (Mathew). Timeseemed to be a scarce element in the life of BIOSers. It took me quite awhile to realize that it was life itselfthat governed the 200 square metersoffice space, and that it would bethose bits and pieces, the agitateddiscussions during roundtables,David’s books on his desk, orMichael’s thinker sculpture on his,that made me know and let meinteract with the people around me.Linsey’s outcries on her mobilephone, woke me up and got me tomy paper again, and whenever I sawBtihaj, I wondered, how I possiblyhad been portrayed by Al-Jazeera.

It was during this post-cardconference in Lausanne, when NikolasRose and Sheila Jasanoff debated the impact of the state and socialinstitutions on the development of thebio-sciences and on the role of the

Postcards from BIOS visitors

Life of BIOS

What I somehowhad taken forgranted for a

couple of months,those people andideas around me,nearly everyday,

started to ache as lacking.

bio-capitalist subject and how it isformed, that I got most excited. Istarted to realize that it had been the very same questions driving meduring these past nine months, andon a small scale it was mirrored inasking myself, whether it was theluxurious open office space with itsgorgeous view on the London eye, orthe privileged yet engaging situationof its inhabitants that made this BIOScollective tick and its individuals think.

So, I would like to thank all of you,on this occasion – and when I climbthe stairs to look through thetelescope of the observatory again, orif I see the steep mountains and the

glittery Zürichsee from the roof-terrace, at these moments – I will bemissing the panoptic London eye,but I will be reminded of the ideasfloating around on the 11th floor.And they will keep me asking aboutthe global trends in local economiesand the governing of subjects andthe management of their health etc,whether everything is the other wayround and how we ourselves aregetting involved in these trends.

With warm regards – Priska

Priska Gisler, Collegium Helveticum, Zurich, Switzerland

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BIOS News Issue 4 ● Autumn 2006 13

My very first impression of BIOS(which I briefly visited in March 2005to check out what these vital lettersmight contain), was crucial, busy butnice looking people and everywhereindicators of the common topics ofinterests: biomedicine, bioscience,biosociality, biopiracy, bioweapons,biotech, biorisk, bioterror, biopower,biosociety, bioethics...

Can so much bios be good?

Undoubtedly yes!

Looking for inspirations ranging fromFoucault to Gender Studies/Feminism Icame to BIOS. Nik’s traces everywhereand Sarah’s supervisions were exactlythe right combination for thesepurposes. I applied as a visitingresearch student and left behind abrain imaging project where I hadworked for three years.

It was quite challenging at thebeginning, so many new impressions,so many new structures in academiclife. I had the fortuity to participate in BIOS activities during a wholeacademic year. So I saw BIOS bothquite stressed, and also pretty relaxed.I enjoyed the MSc course programme held during the first two terms. I also enjoyed the BIOS seminars, theneurosience and society workshops,the roundtables and many public talks.

Luckily, I had the unique andincomparable opportunity to witness

the BIOS experiment itself. Formyself, it was informative to observethis period of self discovery and thisprocess of self identification basedon simple questions with hardanswers like ‘what is BIOS?’ or ‘are we a collectivity?’; and it wasilluminating to see this project endup in a brilliant presentation atEASST 2006 in Lausanne.

Compared to the Swiss and German universities, there are manydifferences, some are better, othersare worse. When it comes to the PhD system, I would say that Englishacademia brings up its pupils with afocus on written expression of ideas,whereas Swiss and German academiaperhaps drive their students todevelop their verbal questioning skillsfurther but possibly at the expense of the intellectual discipline of thewritten word. What also struck mehere was the deliberate but veryproductive treatment and use of anapplied ‘interdisciplinarity’ – and Idon’t think that the only reason forthat is the direct dealing with the‘hard’ sciences.

I’m going back with an enormouslyenriched understanding on the socialimplications, interactions andregulations of the biosciences, plusan incidentally acquired knowledgeon reproductive medicine, cloning,bioeconomy, Chinese medicine,

biometric identification technologiesand much more.

I’m gratefull to every BIOSone whopatiently answered my new-comerquestions, who invited me to thereading group sessions or discussedextendedly with me after talks. Youhave been very inclusive. Specialsthanks to my supervisor Sarah forthe inspiring discussions during oursupervisory meetings.

It’s sad to go. So, never leave BIOS!

Anelis Kaiser, Department ofNeuroanatomy, University ofBasel, Switzerland

‘I’m going back with an enormously enrichedunderstanding on the social implications, interactionsand regulations of the biosciences, plus an incidentallyacquired knowledge on reproductive medicine, cloning,bioeconomy, Chinese medicine, biometric identificationtechnologies and much more.’

From Anelis KaiserImages: Filippa Lentzos

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Publications and conference presentationsby BIOS staff, associates and students

Publications

Ajana, B (2006)‘Immigration Interrupted’ in Journal forCultural Research, Vol 10: (in press)

Bauer, MW (2006) ‘The paradoxes of resistance inBrazil’ in: Gaskell G and M Bauer(eds) Genomics and Society: legal,ethical and social dimensions,London: Earthscan, p228-249

Bauer, MW & J Gutteling (2006)‘Salience and framing of modernbiotechnology in the elite press,1973-2002’ in: Gaskell G and MBauer (eds) (2005) Genomics andSociety: legal, ethical and socialdimensions, London: Earthscan,p113-130.

Clinch M (2006) [Review of the book] ‘Case Analysis inClinical Ethics’ in New Genetics andSociety, Vol. 25(1)

Franklin, S (2006) ‘Embryonic Economies: The DoubleReproductive Value of Stem Cells’ inBiosocieties, Vol 1(1): 71-90.

Franklin, S (2006) ‘The IVF-Stem Cell Interface’ inInternational Journal of Surgery, Vol. 4: 86-90

Hamilton, C (2006)‘Biodiversity, biopiracy and benefits:What allegations of biopiracy tell us about intellectual property’ inDeveloping World Bioethics, (in press)

Hamilton, C (2006) ‘Intellectual property rights and livingorganisms’ in International Journal ofSurgery Vol. 4: 82-5

Kaiser, A et al (2006) ‘On females' lateral and males'bilateral activation during languageproduction: a fMRI study’ in

International Journal ofPsychophysiology, (in press)

Kaiser, A (2006) ‘Neue Versuche zur Konfigurationund Konstitution von Materialitätenund Verkörperungen’ in FreiburgerFrauenStudien, Vol.18: 296-301

Kerr, A and S Franklin (2006)‘Genetic Ambivalence: Expertise,Uncertainty and Communicationin the Context of new Genetic

Technologies’ in Andrew Webster (ed.)New Technologies in Health Care,Houndmills: Palgrave, pp. 40-56.

Lentzos, F (2006) ‘Managing Biorisks: Reflecting onCodes of Conduct’ in NonproliferationReview, (in press)

Rose, N (2006) ‘Biopower today’ in BioSocieties,Vol.1(2): 195-218 (with Paul Rabinow)

Rose, N (2006)The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine,Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, to be publishedNovember 2006.

Wahlberg, A (2006) [Book reviews of] ‘Marginal toMainstream: Alternative Medicine in America – M Ruggie Nature,Technology and the Sacred – B Szerszynski’ in British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 57(2): 343-6

Presentations

Ajana, B (2006) ‘The Ethics of the Whatever inCultural Studies’, paper presented atContexts, Fields, Positions – SituatingCultural Research, University of EastLondon, 25-26 May 2006

Clinch, M (2006) ‘Seeing as an Assemblage: AnEthnography of an NHS ThyroidClinic in the UK’, paper presented atReviewing Humanness: Bodies,Technologies and Spaces, EASSTConference, University of Lausanne,Switzerland, 23-26 August 2006

Clinch, M (2006) “Producing Collectivity: ResearchCentres, Experimentation andInterdisciplinarity in ‘Biosocial’explorations”, paper co-presentedwith Nikolas Rose, Sarah Franklin,Ayo Wahlberg and Mathew Kabatoffat Reviewing Humanness: Bodies,Technologies and Spaces, EASSTConference, University of Lausanne,Switzerland, 23-26 August 2006

Corneliussen, F (2006)‘What are the challenges associatedwith implementing new oversightrequirements in Europe?’, introductoryremarks at workshop on ControllingDangerous Pathogens Project:Regional Workshop on Dual-UseResearch, Matrahaza, Hungary, 12-14 May 2006

Corneliussen, F (2006) ‘Managing Dual Use Concerns in the Bioindustry’, paper presented atnon-proliferation and disarmamentseminar series jointly hosted by theFrench Defence Ministry and theInstitute for International andStrategic Relations, Paris, France, 13 April 2006

Franklin, S (2006) ‘Feeling Sheepish: How DollyBecame a Biological Relative’, invitedpresentation at Animal Genomes inScience, Social Science, and Culture,Genomics Forum Workshop,Edinburgh, 5-7 April 2006

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BIOS News Issue 4 ● Autumn 2006 15

Franklin, S (2006)‘Cleavage: the Multiplications andDivisions of Accounting forEmbryos’, invited presentation atTalking Embryos, Centre for Researchin the Arts, Social Sciences, andHumanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, 5 May 2006

Franklin, S (2006) ‘Ambivalent Biology and the Politicsof Suspicion: Living With the NewFacts of Life’, plenary address atReviewing Humanness: Bodies,Technologies and Spaces, EASSTConference, University of Lausanne,Switzerland, 23-26 August 2006

Hamilton, C (2006) ‘On biopiracy’, paper present atESRC Genomics Forum Workshop onGenomics and Intellectual Property,Edinburgh, 1-3 March 2006

Hamilton, C (2006) ‘Too natural/too cultural? Biopiracy,biocapital and biosociality’, paperpresented at Vital Politics II: Health,Medicine, and Bioeconomics Into the 21st Century, BIOS Centre,London School of Economics, 7-9 September 2006

Kaiser, A (2006)“On ‘Geschlecht’ in Brain ScienceExperiments”, paper presented atThinking Gender – the NEXTGeneration, Leeds, 21-22 June 2006

McGoey, L (2006)‘Taming dissent: the politics ofobjectivity within evidence-basedMedicine’, paper presented at VitalPolitics II : Health, Medicine, andBioeconomics Into the 21st Century,BIOS Centre, London School ofEconomics, 7-9 September 2006

Reubi, D (2006) ‘The Capacity to Reflect and Decide.The Emergence of a Novel Object inthe Government of Human BodyParts’, paper presented at Medicineand The Body Politic, Centre ofApplied Philosophy, Politics andEthics, University of Brighton (21-22 September)

Reubi, D (2006) ‘Beyond Commodification –Techniques to Govern the Collectionof Human Biological Materials’,paper presented at Vital Politics II:Health, Medicine, and BioeconomicsInto the 21st Century, BIOS Centre,London School of Economics, 7-9September 2006

Reubi, D (2006) ‘Governing the Body – from Secrecyand Corpses to Consent and Cells’,paper presented at ReviewingHumanness: Bodies, Technologies

and Spaces, EASST Conference,University of Lausanne, Switzerland,23-26 August 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘Biopower in the 21st Century:bioeconomics and biocapital’,presented at Science, Medicine andPolitics, Centre de recherche sur lasanté, le social et le politique, INSERM,University of Paris 13, 4 April 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘Biofutures in the present: the role ofimagined futures in contemporarybiomedicine and bioeconomics’,presented at Shifting Politics:Governing Biofutures, Groningen,Netherlands, 21-22 April 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘What is an adequate life?’,presented at Vital Citizenship, MoralExperience and the Governance ofLife in Post-Mao China, Harvard, 19-20 May 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘Ethopolitics and the transformationof biopolitics’, presented at ThePolitics of Ethics and the Crisis of Government, University ofWashington, Seattle, 25-26 May 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘Somatic Ethics and the Spirit ofBioCapital’, presented at LancasterUniversity, April 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘The politics of life in the twenty firstcentury’, presented at University ofLisbon, June 2006

Rose, N (2006) ‘The Value of Life: Somatic Ethicsand the Spirit of BioCapital’, plenaryaddress at Reviewing Humanness:Bodies, Technologies and Spaces,EASST Conference, University ofLausanne, Switzerland, 23-26August 2006

Vrecko, S (2006) ‘From neuroethics to neuropolitics:linking gender, power, and thenature of the anorexic brain’, paperpresented at Bioethics: past, presentand future, Birmingham University,June 2006

Vrecko, S (2006) “Crime control and the death of thesocial: on drug courts and emergingforms of ‘therapeutic justice’”, paperpresented at the annual meeting ofthe British Society of Criminology,Glasgow, August 2006

Vrecko, S (2006) ‘Desire under control: addictiontreatment in psychopharmacologicalsocieties’, paper presented atReviewing Humanness: Bodies,

Technologies and Spaces, EASSTConference, University of Lausanne,Switzerland, 23-26 August 2006

Vrecko, S (2006)‘Biosocial dynamics within theindustry, science, and politics ofgambling’, paper presented at VitalPolitics II: Health, Medicine, andBioeconomics Into the 21st Century,BIOS Centre, London School ofEconomics, 7-9 September 2006

Wahlberg, A (2006) ‘Above and beyond superstition’,paper presented at Diversity andDebate in Alternative andComplementary Medicine, Alternativeand Complementary Health ResearchNetwork, Nottingham University,United Kingdom, 6-7 July 2006

Grants

Franklin, S and K Burchell (2006)‘From Communication toDeliberation: the Impacts of NewForms of Public Engagement onBiomedical Scientists’, WellcomeTrust Society Awards, £225,000(01/09/06-31/08/09)

Publications and conference presentations (cont)

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Upcoming BIOS events


BIOS • The London School of Economics and PoliticalScience • Houghton StreetLondon WC2A 2AE

Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6998 Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 6565www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/

During term time, the BIOS research seminar series and BIOS reading group sessionsare held regularly on Thursdays and Wednesdays respectively. The Thursday seminarseries feature invited speakers to discuss their research on various social and ethicalaspects of the life sciences and biomedicine, while the reading group facilitatesdiscussion around a series of topics that are of interest to persons associated withBIOS or who have an interest in the life sciences throughout the LSE and beyond.

Unless otherwise stated events take place 5-7pm in Graham Wallas Room (Old Building,5th floor), London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street.

Dates for your calendar October – December 2006

Tuesday, 3rd October‘Reproduction: an issue of humanrights’, with the Centre for theStudy of Human Rights, speakersinclude Dr Stephen Minger and Dr Debora Spar, Hong KongTheatre, Clement House, 6.30-8pm

Thursday, 26th OctoberAlain Pottage, Law Department,LSE

Thursday, 23rd NovemberGeorge Gaskell and Martin Bauer,Institute of Social Psychology, LSE

BIOS Reading GroupThe reading group will meet 1-3pm on 20 September, 11 October, 1 November and 22 November. Check the BIOS websitefor an updated Michaelmas Term programme and reading list.

BIOS RoundtablesBIOS roundtable will continue in the Michaelmas Term aiming at exploring shared interests in the BIOS community, and to addressproblems, issues, and concerns encountered. The roundtables will be held at BIOS Centre 12-1.30pm on the following dates: 18 October, 8 November, 29 November.

SO455 Key Issues in Bioscience, Biomedicineand SocietyThursdays in S53 from 10am to 12pm during the Michaelmas Term.

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BIOS News Issue 4. Michaelmas 2006

Documents

Transcript of BIOS News Issue 4. Michaelmas 2006