Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/10071/26158
Author(s): | Riso, B. |
Date: | 2022 |
Title: | “Not storing the samples it’s certainly not a good service for patients”: Constructing the Biobank as a health place |
Journal title: | Societies |
Volume: | 12 |
Number: | 4 |
Reference: | Riso, B. (2022). “Not storing the samples it’s certainly not a good service for patients”: Constructing the Biobank as a health place. Societies, 12(4): 113. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/soc12040113 |
ISSN: | 2075-4698 |
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): | 10.3390/soc12040113 |
Keywords: | Biobank Health Human biological samples Biomedical research Ethnography Caring practices Illness narratives Portugal (Study context) |
Abstract: | Biobanks have been established from the beginning of the millennium as relevant infrastructures to support biomedical research. These repositories have also transformed the paradigm of collecting and storing samples and associated clinical data, moving these practices from the healthcare services and research laboratories to dedicated services. In Portugal, the establishment of biobanks is happening in the absence of a specific legal framework, turning it difficult to fully understand the scope of their action. This ethnographic research explored how establishing a biobank challenges the dynamics between healthcare and biomedical research. The ethnography intended to follow the path of biological samples from the hospital, where they were collected, to the biobank in a research institute, where they were stored. Findings suggest that although the nature of the biobank’s technical work seemed to inscribe it as a research-oriented setting, the biobank’s daily work was performed through symbolic action in the logic of care. Biobank staff constantly recalled the human nature of the samples, and they built complex illness narratives of each sample, promoting a connection with the absent donor. These practices were crucial to constructing the biobank as a health place, one that was designed to be life-saving in the near future. |
Peerreviewed: | yes |
Access type: | Open Access |
Appears in Collections: | CIES-RI - Artigos em revistas científicas internacionais com arbitragem científica |
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