Emergent tissue economies: Immunotherapy and the value of cancer tissue

Datum
09. März 2021 

Webi­nar in our Lon­don School of Hygiene and Trop­i­cal Med­i­cine Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy sem­i­nar series, with Hen­ry Llewellyn, on 9. March 2021, 4–5:15pm GMT (online).

Please join us for the next webi­nar in our Lon­don School of Hygiene and Trop­i­cal Med­i­cine Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy sem­i­nar series, with Hen­ry Llewellyn, on 9. March 2021, 4–5:15pm GMT (online). Reg­is­tra­tion is not nec­es­sary. Join via this link: https://lshtm.zoom.us/j/91552429212

Emer­gent tis­sue economies: Immunother­a­py and the val­ue of can­cer tissue

By Hen­ry Llewellyn (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)

Abstract

Per­son­alised immunother­a­pies in can­cer include vac­cines made with anti­gens tak­en from patients’ own tumours that are har­vest­ed by surgery. Their ratio­nale is eas­i­ly under­stood by patients—by com­bin­ing their tumour tis­sue with their immune cells, the vac­cine equips their own immune sys­tems with the capa­bil­i­ties to recog­nise and tar­get their own tumour—a means of enhanc­ing the body’s “nat­ur­al defence” against can­cer. Hav­ing drawn sig­nif­i­cant gains from recent advances in immunol­o­gy, such vac­cines hold con­sid­er­able promise among can­cer com­mu­ni­ties and are her­ald­ed by many as a key treat­ment in the future of oncol­o­gy. But they also set up sig­nif­i­cant dilem­mas for patients who are learn­ing what it is like to par­tic­i­pate in an emer­gent “tis­sue econ­o­my,” to use Cather­ine Waldby’s phrase, and the stakes of exclu­sion from it.

In this sem­i­nar, Hen­ry will explore the val­u­a­tions and exchanges that con­sti­tute this tis­sue econ­o­my as well as the ten­sions, dilem­mas and dis­par­i­ties faced by patients as these tech­nolo­gies are embed­ded exper­i­men­tal­ly and acces­si­ble via pri­vate means.

Using ethno­graph­ic mate­r­i­al col­lect­ed over 18-months in a spe­cial­ist brain tumour unit in Eng­land, Hen­ry focus­es his atten­tion on how can­cer tis­sue is con­sid­ered and han­dled by sur­geons, bio­med­ical sci­en­tists, pathol­o­gists and researchers and how it is being ascribed with new ther­a­peu­tic val­ue. He sug­gests this shift from tumour as life-threat­en­ing dis­ease to ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly valu­able mate­r­i­al is rad­i­cal and requires of patients a leap of faith that is unusu­al even in the fast-paced, tech­no­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven world of mod­ern medicine.

About the speaker

Hen­ry Llewellyn is a post­doc­tor­al research fel­low in the UCL Divi­sion of Psy­chi­a­try. His work uses ethno­graph­ic approach­es to exam­ine the pro­duc­tions of diag­no­sis, med­ical deci­sion-mak­ing, end of life care, and the social impli­ca­tions of new tech­nolo­gies in can­cer clas­si­fi­ca­tion and treat­ment. He cur­rent­ly leads a project explor­ing the social con­se­quences of inte­grat­ing nov­el diag­nos­tic tech­niques and treat­ment strat­i­fi­ca­tion in rou­tine care for peo­ple with a brain tumour in the Unit­ed Kingdom.

This webi­nar is a LSHTM Anthro­pol­o­gy and Soci­ol­o­gy Hub event.

Please note that the webi­nar will not be recorded.