J Swallow
Biographic Data
| ID | 56125 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Swallow |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Swallow |
| SIGNATURE | SWALLOW J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leeds |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9341-3239 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Shifting Expectations of Novel Immunotherapy Treatments in Oncology: Practitioners' and Patients' Calibration Work in Conditions of Uncertainty
Immunotherapy cancer treatments stimulate individuals' immune systems to target and kill cancer, with the potential to extend survival time for individuals living with some forms of advanced cancer. Immunotherapies, however, generate uncertainties in relation to predicting prognosis and managing toxicities and the emergence of side effects during and post-treatment. Drawing on interviews with practitioners and patients in an oncology clinic in th…
How and why to use ‘vulnerability’: An interdisciplinary analysis of disease risk, indeterminacy and normality
In recent years, ‘vulnerability’ has been getting more traction in theoretical, professional and popular spaces as an alternative or complement to the concept of risk. As a group of science and technology studies scholars with different disciplinary orientations yet a shared concern with biomedicine, self and society, we investigate how vulnerability has become a salient and even dominant idiom for discussing disease and disease risk. We argue th…
Laboratory Practices, Potentiality, and Material Patienthood in Genomic Cancer Medicine
Laboratory practitioners working in oncology are increasingly involved in implementing genomic medicine, operating at the intersection of the laboratory and the clinic. This includes molecular diagnostic work and molecular testing to direct entry into molecular-based clinical trials and treatment decision-making based on molecular profiling. In this article, we draw on qualitative interviews with laboratory practitioners in the United Kingdom to …
The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations
Special issue 'The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations', guest edited by Andrea Ford and Julia Swallow
Enrolling the body as active agent in cancer treatment: Tracing immunotherapy metaphors and materialities
Immunotherapy is heralded as the 'fifth pillar' of cancer therapy, after surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and genomic medicine. It involves 'harnessing' patients' own immune system T-cells to treat cancer. In this article, I draw on qualitative interviews with practitioners working in oncology and patients in the UK, to trace metaphorical and discursive framing around immunotherapy. Immunotherapy aims to restore the functioning of the immune s…
Unsettling the treatment imperative? Chemotherapy decision-making in the wake of genomic techniques
Social scientists have argued that a treatment imperative shapes experiences of biomedicine. This is evident within oncology, where discourses of hope are tempered by persistent fears surrounding cancer. It is within this context that genomic decision-making tools are entering routine care. These may indicate that a treatment is not appropriate for a particular disease profile. We draw on qualitative interviews and observations centred on gene ex…
Molecular profiling for advanced gynaecological cancer: Prolonging foreshortened futures
Chapter 3 explores another technique that offers personalised predictions of responses to treatments for cancer based on molecular profiling, this time for later stage gynaecological cancer patients seeking to prolong foreshortened futures in a non-curative context. Gynaecological cancers encompass cancer of the womb, ovaries, cervix, vagina and vulva, and mainly, but not exclusively, affect post-menopausal women. Awareness of these cancers is lo…
Going private: Digital culture and personalised medicine
While many cancer patients experience molecular diagnostics and targeted therapies as part of standard treatment or through clinical trials provided free-of-charge through the NHS, others turn to private providers to craft their own care pathways, utilising private health insurance, savings, taking out loans or raising money via crowdfunding online. In Chapter 6, we explore how practitioners, patients and their relatives seek to tailor their care…
Genomics at scale: Participation to build the bioeconomy
Chapter 5 is about large-scale national studies, recruiting patients with a range of cancers to collect extensive molecular information about cancer and ultimately inform routine patient care via precision medicine. We focus on Genomics England’s 100,000 Genomes Project. After discussing the rise of these mass-participation initiatives and their strong national imaginaries of economic development and cutting-edge healthcare, we explore how practi…
Genomic techniques in standard care: Gene-expression profiling in early-stage breast cancer
Chapter 2 explores the promise of prediction and prevention of recurrence in personalised medicine for some kinds of breast cancer through the case of a genomic technique already widely adopted within the NHS across the UK: gene-expression profiling. We consider a genomic test, Oncotype DX, which seeks to identify, among early breast cancer patients, those who would or would not benefit from chemotherapy to prevent future recurrence. The aim here…
Optimising personalisation: Adaptive trials for intractable cancers
In Chapter 4 we explore another route by which advanced cancer patients are offered the promise of tailored treatments that may prolong their lives, focusing on an adaptive multi-centre trial for lung cancer that aims to optimise treatments through a process of ongoing adaptation. Lung cancer has a lower public profile than some other cancers and it remains highly stigmatised because of its associations with smoking and higher prevalence among di…
Conclusion: Future-crafting
In today's world, we are offered a constantly expanding number of technologies to integrate into our lives. We now utilise a range of interconnected technologies at work, at home and at leisure. The realm of sport is no exception, where new technologies or enhancements are available to athletes, coaches, scientists, umpires, governing bodies and broadcasters. However, this book argues that in a world where time has become a precious commodity and…
At the limits of participation
Chapter 7 considers non-participation and exclusions as well as reservation, consternation and rejections around genomic medicine in our research and in the public sphere more generally. We investigate the particular social and cultural contexts in which disengagement and resistance are generated. Exploring negative views and experiences or simply a lack of response to genomic medicine, we consider when these kinds of personalised medicine are ‘n…
Personalising cancer treatment and diagnosis through genomic medicine
Chapter 1 sets the scene for the case studies in the book, drawing on STS and related literatures to trace the development of molecular understandings of cancer, tests and treatments and their place in the cancer clinic. The chapter covers the evolution of clinical trials and biobank research, including the rise of adaptive, basket and umbrella trials. We also explore the development of new molecular taxonomies of cancer and the implications of t…
Accessing targeted therapies for cancer: Self and collective advocacy alongside and beyond mainstream cancer charities
As precision oncology has evolved, patients and their families have become more involved in efforts to access these treatments via fundraising and campaigning that take place outside of the larger cancer charities. In this paper, we explore the solidarities, networks, and emotional work of the UK-based access advocates, drawing on the stories of nine advocates, which included interviews and content analyses of their social media posts and coverag…
Diagnostic layering: Patient accounts of breast cancer classification in the molecular era
Social scientific work has considered the promise of genomic medicine to transform healthcare by personalising treatment. However, little qualitative research attends to already well-established molecular techniques in routine care. In this article we consider women's experiences of routine breast cancer diagnosis in the UK NHS. We attend to patient accounts of the techniques used to subtype breast cancer and guide individual treatment. We introd…
Accomplishing an adaptive clinical trial for cancer: Valuation practices and care work across the laboratory and the clinic
Constructing classification boundaries in the memory clinic: Negotiating Risk and Uncertainty in Constituting Mild Cognitive Impairment
Determining the boundaries around processes of 'normal' ageing and pathological cognitive deterioration associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a difficult process, complicated further by the expansion of the disease category to include mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MCI is a label used to identify individuals with the symptoms of cognitive deterioration not attributable to 'normal ageing' but deemed to be 'at risk' of developing AD despite…
Online accounts of gene expression profiling in early‐stage breast cancer: Interpreting genomic testing for chemotherapy decision making
BACKGROUND: Genomic techniques are being developed within oncology and beginning to be experienced within routine cancer care. Little is known about how these tools feature in patients' experiences of treatment decision making. OBJECTIVE: This research explores the ways in which women interpret and discuss gene expression profiling for breast cancer treatment decision making, as articulated within online accounts. DESIGN: This study used a qualit…
Markers of biology and “being”: Imaginaries of deterioration and the biological redefinition of Alzheimer's disease
The Alzheimer's disease (AD) research landscape is dominated by efforts to predict and prevent the condition. In clinical practice, it is difficult to establish normal aging from pathological cognitive deterioration and “imaginaries of deterioration” tied to “loss of self” take on a material form and impact assessment and diagnostic practice. Drawing on qualitative data gathered across a memory service in the UK, this paper captures practitioners…
Genomic research and the cancer clinic: Uncertainty and expectations in professional accounts
This paper explores clinicians' and scientists' accounts of genomic research in cancer care and the complexities and challenges involved with delivering this work. Contributing to the sociology of (low) expectations, we draw on sociological studies of uncertainty in medicine to explore their accounts of working with uncertainty as part of the management of patient and institutional expectations. We consider their appeals to the importance of mode…
Fear and anxiety: Affects, emotions and care practices in the memory clinic
This paper contributes to the growing recognition in Science and Technology Studies and medical sociology of the significant role of affect in scientific and clinical work. We show how feelings of fear and anxiety associated with dementia not only shape people’s experiences and responses to a diagnosis, but also shape the practices and processes through which assessments and diagnoses are accomplished. What emerges from our research, and provides…
Expectant futures and an early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Knowing and its consequences
Efforts to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (AD) at earlier stages as a means to managing the risks of an ageing population, dominate scientific research and healthcare policy in the UK. It is anticipated that early diagnosis will maximise treatment options and enable patients to 'prepare for their future' in terms of care. Drawing on qualitative data gathered across an out-patient memory service and in-patient hospital in the UK, the purpose of this…
Constructing classification boundaries in the memory clinic: Negotiating Risk and Uncertainty in Constituting Mild Cognitive Impairment
Determining the boundaries around processes of 'normal' ageing and pathological cognitive deterioration associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a difficult process, complicated further by the expansion of the disease category to include mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MCI is a label used to identify individuals with the symptoms of cognitive deterioration not attributable to 'normal ageing' but deemed to be 'at risk' of developing AD despite…
Expectant futures and an early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Knowing and its consequences
Efforts to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (AD) at earlier stages as a means to managing the risks of an ageing population, dominate scientific research and healthcare policy in the UK. It is anticipated that early diagnosis will maximise treatment options and enable patients to 'prepare for their future' in terms of care. Drawing on qualitative data gathered across an out-patient memory service and in-patient hospital in the UK, the purpose of this…
Fear and anxiety: Affects, emotions and care practices in the memory clinic
This paper contributes to the growing recognition in Science and Technology Studies and medical sociology of the significant role of affect in scientific and clinical work. We show how feelings of fear and anxiety associated with dementia not only shape people’s experiences and responses to a diagnosis, but also shape the practices and processes through which assessments and diagnoses are accomplished. What emerges from our research, and provides…
Diagnostic layering: Patient accounts of breast cancer classification in the molecular era
Social scientific work has considered the promise of genomic medicine to transform healthcare by personalising treatment. However, little qualitative research attends to already well-established molecular techniques in routine care. In this article we consider women's experiences of routine breast cancer diagnosis in the UK NHS. We attend to patient accounts of the techniques used to subtype breast cancer and guide individual treatment. We introd…
Accomplishing an adaptive clinical trial for cancer: Valuation practices and care work across the laboratory and the clinic
The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations
Special issue 'The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations', guest edited by Andrea Ford and Julia Swallow
Unsettling the treatment imperative? Chemotherapy decision-making in the wake of genomic techniques
Social scientists have argued that a treatment imperative shapes experiences of biomedicine. This is evident within oncology, where discourses of hope are tempered by persistent fears surrounding cancer. It is within this context that genomic decision-making tools are entering routine care. These may indicate that a treatment is not appropriate for a particular disease profile. We draw on qualitative interviews and observations centred on gene ex…
Shifting Expectations of Novel Immunotherapy Treatments in Oncology: Practitioners' and Patients' Calibration Work in Conditions of Uncertainty
Immunotherapy cancer treatments stimulate individuals' immune systems to target and kill cancer, with the potential to extend survival time for individuals living with some forms of advanced cancer. Immunotherapies, however, generate uncertainties in relation to predicting prognosis and managing toxicities and the emergence of side effects during and post-treatment. Drawing on interviews with practitioners and patients in an oncology clinic in th…
Laboratory Practices, Potentiality, and Material Patienthood in Genomic Cancer Medicine
Laboratory practitioners working in oncology are increasingly involved in implementing genomic medicine, operating at the intersection of the laboratory and the clinic. This includes molecular diagnostic work and molecular testing to direct entry into molecular-based clinical trials and treatment decision-making based on molecular profiling. In this article, we draw on qualitative interviews with laboratory practitioners in the United Kingdom to …
Enrolling the body as active agent in cancer treatment: Tracing immunotherapy metaphors and materialities
Immunotherapy is heralded as the 'fifth pillar' of cancer therapy, after surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and genomic medicine. It involves 'harnessing' patients' own immune system T-cells to treat cancer. In this article, I draw on qualitative interviews with practitioners working in oncology and patients in the UK, to trace metaphorical and discursive framing around immunotherapy. Immunotherapy aims to restore the functioning of the immune s…
Expectant futures and an early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Knowing and its consequences
Efforts to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (AD) at earlier stages as a means to managing the risks of an ageing population, dominate scientific research and healthcare policy in the UK. It is anticipated that early diagnosis will maximise treatment options and enable patients to 'prepare for their future' in terms of care. Drawing on qualitative data gathered across an out-patient memory service and in-patient hospital in the UK, the purpose of this…
Fear and anxiety: Affects, emotions and care practices in the memory clinic
This paper contributes to the growing recognition in Science and Technology Studies and medical sociology of the significant role of affect in scientific and clinical work. We show how feelings of fear and anxiety associated with dementia not only shape people’s experiences and responses to a diagnosis, but also shape the practices and processes through which assessments and diagnoses are accomplished. What emerges from our research, and provides…
Online accounts of gene expression profiling in early‐stage breast cancer: Interpreting genomic testing for chemotherapy decision making
BACKGROUND: Genomic techniques are being developed within oncology and beginning to be experienced within routine cancer care. Little is known about how these tools feature in patients' experiences of treatment decision making. OBJECTIVE: This research explores the ways in which women interpret and discuss gene expression profiling for breast cancer treatment decision making, as articulated within online accounts. DESIGN: This study used a qualit…
Markers of biology and “being”: Imaginaries of deterioration and the biological redefinition of Alzheimer's disease
The Alzheimer's disease (AD) research landscape is dominated by efforts to predict and prevent the condition. In clinical practice, it is difficult to establish normal aging from pathological cognitive deterioration and “imaginaries of deterioration” tied to “loss of self” take on a material form and impact assessment and diagnostic practice. Drawing on qualitative data gathered across a memory service in the UK, this paper captures practitioners…
Genomic research and the cancer clinic: Uncertainty and expectations in professional accounts
This paper explores clinicians' and scientists' accounts of genomic research in cancer care and the complexities and challenges involved with delivering this work. Contributing to the sociology of (low) expectations, we draw on sociological studies of uncertainty in medicine to explore their accounts of working with uncertainty as part of the management of patient and institutional expectations. We consider their appeals to the importance of mode…
Accomplishing an adaptive clinical trial for cancer: Valuation practices and care work across the laboratory and the clinic
Constructing classification boundaries in the memory clinic: Negotiating Risk and Uncertainty in Constituting Mild Cognitive Impairment
Determining the boundaries around processes of 'normal' ageing and pathological cognitive deterioration associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a difficult process, complicated further by the expansion of the disease category to include mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MCI is a label used to identify individuals with the symptoms of cognitive deterioration not attributable to 'normal ageing' but deemed to be 'at risk' of developing AD despite…
Molecular profiling for advanced gynaecological cancer: Prolonging foreshortened futures
Chapter 3 explores another technique that offers personalised predictions of responses to treatments for cancer based on molecular profiling, this time for later stage gynaecological cancer patients seeking to prolong foreshortened futures in a non-curative context. Gynaecological cancers encompass cancer of the womb, ovaries, cervix, vagina and vulva, and mainly, but not exclusively, affect post-menopausal women. Awareness of these cancers is lo…
Going private: Digital culture and personalised medicine
While many cancer patients experience molecular diagnostics and targeted therapies as part of standard treatment or through clinical trials provided free-of-charge through the NHS, others turn to private providers to craft their own care pathways, utilising private health insurance, savings, taking out loans or raising money via crowdfunding online. In Chapter 6, we explore how practitioners, patients and their relatives seek to tailor their care…
Genomics at scale: Participation to build the bioeconomy
Chapter 5 is about large-scale national studies, recruiting patients with a range of cancers to collect extensive molecular information about cancer and ultimately inform routine patient care via precision medicine. We focus on Genomics England’s 100,000 Genomes Project. After discussing the rise of these mass-participation initiatives and their strong national imaginaries of economic development and cutting-edge healthcare, we explore how practi…
Genomic techniques in standard care: Gene-expression profiling in early-stage breast cancer
Chapter 2 explores the promise of prediction and prevention of recurrence in personalised medicine for some kinds of breast cancer through the case of a genomic technique already widely adopted within the NHS across the UK: gene-expression profiling. We consider a genomic test, Oncotype DX, which seeks to identify, among early breast cancer patients, those who would or would not benefit from chemotherapy to prevent future recurrence. The aim here…
Optimising personalisation: Adaptive trials for intractable cancers
In Chapter 4 we explore another route by which advanced cancer patients are offered the promise of tailored treatments that may prolong their lives, focusing on an adaptive multi-centre trial for lung cancer that aims to optimise treatments through a process of ongoing adaptation. Lung cancer has a lower public profile than some other cancers and it remains highly stigmatised because of its associations with smoking and higher prevalence among di…
Conclusion: Future-crafting
In today's world, we are offered a constantly expanding number of technologies to integrate into our lives. We now utilise a range of interconnected technologies at work, at home and at leisure. The realm of sport is no exception, where new technologies or enhancements are available to athletes, coaches, scientists, umpires, governing bodies and broadcasters. However, this book argues that in a world where time has become a precious commodity and…
At the limits of participation
Chapter 7 considers non-participation and exclusions as well as reservation, consternation and rejections around genomic medicine in our research and in the public sphere more generally. We investigate the particular social and cultural contexts in which disengagement and resistance are generated. Exploring negative views and experiences or simply a lack of response to genomic medicine, we consider when these kinds of personalised medicine are ‘n…
Personalising cancer treatment and diagnosis through genomic medicine
Chapter 1 sets the scene for the case studies in the book, drawing on STS and related literatures to trace the development of molecular understandings of cancer, tests and treatments and their place in the cancer clinic. The chapter covers the evolution of clinical trials and biobank research, including the rise of adaptive, basket and umbrella trials. We also explore the development of new molecular taxonomies of cancer and the implications of t…
Accessing targeted therapies for cancer: Self and collective advocacy alongside and beyond mainstream cancer charities
As precision oncology has evolved, patients and their families have become more involved in efforts to access these treatments via fundraising and campaigning that take place outside of the larger cancer charities. In this paper, we explore the solidarities, networks, and emotional work of the UK-based access advocates, drawing on the stories of nine advocates, which included interviews and content analyses of their social media posts and coverag…
Diagnostic layering: Patient accounts of breast cancer classification in the molecular era
Social scientific work has considered the promise of genomic medicine to transform healthcare by personalising treatment. However, little qualitative research attends to already well-established molecular techniques in routine care. In this article we consider women's experiences of routine breast cancer diagnosis in the UK NHS. We attend to patient accounts of the techniques used to subtype breast cancer and guide individual treatment. We introd…
Enrolling the body as active agent in cancer treatment: Tracing immunotherapy metaphors and materialities
Immunotherapy is heralded as the 'fifth pillar' of cancer therapy, after surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and genomic medicine. It involves 'harnessing' patients' own immune system T-cells to treat cancer. In this article, I draw on qualitative interviews with practitioners working in oncology and patients in the UK, to trace metaphorical and discursive framing around immunotherapy. Immunotherapy aims to restore the functioning of the immune s…
Unsettling the treatment imperative? Chemotherapy decision-making in the wake of genomic techniques
Social scientists have argued that a treatment imperative shapes experiences of biomedicine. This is evident within oncology, where discourses of hope are tempered by persistent fears surrounding cancer. It is within this context that genomic decision-making tools are entering routine care. These may indicate that a treatment is not appropriate for a particular disease profile. We draw on qualitative interviews and observations centred on gene ex…
How and why to use ‘vulnerability’: An interdisciplinary analysis of disease risk, indeterminacy and normality
In recent years, ‘vulnerability’ has been getting more traction in theoretical, professional and popular spaces as an alternative or complement to the concept of risk. As a group of science and technology studies scholars with different disciplinary orientations yet a shared concern with biomedicine, self and society, we investigate how vulnerability has become a salient and even dominant idiom for discussing disease and disease risk. We argue th…
Laboratory Practices, Potentiality, and Material Patienthood in Genomic Cancer Medicine
Laboratory practitioners working in oncology are increasingly involved in implementing genomic medicine, operating at the intersection of the laboratory and the clinic. This includes molecular diagnostic work and molecular testing to direct entry into molecular-based clinical trials and treatment decision-making based on molecular profiling. In this article, we draw on qualitative interviews with laboratory practitioners in the United Kingdom to …
The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations
Special issue 'The Immune System, Immunity and Immune Logics: Troubling Fixed Boundaries and (Re)conceptualizing Relations', guest edited by Andrea Ford and Julia Swallow
Shifting Expectations of Novel Immunotherapy Treatments in Oncology: Practitioners' and Patients' Calibration Work in Conditions of Uncertainty
Immunotherapy cancer treatments stimulate individuals' immune systems to target and kill cancer, with the potential to extend survival time for individuals living with some forms of advanced cancer. Immunotherapies, however, generate uncertainties in relation to predicting prognosis and managing toxicities and the emergence of side effects during and post-treatment. Drawing on interviews with practitioners and patients in an oncology clinic in th…
Medicine (19 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation (7 works) · Cancer (7 works) · Biology (6 works) · Business (6 works) · Engineering (6 works)