Translational biomedicine in action: Constructing biomarkers across laboratory and benchside

This article, based on ethnographic research conducted in a major Italian institution specialising in cancer care and research, provides insight into the clinical and basic research laboratory practices articulated around an experimental protocol designed to develop a biomarker. The article adopts an 'ecological' perspective matured in the field of science and technology studies of the translational process and suggests that biomedical activities are multi-directional, and cannot be understood in reductionist terms, that is, as a two-way linear transfer of bio-knowledge from the bench to bedside and back. I propose the notion of technomimicry, in its dual acceptation in the clinical and experimental sense, to understand the cognitive, social and material strategies involved in the circuit of migration of heterogeneous materials and information across scientific laboratories and clinics. Clinical and experimental technomimicry theoretically capture the multi-directional and multi-modal process of the re-location of materials and bio-knowledge from one site to another. These concepts also highlight how the epistemological boundaries of the clinic and laboratory are required to be mutually adjusted and continuously realigned in order to translate laboratory facts into clinical activities, and clinical evidence into researchable issues

Lavoro di cura e innovazione tecnoscientifica: il caso della medicina personalizzata

In contemporary biomedicine, care practices are increasingly interlaced with research and development activities, leading to the emergence of new biomedical domains, such as personalized medicine. Personalized medicine involves the shaping of unprecedented relationships between clinical practice and technoscientific innovation processes, which need to be explored in their social and technological dimensions. In this article, based on ethnographic research carried out within an institute of care and research in Northern Italy, it will be analysed the reconfiguration of medical practice and health professions due to the increasing adoption of organizational strategies in support of the circulation of knowledge, biological materials and technologies between scientific laboratories and care settings. From the analytical point of view, a special attention it will be paid to the organizational arrangements performed by physicians and scientist in order to support the dialogue between research laboratories and care contexts, in which personalised medicine is shaped

The socio-technical shaping of digital commons and the material politics of the Italian wireless community network

Digital commons represent important alternative forms of technology production and sharing in contemporary network society. The article presents the main results of a qualitative study on a specific case of digital commons, Ninux.org, the largest wireless community network (CN) in Italy. CNs are distributed local communication infrastructures, generally built and self-managed by grassroots organisations. Empirical data has been gathered through a mix of qualitative techniques, including 14 in-depth interviews with key participants of four major local networks (Pisa, Bologna, Firenze and Roma), multi-sited ethnographic observations and documents analysis, with the aim to investigate par- ticipation processes in this project, paying particular attention to the discursive elements and material practices among participants. On the basis of the empirical research and drawing on a conceptual framework matured on the ridge between sociology of innovation and science and technology studies (S&TS), the article’s findings explore the complexity characterising the interaction between practices, technology and political visions involved in digital commons production. We argue that the adherence to the paradigm of commons enacts a complex socio-technical process, in which discourses about the governance of digital resources, political agendas and material technologies are mutually adjusted and continuously realigned to perform in practice an infrastructure as a common-pool resource

Dalla molecola al paziente: la ricerca oncologica fra laboratori scientifici e spazi clinici

BACKGROUND This PhD dissertation looks at ways to “translate” knowledge and techniques of molecular oncology into novel clinical applications. Using translational research in the field of molecular oncology as a case study, my investigation examines the social interaction between activities in medicine and in research and development and between medical staff and scientists. From a theoretical point of view, my reflection about translational research contrasts with the pipeline representations that social theorists have often adopted, where the trajectory of the translational imperative is shown as both linear and progressive. In this text, I analyse and describe the character of translational research in biomedicine as a new style of practice. This concept points to the complex and heterogeneous set of places and interactions that make up translational research in the molecular oncology domain and the subsequent shaping of new technologies of life and clinical objects, such as new molecular diagnostic tests. My work highlights the fact that translational biomedicine is a complex socio-technical area where research in molecular oncology is performed through heterogeneous practices and various actors are engaged in the construction of new clinical technologies and objects, regulations and cures for disease. The observations I have made over the past year, through ethnographic research in two different settings, have led me to recognize translational research as a complex mixture of the mutual interaction between different disciplines, practices, technologies and forward-looking statements about the future of medicine. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The main goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the respective sociological literature about medicine, science and society by providing an alternative and empirically based understanding of translational biomedicine in action. In order to do this, I provide descriptive ethnographic material through observing both clinical and research activities in molecular oncology. I then explore the ways in which scientists relate to the clinical practices governing their fields and examine how different actors and practitioners handle communication between scientific laboratories and clinical spaces. RESEARCH METHODS This study draws on empirical data gathered through ethnographic observation in laboratories and clinical trials, and through documentary analysis and interviews with scientists, clinicians, those who coordinate experiments and data manager

Tracking biomedicalization in the media: Public discourses on health and medicine in the UK and Italy, 1984–2017

This article examines historical trends in the reporting of health, illness and medicine in UK and Italian newspapers from 1984 to 2017. It focuses on the increasing “biomedicalization” of health reporting and the framing of health and medicine as a matter of technoscientific interventions. Methodologically, we relied on two large datasets consisting of all the health- and medicine-related articles published in the online archives of The Guardian (UK) and la Repubblica (Italy). These articles underwent a quantitative analysis, based on topic modelling techniques, to identify and analyse relevant topics in the datasets. Moreover, we developed some synthetic indices to support the analysis of how medical and health news are “biomedicalized” in media coverage. Theoretically, we emphasise that media represent a constitutive environment in shaping biomedicalization processes. Our analyses show that across the period under scrutiny, biomedicalization is a relevant, even if sometimes ambivalent, frame in the media sphere, placing growing centrality on three dimensions: i) health and well-being as a matter of individual commitment to self-monitoring and self-surveillance; ii) biomedicine as a large technoscientific enterprise emerging from the entanglement between research fields and their technological embodiments; iii) the multiverse reforms of welfare systems in facing the trade-off between universal health coverage and the need to render the national healthcare system more sustainable and compatible with non-expansionary monetary policies and austerity approaches in managing state government budgets

Bottom-up Infrastructures: Aligning Politics and Technology in building a Wireless Community Network

Contemporary innovation in infrastructures is increasingly characterized by a close relationship between experts and lay people. This phenomenon has attracted the attention from a wide range of disciplines, including computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), science and technology studies (S&TS), organization studies and participatory design (PD). Connecting to this broad area of research, the article presents a qualitative case study concerning the building and maintenance of a grassroots, bottom-up information infrastructure in Italy, defined as wireless community network (WCN). Methodologically, the research is based on qualitative interviews with participants to the WCN, ethnographic observations and document analysis. The aim of the article is to understand the alignment between the technical work implied in building this bottom-up infrastructure and the political and cultural frameworks that move people to participate to this project. Relying on the field of science & technology studies, and in particular on the notions of ‘inverse infrastructure’ and ‘research in the wild’, we disclose the WCN’s peculiar innovation trajectory, localized outside conventional spaces of research and development. Overall, the presentation of the qualitative and ethnographic data allows to point out a more general reflection on bottom-up infrastructures and to enrich the academic debate concerning bottom-up infrastructuring work and other similar typologies of collaborative design projects in the domain of infrastructures