Books in the Genetics and Society series

This multi-disciplinary book presents the current state of stem cell science in society, twenty years on from the first cultivation of human embryonic stem cells and ten years after the invention of genetically altered human stem cells.

Delays in approving genetically modified crops and foods in the European Union have led to a high profile trade conflict with the United States. This book analyses the EU-US conflict and uses it as a case study to explore the governance of new technologies. It focuses on interactions between the EU and the US, rather than on EU-US comparisons.

An analysis of the relative strengths of global bioregions, this book investigates the growing phenomena of biotechnology and sets this study within a knowledge economy context. It unifies concepts from the sociology of science, economic sociology and evolutionary economic geography to focus on the problems and prospects for policy agencies.

"Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada"--Title page verso.c

Critically engages with the relational, moral and ethical issues surrounding genetic testing in contemporary society. In this book, competing accounts of autonomy, responsibility and blame - by families, by professionals and in the public sphere - are analysed rigorously within a discourse-rhetorical framework.

Examines public debate on emerging developments in medical genetics, including cloning, gene therapy, gene patenting, biobanks, genetic testing and screening, and pharmacogenomics.

Carrier testing of adults provides information about the risk of passing a genetic mutation to your children, leading to reproductive decisions. This study focuses on the interplay of community genetics and genetic alliances, exploring how 'genetic communities' have emerged both within existing ethnic groups and around patients' organizations.

Argues that, in order to be able to meaningfully apply a human rights framework to the governance of the human genome, the international human rights framework should be based on a unified theory of human rights where the distinction between positive and negative rights is set aside.

Examines European institutions being 'put on trial' for how their regulatory procedures evaluate and regulate genetically-modified products. This book highlights how public controversy created a legitimacy crisis, in turn stimulating changes in EU agbiotech regulations as a strategy to regain legitimacy.

Examines the extent of the transnational movements of tissues, stem cells, and expertise, in the developing governance framework of India. This book traces the journey of 'spare' human embryos in IVF clinics to public and private laboratories engaged in isolating stem cells for potential therapeutic application.

Provides an exploration of popular representations of human cloning and genomics and the complex concerns evoked by these. This book contributes to debates about the public communication of science and an investigation of what is at stake, culturally and politically, in those debates.

Papers in this volume discuss a variety of new social formations in a global context, including genetic data banks, committees of inquiry, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and national research laboratories.

This collection brings together cross-disciplinary social science research on areas including the US, Israel, India, Greece, UK, France, Brazil, Uruguay and Germany to provide a unique comparative perspective on the developments which have taken place in the intervening fifteen years.

Exhibits a thematic coherence around the impact of the genetics and their associated technologies on new social formations, showing a balance between theoretical and empirical approaches in this field. This volume is of interest to postgraduates and professionals in the fields of sociology, social anthropology, and environmental studies.

The areas of personal genomics and citizen science draw on - and bring together - different cultures of producing and managing knowledge and meaning. They also cross local and global boundaries, are subjects and objects of transformation and mobility of research practices, evaluation and multi-stakeholder groups. Thirdly, they draw on logics of ''convergence'': new links between, and new kinds of, stakeholders, spaces, knowledge, practices, challenges and opportunities. This themed collection of essays from nationally and internationally leading scholars and commentators advances and widens current debates in Science and Technology Studies and in Science Policy concerning ''converging technologies'' by complementing the customary focus on technical aspirations for convergence with the analysis of the practices and logics of scientific, social and cultural knowledge production that constitute contemporary technoscience. In case studies from across the globe, contributors discuss the ways in which science and social order are linked in areas such as direct-to consumer genetic testing and do-it-yourself biotechnologies. Organised into thematic sections, ''Knowing New Biotechnologies'' explores: ΓÇó ways of understanding the dynamics and logics of convergences in emergent biotechnologies ΓÇó governance and regulatory issues around technoscientific convergences ΓÇó democratic aspects of converging technologies - lay involvement in scientific research and the co-production of biotechnology and social and cultural knowledge.

How do lessons learned from past and current regulatory oversights of agricultural biotechnology ¿ and other high-technology sectors ¿ help us address new regulatory challenges in the agri-food genetics sector? The expert contributors in this volume discuss a wide range of North American, European and Asian countries to address, in a multi-disciplinary fashion, key questions related to the past and future development of agri-food genomics regulation across the globe.

Science and Democracy advances a systematic, yet detailed, co-productionist understanding of how emerging modes of making knowledge in genomics and other fields (e.g., nanotechnology, informatics, climate research) are simultaneously and reciprocally remaking social order, empowering and disempowering groups of citizens, creating new forms of legitimate expertise, and redistributing wealth and power.

What implications are applications of new genetic technologies in biomedicine having on social identity in society? This book presents theoretical reflection and empirical case studies drawn from an international array of authors. It includes the areas of reproductive technologies and use of human embryos in biomedical research.