Doctoral Dissertation Research: Anthropological Analysis of Counter-current Techno-scientific Innovation and Scientific Authority

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Is scientific innovation always improved by having the most money and latest equipment? Is successful lower-cost research feasible, how does it come about, and how does it gain scientific authority? In the research supported by this award, the researchers will address these important questions. They will do so through an ethnographic investigation of how a new drug for treatment of lung cancer has been developed away from the usual, high-cost centers of techno-scientific innovation. The research will train an American graduate student in scientific methods of data collection. Its findings will help to expand the options for pharmaceutical innovation, which remains essential for protecting and promoting a healthy population. The research will be carried out by Naomi Schoenfeld, a University of California, San Francisco, medical anthropology doctoral student, who is supervised by Dr. Ian Whitmarsh. Schoenfeld will focus on two sites for the research. The first is a research laboratory in Cuba, which has developed a unique system of lower-cost pharmaceutical innovation using a model different from that of major research and development centers, such as those in the United States. The second is a major American cancer center where a cancer vaccine developed by the Cuban laboratory is being tested in clinical trials. The researcher will collect data at both sites in research institutes, clinics, administrative offices, homes, and conference events. She will use a range of anthropological research methods including participant observation; interviews; textual analysis of scientific journals, regulatory and legal documents, and internet, print, and television media. Analysis of these data will address two overarching research questions: (1) How do local conditions of scientific innovation influence entry into global circulation? (2) What relations of scientific authority are generated by the counter-current movement of a new drug from marginalized spaces toward sites authorized as centers of research and development? Results of this study will generate new insights into how to develop and support the most cost-effective conditions for scientific innovation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.