Histology agnosticism

Infra-molecularizing disease

Bibliographic Data

ID10800010
AuthorsJonah Campbell (0000-0003-2480-8912), Alberto Cambrosio (0000-0001-5922-0137), Mark Basik (0000-0002-2633-5410)
Year2024
Volume104
Pages14-22
Publication date2024-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in History and Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-3681 • E-ISSN: 1879-2510
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.002
PMID38377771
OpenAlexW4391944936
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited44

The term "molecularization" has been used by historians and sociologists of science to describe the transition from an anatomic view of the body to a submicroscopic one, where health and illness, indeed life itself, are increasingly defined in terms of an individual's "genetic landscape." Here we introduce the notion of the infra-molecular as a way of extending and nuancing the molecularization trope as it applies to the domain of (post)genomic oncology. In particular we look at how infra-molecularity is enacted in practice as part of the so-called "histology-agnostic" turn in clinical cancer research and care. Drawing on fieldwork in North American oncology settings, we analyze how histology agnosticism partially reconfigures knowledge and practice across the linked domains of drug development and clinical trials, therapeutic decision making, and regulation, and the implications of this for an ongoing revision of how we understand the biopathology and temporality of cancer. We show how, in practice, the inframolecular gaze entails a "return" of histology as a modulator of histology-agnostic drugs and background for interpretation of mutational complexity

Agnosticism · Epistemology · Pathology · Relevance (law · BRCA gene mutations in cancer · Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics · Ethics in Clinical Research · Medicine · Philosophy · Histology