Histology agnosticism

Infra-molecularizing disease

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10800010
AutoresJonah Campbell (0000-0003-2480-8912), Alberto Cambrosio (0000-0001-5922-0137), Mark Basik (0000-0002-2633-5410)
Ano2024
Volume104
Páginas14-22
Data de publicação2024-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoStudies in History and Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0039-3681 • E-ISSN: 1879-2510
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.002
PMID38377771
OpenAlexW4391944936
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas44

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