Biomarkers and their Consequences for the Biomedical Profession: A Social Science Perspective

Abstract

Although biomarkers are not altogether new, they are gaining a new life in our postgenomic present. This article takes this as a good reason to explore biomarkers in depth and to speculate about the consequences that biomarkers might engender in clinical practices. First, the article ventures into an endeavor of ordering the dynamic field of biomarkers, suggesting a possible classification of biomarkers, and then argues that we are currently witnessing a 'biomarkerization' of health and disease - defined as an ongoing future-oriented process that seeks to solve biomedical as well as public health problems through investments into biomarker research at the present time. Subsequently, this article reflects on some possible consequences of this phenomenon. It argues that while the movement of candidate biomarkers into the clinic is arduous, biomarkers might develop a life of their own once they arrive in the clinic. This article outlines the direction of two such possible consequences. It suggests that biomarkers might be involved in a change of the actors that order and categorize diseases, as well as trigger transformations in our understanding of what counts as disease in the first place. Hence, this article seeks to shed light on the paradox that while biomarkers are designed to add more evidence into clinical practice, they might actually increase uncertainty and ambiguity.

A Survey Exploring Personalised Medicine amongst Radiography Academics within the United Kingdom

“…The variation in attitudes towards PM is not surprising because it has been argued that health care has always considered the individual circumstances of patients [36] and that there is the need to reduce the hype of the promise of PM [37]. The contemporary conception of PM, by proponents, highlights the potential role of the increased power of digital technologies that have enabled the aggregation and use of patient information from a wide range of sources [38][39][40].…”

Medicina de precisão/medicina personalizada: análise crítica dos movimentos de transformação da biomedicina no início do século XXI

“…Some biomarkers provide Cad. Saúde Pública 2019; 35(3):e00153118 solid scientific evidence of the causative mechanisms of the disease, while others are only backed by the statistical power of big numbers, potentially generating false-positives with harmful consequences for the patient 26 . As Duffy 22 warns, more data do not necessarily mean more knowledge, and may also generate more noise.…”

Dispositivo biomédicos y marcadores biológicos:

“…Lo interesante del dispositivo biomédico y los marcadores biológicos es que, al operar en el nivel molecular, facilita gobernar tanto a los individuos como a las poblaciones de manera agregada, cruzando escalas. Estos nuevos marcadores biológicos se han hecho posible por el despliegue en las últimas tres décadas de avanzadas técnicas de visualización molecular, en particular exámenes genéticos (genetic testing y screening) y neuroimágenes (neuroimaging), lo que ha dado lugar a una vasta literatura científica al respecto (Bahn y Guest, 2011;Beauchaine, 2009;Metzler, 2010;Nordberg, 2010; Schmidt-Richberg y otros, 2016; Walsh y otros, 2011).…”