Monday, March 9, 2020
12-1:30 PM
UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute
Westside Research Park: 2300 Delaware Ave., Santa Cruz
Double Helix Conference Room
In this talk, Iben M. Gjødsbøl (Assistant Professor Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen) draws upon ethnographic research carried out in Denmark to give an account of how genomic science and technology is being introduced in the health care system to better personalize medicine to the individual patient. To push forward biomedical research and clinical care, in 2018 the Danish government decided to establish a National Genome Centre for collecting and storing copies of patients’ genomic sequences and genetic analyses. At a moment in which knowledge and thus value is accrued from Big Data, Denmark flags itself as being among the most data-intense and digitalized societies in the world, possessing unique data sources for the population sciences. Policy makers, researchers, and health professionals are all unified in their perception that the National Genome Center is a natural continuance of the Danish state institutions’ tradition of collecting information about its citizens. Yet although most actors engaged in precision medicine agree on this general narrative, setting up new infrastructures for genomic data and making it useful in the clinic is not straightforward. To make precision medicine through genomics involves quandaries about access to health care; balancing public-private governance in a welfare state; the relationship of science to the clinic; and division of labor and responsibilities between professions. It also raises doubts about what data is useful and worthy of storing and thus fundamental questions about what constitutes valuable knowledge. As solutions to these questions are negotiated and settled, they simultaneously reconfigure responsibilities for both institutions, professionals, and citizens in the Danish health care system.
Iben M. Gjødsbøl’s primary fields of research are medical anthropology, medical science and technology studies. My research explores how medical technologies and clinical practices shape our understandings and experiences of health and illness. I do ethnography in health care settings, exploring how personhood and the value of life are constituted in the everyday clinical practices in the Danish welfare system. My PhD research concerned how life’s worth is practiced and experienced in the field of dementia, including both clinical and care settings. Currently, I am Assistant Professor at the Section for Health Services Research, Department of Public Health. My current research explores how personalized medicine is realized within cardiology in the Danish health care system. This research project forms part of the larger project ‘Personalized Medicine in the Welfare State’, MeInWe, headed by Professor Mette N. Svendsen. Learn more here.
Seating is limited. RSVP at bit.ly/PersMedDenmark.
To accommodate a disability, please contact Ben Coffey at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute (becoffey@ucsc.edu, 831-459-1477).
Sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute