Chapter 10 Animal, Mechanical, and Me

Organ donation and transplantation is a largely successful treatment used to replace failing organs. However, donation rates have never met the demand for transplantable organs. Biomedical researchers are exploring alternative sources from nonhuman animal donors such as pigs; improved biotechnological solutions such as total artificial hearts; and 3D printed organs developed from the recipient’s own cells. These These solutions are in various stages of development, and they may or may not prove viable in terms of cost, functionality, and/or compatibility with the recipient’s body. In this chapter, I ask not about the viability of these proposed solutions, but rather, about the acceptability of the various technologies to potential recipients. Simply put: were these organ transplant alternatives to become available, would patients agree to them? Analyzing answers from focus group interviews and surveys, I use the responses to show that individuals imagine these various technologies as familiar or foreign, self or other, clean or dirty, and so on. People envisage that using different different different materials will certainly affect their bodies but also their subjectivities. New biotechnologies are raising questions about altering subjectivity through body modification and the answers to these questions demonstrate ambiguity

3D bioprint me : a socioethical view of bioprinting human organs and tissues

In this article, we review the extant social science and ethical literature on three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting. 3D bioprinting has the potential to be a ‘game-changer’, printing human organs on demand, no longer necessitating the need for living or deceased human donation or animal transplantation. Although the technology is not yet at the level required to bioprint an entire organ, 3D bioprinting may have a variety of other mid-term and short-term benefits that also have positive ethical consequences, for example, creating alternatives to animal testing, filling a therapeutic need for minors and avoiding species boundary crossing. Despite a lack of current socioethical engagement with the consequences of the technology, we outline what we see as some preliminary practical, ethical and regulatory issues that need tackling. These relate to managing public expectations and the continuing reliance on technoscientific solutions to diseases that affect high-income countries. Avoiding prescribing a course of action for the way forward in terms of research agendas, we do briefly outline one possible ethical framework ‘Responsible Research Innovation’ as an oversight model should 3D bioprinting promises are ever realised. 3D bioprinting has a lot to offer in the course of time should it move beyond a conceptual therapy, but is an area that requires ethical oversight and regulation and debate, in the here and now. The purpose of this article is to begin that discussion

New risks inadequately managed:The case of smart implants and medical device regulation

Many emerging technologies are associated with ‘risk’. While the concept of risk is protean, it is usually conceived of as the potential of something damaging or harmful happening. Thus, risks are a primary target of many regulatory regimes. In this article, after articulating an understanding of risk, we assess the European medical devices regulatory regime from a risk perspective, focusing on its handling of ‘smart’ implantable medical devices. In doing so, we discuss the empirical evidence obtained from expert participants in the Implantable Smart Technologies Project, which evidence is framed around three risk typologies: materiality, geography and modality. We conclude that none of these risks are sufficiently addressed within the existing regime, which falls down not just from a standards perspective, but also from the perspective of transparency and balance

Recovering breast cancer patients’ views about the use of in-vivo biosensors to personalise radiotherapy treatment

This report covers an important component of the EPSRC-funded IMPACT project that is developing implantable biosensors to monitor the tumour micro-environment so as to target X-ray dosage to hypoxic areas, thereby maximising the effectiveness of the treatment (www.eng.ed.ac.uk/impact). This qualitative study explored the views of breast cancer patients about implanted biosensors through a series of semi-structured interviews with 32 women who had successfully completed a course of treatment. The aim was both to consider detailed aspects of patients’ willingness to benefit from a possible technological enhancement of treatment and also to understand their views on the challenges of living with what that treatment might mean

Biomedicine, self and society: An agenda for collaboration and engagement

The commitment of massive resources – financial, social, organisational, and human – drives developments in biomedicine. Fundamental transformations in the generation and application of knowledge are challenging our understandings and experiences of health, illness, and disease as well as the organisation of research and care. Coupled with the accelerated pace of change, it is pressing that we build authentic collaborations across and between the biomedical sciences, humanities and social sciences, and wider society. It is only in this way that we can ask and answer the penetrating questions that will shape improvements in human health now and in the decades ahead. We delineate the need for such commitments across five key areas of human and societal experience that impact on and are impacted by developments in biomedicine: disease; bodies; global movements and institutions; law; and, science-society engagements. Interactions between ideas, researchers, and communities across and within these domains can provide a way into creating the new knowledges, methods, and partnerships we believe are essential if the promises of biomedicine are to be realised