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BIOS Newsletter

Every term, BIOS publishes a newsletter, BIOS News, that features short articles, research updates, and other reporting on events at BIOS. To read the latest issue, see Publications.

For the latest news and press releases from BIOS see below

2008

October 2008

Commerce vs.. The Commons: the commercialisation of biomedical knowledge. Professor Nikolas Rose gave a keynote address on this topic at LSE's Asia Forum in Singapore in April 2008. You can now watch a video of this talk here. He is featured in Session 2.

September 2008
BIONET’s third International Workshop on International Clinical Drug Trials begins in Xi’an, China

BIONET, the European-Chinese consortium on the ethical governance of biomedical research, begins its third international workshop in Xi’an, PRC, with LSE as the lead partner. The focus of this workshop is on clinical trials for drugs and other treatments for diseases, and the role of clinical research organizations. Fifty European and Chinese scientists, regulators and ethicists will meet to address key issues in the regulation of clinical trials in developing countries for drugs and other medical treatments. This three year project on the ethical governance of biomedical research will generate good practice recommendations for researchers, research funders and regulators in Europe and China in this crucial area of international collaboration. For more information please see this Media Release.

May 2008
Nikolas Rose speaks at first annual World Science Festival

The World Science Festival ( www.worldsciencefestival.com ), an unprecedented celebration of scientific discovery, will take place from May 28th to June 1st, 2008 in New York City. It will bring together over a dozen Nobel Laureates, leading researchers, top-level technologists, dedicated educators, and high-level policy makers with creative artists, filmmakers, and performers to create more than 40 unique events that will shine a spotlight on science and explore the many ways in which scientific discovery and innovation are shaping modern life.

Through lectures, panels, debates, film, music, theatre, and interactive events, the Festival will showcase cutting-edge ideas and reveal science’s pivotal role in addressing critical global issues. Participants will guide a large, diverse audience —students to adults, professionals to novices, science enthusiasts to the merely curious — to experience science as never before, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating.

Nikolas Rose will be speaking at: Your Biological Biography: Genes and Identity and What it Means to be Human on Saturday May 31st.

2007

December 2007
In Memoriam, Professor Peter Lipton
Members of the BIOS Centre are very sorry to learn of the untimely death of our very esteemed colleague Professor Peter Lipton, Head of HPS at Cambridge on Sunday 25 November 2007. Professor Lipton played an important role in the recent BIOS event considering the future implications of Synthetic Biology, and will be very sadly missed for the rigour and quality he brought to the philosophy of science, and the humanity he brought to discussions of the ethical and political challenges of innovation in the life sciences.

Cambridge HPS Obituary

November 2007
Dr. Ilina Singh featured in Times Online article, "The Dark Ages".

November 2007
Dr. Giovanni Frazzetto wins John Kendrew Young Scientist Award

Dr. Giovanni Frazzetto, Branco Weiss Fellow in the BIOS Centre, and a key member of the Centre's Neuroscience and Society research group, is this year's joint winner of the John Kendrew Young Scientist Award.

Gio was selected for his inspirational and creative achievements, incorporating societal needs in his research as a Society in Science Branco Weiss fellow at the BIOS Centre (London School of Economics and Political Sciences); establishing the European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN); and creating a science-art exhibition in neuroscience.

Both Gio and the joint winner, Antonio Giraldez were former PhD students of the EMBL International PhD Programme and the Board recognized their remarkable performances since leaving EMBL as well as their complementary achievements in research and science communication.

September 2007
Translating Neurobiological Research: A case study of the Medical Research Council’s investment in research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London

Nikolas Rose and Sarah Franklin
BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK

The Medical Research Council has funded an eighteen month research project based in the BIOS Centre of the LSE, to assist in our understanding of the ways in which medical research translates into biomedical practice and contributes to economic competitiveness. While there are many extant methods for evaluation of research investments, our own approach draws on insights from historical, social and anthropological studies of innovation in science and technology, and from social studies of the emergence of the ideas of bioeconomy and biocapital, and their centrality in political support for investment in biomedical research. Our aim is to assist the development of robust methods of evaluation that recognise the nature, dynamics, temporality and realities of the relations between investment in research and different types of output We will explore these questions through a specific case study of MRC investment in psychiatric and neuroscientific research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, University of London. This will take the form of a critical assessment of existing methods of assessing medical and scientific outputs, followed by a case study of MRC funding to the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the IoP. This will clarify appropriate evaluation criteria, and enable us to propose some ways in which analytically robust and empirically justifiable criteria for determining ‘value’ might be developed, in the context of MRC knowledge production both within and beyond ‘health and wealth indicators’.

May 2007
Neuroscience network set up across Europe

A team of BIOS researchers, including Giovanni Frazzetto, Linsey McGoey, Nikolas Rose and Scott Vrecko, have received a grant from the European Science Foundation (ESF) for the establishment of a network for the investigation of developments in the neurosciences.

The European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) will be convened by scholars based at the BIOS centre of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is a €575,000 project funded by the ESF, and will run from June 2007 to June 2012, with a launch conference in autumn 2007.

The aim is to investigate the ethical, political and legal challenges posed by recent advances in the brain sciences. A series of workshops and conferences, to be held in both Europe and North America, will bring together life scientists and social scientists to consider questions raised by the neurosciences, leading to the publication of annual volumes in international journals. The network will also provide exchange and travel grants to journal scholars in the field.

The ENSN is directed by a Steering Committee consisting of representatives from Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK. The Network also consists of programme collaborators and advisory experts based in France, Italy, the United States.

Chair of the Steering Committee is Professor Nikolas Rose, director of the BIOS Centre for the study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, at LSE. He said: 'Despite evidence that the neurosciences are changing our understandings of political and social life, and predictions that these transformations will intensify in coming years, the social study of these fields of medicine has received only marginal attention.

'The ENSN will act as the leading European forum for researchers working on social issues related to the neurosciences, such as psychopharmacology, behavioural genetics, biological psychiatry, neuroimaging and neuroethics.

Contact Linsey McGoey, (l.j.mcgoey@lse.ac.uk) acting coordinator, European Neuroscience and Society Network.
For more information: www.esf.org/ensn

Press Coverage: Innovations Report Tuesday 12 June
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/bericht-85670.html

May 2007
Brain, Self and Society: the social and political implications of the new brain sciences

Professor Nikolas Rose, Martin White Professor of Sociology at LSE and director of LSE’s BIOS research centre, has been awarded an ESRC Professorial Research Fellowship for a three year project entitled 'Brain, Self and Society in the 21st Century'. More.

April 2007
BIONET Ethical Expert Group on ethics of research in biomedicine and biotechnology

A new European and Chinese Expert Group on ethics of research in biomedicine and biotechnology has been set up, involving LSE academics from BIOS.

The new Ethical Expert Group is part of BIONET, a Coordinated Action Project, funded by the European Union research framework program 6. BIONET is a 21-partner European-Chinese collaboration on ethical governance in the life sciences, coordinated by LSE and involving leading Chinese institutions such as Hunan Institute of Reproduction and Stem Cell Engineering (Changsha), Peking University Health Science Centre, Union Medical College (Beijing) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing). More.

April 2007
BIONET project launches in China

LSE, in partnership with 21 European and Chinese institutions, has launched the first event, in China, of the three year BIONET project. The first event is a five day workshop hosted at Peking University in Beijing from 1-5 April. The title of the workshop is Informed Consent in Reproductive Genetics and Stem Cell Technology and the role of Ethical Review Boards. There are currently more than 88 Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) centres and 10 sperm banks in China (as of December 2006). Compared to other biomedical technologies, ART is relatively mature in China, although its increasing use in recent years has raised a number of issues, not only as concerns informed consent, but also issues of informed choice and the role of ethical review committees. Participants in the workshop include academics, ethicists, clinicians, lawyers and policy makers from China and Europe. The programme also involves site visits to local hospitals engaged in ART.

The programme director of the BIONET project, Professor Nikolas Rose, director of LSE's research centre BIOS, said: 'We are delighted with the start of the BIONET project. I am particularly pleased with the level of participation that we are having over the five days of the workshop. The discussions are very lively, bringing together a broad range of senior people in academia, government, lawyers, and clinicians. We have also had participation from patients as well, listening to their views on ART. All the members of BIONET are looking forward to the next three years of collaborative research and the dissemination of this work.' More

March 2007
Workshop on Biological Weapons, Governance and Civil Society
On Monday 12 March 2007, BIOS hosted a small workshop to consider civil society engagement with biological disarmament, and more generally with the governance of R&D involving biological agents, genetically modified microorganisms and pathogens, in today’s environment – an environment characterized by the limited success of multilateral treaty-making, a heightened policy focus on biological weapons especially on proliferation and terrorism, and the involvement of new civil society actors. The workshop brought together a younger generation of academics and NGOs, who have served on national delegations and UN secretariats or as advisors to other international organisations, to consider what civil society can do practically and collectively in the coming months and years to build on and further the efforts that have already been made. See here for more information.

2006

November 2006
LSE professor appointed to Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Nikolas Rose, Martin White Professor of Sociology and director of BIOS, has been appointed to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, with effect from January 2007.

Established by the Nuffield Foundation in 1991, the Council is an independent body which examines ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine.
Professor Rose said: 'I am delighted to have been appointed to the Nuffield Council, which plays a key role in advice on regulating so many crucial and controversial aspects of contemporary biomedicine. I believe that sociological input, both conceptually and empirically, can play a key role in the kinds of work that Nuffield does, and I look forward to playing a full part in the important and difficult work of the Council.'

October 2006
Biodefence doesn't pay

September 2006
Wellcome trust announces first university biomedical ethics award

February 2006
Prepare now for a society of 'designer humans'