Relocation, realignment and standardisation: Circuits of translation in Huntington’s disease

Abstract

Based on complementary ethnographies of a biomedical laboratory and a clinic -both working on Huntington Disease (HD) -we discuss the circuits of translation evident in biomedical and clinical research. By examining a recent epistemological shift from understanding the disease as genetic to understanding the disease as a problem for neuroscience, as well as documenting the multiple framings of the disease that migrate between the laboratory and the clinic, we emphasise the complexity involved in the movement of biomedical science into clinical work.We stress that this is not a one-way flow from the colloquially known bench to bedside, but is dependent on a cluster of contextual activities and local actors. We also stress the extent to which global collaborations, standardisation and regulatory frameworks can facilitate such framing and migration by aligning local practices and different disciplinary outlooks. We take a sociological perspective on translational processes -or rather to an expanded understanding of translation -to capture the material flows and conceptual transformations that are involved in the complex relationships between fundamental and clinical research.

Translational biomedicine in action: Constructing biomarkers across laboratory and benchside

“…In our example, the technological devices for molecular measurement and quantification shape a process of epistemological border-crossing of both bio-knowledge and biological material, enabling laboratory evidence to be translated into clinically actionable knowledge (Wainwright et al, 2006). This process can be expressed as clinical technomimicry: the set of sociomaterial practices distributed in the laboratory which shape the epistemological congruence between scientific research and clinical action (Lewis et al, 2014). This process occurs through a set of cognitive, material and technological resources performed by bio-researchers to accomplish the daily scientific work of analysing biological samples inside laboratory spaces.…”

“…The present article attempts to follow this theoretical perspective by exploring how personalised medicine -as a specific subfield of translational biomedicineand related technologies (for example, biomarkers) emerge through a dialogue between heterogeneous actors, expert knowledge, materials and technological devices that are extremely diversified and belong to domains, which are commonly considered as distinct fields of scientific and epistemological work (Lewis et al, 2014).…”

“…Contemporary life sciences are increasingly marked by the 'translational imperative' (Fischer, 2012;Rose, 2013;Lewis et al, 2014), which implies a close proximity between research and development (R&D) activities and clinical practice through the two-way transfer of information, materials and knowledge between scientific laboratories and clinical settings. This close relationship implies the possibility for the latter to foster exploration of new scientific issues (Zerhouni, 2007;Goldblatt and Lee, 2010;Evans and Scarbrough, 2014).…”

Rethinking biomedicine in the age of translational research: Organisational, professional, and epistemic encounters

“…Analytically speaking, regulatory objectivity can, for instance, allow scholars to capture the multiple framings of a specific disease enacted by biomedical professionals involved in the translational circuit locally situated within laboratories and clinics. In this perspective, translational biomedicine implies a complex epistemological work (Lewis et al, , p. 398), namely, the aligning of local practices with different disciplinary outlooks required to perform the unproblematic migration of stable knowledge, materials, or treatments from the laboratory to the clinic and back.…”

Doing laboratory ethnography: reflections on method in scientific workplaces

“…We also use two of Jamie Lewis’ ethnographies: (vi) a twelve-month study of a Huntington’s Disease research laboratory and animal house (Lewis and Atkinson, 2011; Lewis et al, 2013; Lewis et al, 2014); and (vii) a laboratory conducting work in the genetics of neuropsychiatric conditions. While our ethnographies have been conducted independently, we have also written comparative work on Jamie’s Huntington’s disease (HD) study and Neil’s work in the UK Stem Cell Bank (Stephens et al, 2013).…”