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Biomedical subjects

Mike Michael

Publications and source records attributed to Mike Michael.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

From bench to bedside? Biomedical scientists' expectations of stem cell science as a future therapy for diabetes.

The movement of scientific research from the bench to the bedside is becoming an increasingly important aspect of modern 'biomedical societies'. There is, however, currently a dearth of social science research on the interaction between the laboratory and the clinic. The recent upsurge in global funding for stem cell research is largely premised on the promise of translating scientific understanding of stem cells into regenerative medicine. In this paper, we report on the views of biomedical scientists based in the United Kingdom who are involved in human embryonic stem cell research in the field of diabetes. We explore their views on the prospects and problems of translational research in the field of stem cell science. We discuss two main themes: institutional influences on interactions between scientists and clinicians, and stem cell science itself as the major barrier to therapies. We frame our discussion within the emerging literature of the sociology of expectations.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2006

Ethical boundary-work in the embryonic stem cell laboratory.

Most accounts of the ethics of stem cell research are de- contextualised reviews of the ethical and legal literature. In this chapter we present a socially embedded account of some of the ethical implications of stem cell research, from the perspectives of scientists directly involved in this area. Based on an ethnography of two leading embryonic stem cell laboratories in the UK, our data form part of the findings from a larger project mapping the scientific, medical, social and ethical dimensions of innovative stem cell treatment, focusing on the areas of liver cell and pancreatic islet cell transplantation. We explore three key issues: what individual scientists themselves view as ethical sources of human embryos and stem cells; their perceptions of human embryos and stem cells; and how scientists perceive regulatory frameworks in stem cell research. We argue that these dimensions of laboratory practice are all examples of 'ethical boundary-work', which is becoming an integral part of the routine practice and performance of biomedical science. Our work adds to the relatively few sociological studies that explore ethics in clinical settings and to an even smaller body of work that explores scientists' views on the ethical issues relating to their research.

Anthropology, Cultural↗
PubMed2003

Signifying across time and space: a case study of biomedical educational texts.

This paper is an analysis of educational materials produced by the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council (MRC). While the MRC's Research Updates are designed to be used in the classroom, interviews with MRC contributors to the Updates and with teachers and students show that their function is complex. Drawing on these data, we point to three facets of biomedical texts that have been neglected. First, we note that these texts are meant to influence only a proportion of their target audience. Their impact is to set up a 'resonance' in this proportion of students, a resonance that will at some point in the future materialise as a choice to pursue a career in biomedical research. This is our second observation: that texts are designed to have a latent effect. These texts also address another audience - government bodies who demand that the MRC engage in educational and public understanding of science activities. As such, and this is our third observation, scientific texts can signify laterally, not to readers directly engaged with them, but to observers whose concern is with their trajectory.

Bibliometrics↗