Road-maps and revelations: on the somatic ethics of genetic susceptibility

Pathways and prospects in cancer research: Securing futures and negotiating boundaries

“…Expectations of the future are therefore shown to rely on various forms of boundary work (Gieryn, 1999) Contested terrain in the field of cancer research has been shown to be triggered by a number of factors: an expert's connection to a particular technical or theoretical view -style of reasoning (Hacking, 1992); and what approach provides the greatest potential to form a 'do-able' project, accounted for on the basis of robust knowledge and epistemic authority on the one hand or practical tools, resources and infrastructures on the other (Fujimura, 1987). Others have highlighted the potency and persuasiveness of risk prediction across a number of fields in contemporary society (Groves, 2013). In the case of these experts, risk prediction remains central to their claim-making regarding the future of cancer research, in a similar vein to that of genetic susceptibility (which so far has also offered little meaningful improvement in determining someone's risk in the clinic).…”

“…The pre-occupation with risk is reflective of a cultural shift occurring in advanced liberal societies that constructs uncertain futures as somehow responsive to the actions of rational individuals (Groves, 2013), acting on the basis of population profiling. A significant consequence of these socio-cultural dimensions simultaneously shaping and being shaped by biomedical science is the way in which the future is increasingly constructed as a dimension of the present (Adam and Groves, 2007).…”

Nanomedicine and personalised medicine: understanding the personalisation of health care in the molecular era

“…It has explored the ‘post‐genomic surprise’ of the persistence or reimagining of racial and ethnic categories (Duster , Hunt and Kreiner , Prainsack ), the spectre of genetic discrimination in private insurance (Joly et al . ), its resonance with neoliberal imaginaries (Dickenson ), the negotiation of new somatic risks (Groves ), ontological conceptions of disease (Boenink , Timmermans and Buchbinder ) and the ‘political’ passage of pharmacogenitics through the clinic (Hedgecoe ). Finally, and extremely usefully, scholars have also inserted personalised medicine in the broader processes of ‘biomedicalization’ (Clarke et al .…”

“…Indeed, most social science work on personalised medicine has associated the latter with pharmacogenomics or pharmacogenetics. It has explored the 'post-genomic surprise' of the persistence or reimagining of racial and ethnic categories (Duster 2015, Hunt and Kreiner 2013, Prainsack 2015, the spectre of genetic discrimination in private insurance (Joly et al 2010), its resonance with neoliberal imaginaries (Dickenson 2013), the negotiation of new somatic risks (Groves 2013), ontological conceptions of disease (Boenink 2010, Timmermans andBuchbinder 2010) and the 'political' passage of pharmacogenitics through the clinic (Hedgecoe 2004). Finally, and extremely usefully, scholars have also inserted personalised medicine in the broader processes of 'biomedicalization' (Clarke et al 2010) and have detailed the continuities and discontinuities between contemporary personalisation inflected by genomics and earlier forms of personalisation that date back to the 19 th century (Tutton 2014).…”