Project description
Social aspects of introducing new health technologies: the paradigm of COVID-19 vaccines
The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled regulatory authorities to take emergency measures and open the way to new vaccine development technologies. Although mRNA may have the potential to revolutionise the fields of vaccine and drug design, social acceptance should not be overlooked. The aim of the EU-funded GENEVACRISIS project is to understand the role of social perception in the introduction of novel technologies. Researchers will collect narratives from interviews as well as focus group discussions with scientists, policymakers and science communicators, and study how they may have affected people’s response to the technology. The project will help deal with similar situations in the future.
Objective
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted our ways of living across the globe. This research project will use social science and humanities approaches to analyse the enabling role of the coronavirus crisis in the development and (potential) deployment of emerging genetic vaccine technology, and associated transformations in social values and scientific research practices. Although traditional routes are being utilised to develop vaccine candidates, the pandemic has thrown open doors for the introduction of the state of the art genetic vaccines as an emergency response, e.g. Moderna Inc.’s vaccine candidate ‘mRNA-1273’. The underlying mRNA technology presents a completely new yet unproven therapeutic modality, which scientists believe has the potential to disrupt the drug development domain. In practice, only a few gene therapy approaches have received drug approval, and these are mainly aimed at treating rare hereditary conditions. In contrast, genetic vaccines would potentially be administered to the general population, both healthy and affected. They would hence normalise the mRNA medicine platforms. However, the state of the art mRNA therapeutics in general and genetic vaccine technology in particular is yet to undergo serious scrutiny and analysis from a social science perspective, a gap and original research problem that this project aims to address. The project will examine narratives around the Covid-19 pandemic, and through interviews and focus group discussions with scientists, policymakers, and science communicators will explore its enabling role in the introduction of genetic vaccine technology. Furthermore, it will analyse the ways in which these developments might shift social values and research practices. The research outcomes will provide key insights to policymakers for the governance of DNA and mRNA therapeutics platforms, and enhance social science understanding of how narratives of crisis co-shape our response to emerging science and technology.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologygenetic engineeringgene therapy
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologypandemics
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusescoronaviruses
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
United Kingdom