The Italian journal of Science & Technology Studies, Tecnoscienza invites abstracts and papers for a special issue on biobanks.
Biobanks are central institutions in the infrastructure of contemporary biomedicine. They collect, test, store and provide a variety of different tissues, samples and bio-information for research, therapy and drug development. Biobanks range from small scale tissue collections organized by hospitals or universities, to commercial bio-samples and bio-information databases to, finally, large population-based projects connecting public research institutions with pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms. In recent years, new types of biobanks were established, founded and/or supported by patient groups and aimed at the development of new knowledge, diagnostic technologies and therapies for specific diseases (Novas 2006; Gottweis and Laus 2011). The increasing partnerships between public sector institutions, commercial enterprises and citizens’ involvement, are moving biobanks to hybrid configurations (Gottweis and Petersen 2008). Clear-cut boundaries between public sector institutions performing redistribution of tissues for medical needs and profit-seeking private companies operating in the market are more and more blurred (Hauskeller and Beltrame 2016a)…
We are interested especially, but not exclusively, in contribution that address the following questions:
• How do different forms of involvements of patients, citizens and other non-expert actors shape biobanks configurations?
• How are subjectivities and collective identities shaped by the involvement in biobanking activities?
• How are these varying forms of biosocial participation linked to the production of biovalue, and which kinds of biovalues generated?
Abstracts (in English) with a maximum length of 500 words should be sent as email attachments to redazione@tecnoscienza.net and carbon copied to the guest editors.
The deadline for abstract submissions is April 30th, 2017. Notification of acceptance will be communicated by May 2017. Full papers (in English with a maximum length of 8,000 words including notes and references) will be due by October 20th 2017 and will be subject to a double blind peer review process.
For information and questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors, Lorenzo Beltrame and Christine Hauskeller.
You may find the full call here: CfP Biobanks