Extending experimentation: oncology's fading boundary between research and care. Issue 3 (3rd July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cambrosio, Alberto; Keating, Peter; Vignola-Gagné, Etienne; Besle, Sylvain; Bourret, Pascale
• Is Part Of: New genetics and society. Volume 37:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 207
• Page End: 226
• Publication Date: 2018-07-03
• Subjects: clinical research -- clinical care -- total cancer care -- oncology -- genomics -- molecular tumor boards; Genetic engineering -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Biotechnology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 660.65
• DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2018.1487281
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1463-6778

Abstract

Abstract : Historians and social scientists view the distinction between research and care as diachronically and synchronically contingent, rather than transcendental, as is often the case in bioethics. Comparing how the notion of total care was used in the 1950s with present-day use of that same term by genomically informed oncology programs, the paper argues that the distinction between research and care needs: to be historicized, by examining its repeated emergence and re-definition, and the shifting relations between these two "ideal-typical" components; and to be problematized, by paying attention to the entities, practices, and institutions that are constitutive of the successive regimens that have punctuated oncology's development. Shifting to contemporary activities, the paper examines how the recent massive injection of molecular biology and high-throughput genomic technologies in the field of oncology has been accompanied by a reshuffling of the research/care distinction, a process that is leading to new forms of "experimental care".