Renan Silva

Background There are intense discussions about the ethical and societal implications of biomedical engineering, but little data to suggest how scientists think about the ethics of their work. The aim of this study is to describe how scientists frame the ethics of their research, with a focus on the field of molecular systems engineering.Methods Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted during 2021–2022, as part of a larger study. This analysis includes a broad question about how participants view ethics as related to their work, with follow up probes about the topics they consider most important. Interviews were transcribed, inductively coded by two researchers to consensus, and analyzed thematically.Results Twenty-four scientists participated in the study. Interviewees hold positions as professors, principal investigators, and senior staff researchers in universities or research institutes in the United States and Europe. Among those scientists who reported reflecting on ethical considerations in their work, many equated ethics with research ethics topics (e.g., safety, replicability), or with regulation and guidelines. Participants expressed the view that ethical issues are primarily relevant for clinical trials of bioengineered products, or for those working with animal or human subjects. Scientists described their research as “too early” or “not examining anything living” with regard to ethical reflection. Finally, many felt that ethics is seen as territory for experts and therefore beyond scientists’ competencies.Conclusions Molecular systems engineering scientists currently focus on regulatory aspects as the framework for their ethical analyses. They describe using a framework to define when life arises, as a means to determine when further ethical engagement is warranted. Further research is needed to investigate how scientists relate to the ethics of their scientific work, and build consensus around concepts of life, autonomous behavior, and physiological relevance of bioengineered systems.

El título principal sintetiza el propósito de este texto, que enuncia un problema de alcance general en la investigación histórica, pero lo hace con el examen de algunas proposiciones concretas que formuló el historiador colombiano Germán Colmenares (1938-1990) con relación al uso de la teoría neoclásica en las investigaciones de historia económica de la sociedad colonial, proposiciones cuya validez parece mantenerse. Se trata de un análisis de perspectiva historiográfica que se detiene, ante todo, en los usos concretos de los conceptos puestos en juego en el análisis, en el marco de un esquema que piensa la disciplina histórica como inseparable de las demás ciencias sociales.

Pablo Gilabert and Holly Lawford-Smith have, both in collaboration and individually, provided a compelling account of feasibility, which states that feasibility is both ‘binary’ and ‘scalar’, and both ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’. This two-dimensional analysis, however, has been the subject of four major criticisms: it has been argued that it rests upon a false distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ constraints, that it ignores the importance of intentional action, and that diachronic feasibility is incoherent and insensitive to the existence of epistemic limitations. In this paper, I will argue that such objections do not undermine the persuasiveness of Gilabert and Lawford-Smith’s analysis. Nevertheless, I will contend that the latter is susceptible to two other challenges. First, it mistakenly appeals to morality, and, second, it lacks an analysis of ability. I will maintain, however, that such criticisms can be addressed and that a revised version of the account should be adopted.

ABSTRACT Objective: to understand the meaning and dimensionality of state of comfort from chronic hemodialysis patients’ perspectives. Method: this is a qualitative study conducted with 30 patients from a hemodialysis clinic from May to June 2018. A semi-structured interview with guiding questions was used. Data were analyzed according to Bardin’s content analysis method, supported by Kolcaba’s theoretical framework. Results: five subcategories for being and feeling comfortable emerged: psychological well-being; Silent environment; Good quality of care; No health changes; Reduction in the frequency/duration of hemodialysis. Regarding dimensionality to achieve comfort, there were three subcategories according to the adopted states. Regarding dimensionality, relief is achieved when a patient is disconnected from the machine, does not attend any session or does not present clinical manifestations of hemodialysis complications. In calm, visible discomforts are linked to change of routine, abandonment of work activities, financial difficulties and poor family support, and psychospiritual issues that weaken in their daily life, making them vulnerable to discomfort. In transcendence, absence of symptoms, attachment to religion, faith or spirituality and resilience to the new routine figured as indexes. States do not act individually, they are related to the experiences of contexts. Conclusion: comfort has meaning of relief from discomfort, state of having met basic human needs, mental and physical well-being, physical, mental and environmental comfort, and final state of nursing therapeutic actions, which permeate the contexts and states of relief, calm, and transcendence. These elements combine with each other to generate unique responses.

Precision medicine is emerging as a scientific bandwagon within the contemporary biomedical sciences in the United States. PM brings together concepts and tools from genomics and bioinformatics to develop better diagnostics and therapies based on individualized information. Developing countries like China and Brazil have also begun pursuing PM projects, motivated by a desire to claim genomic sovereignty over its population. In spite of commonalities, institutional arrangements produced by the history of genomics research in China and Brazil are ushering PM along different trajectories. In the Chinese case, we identify a strong state-backed push for PM combined with a dynamic network of international academic and private actors along the lines of networked technonationalism that has made large-scale, speculative PM projects possible. The Brazilian case is characterized by an institutional void at the federal level in which PM is driven by domestic academic actors in universities in the regional level, resulting in smaller scale, needs-driven PM projects. Through these cases, this paper shows how a scientific bandwagon adapts to national histories and institutions. Through this peripheral translation of the scientific bandwagon, the global infrastructure of biomedical knowledge has the potential to be transformed.

El presente texto señala un conjunto de hechos que indica el proceso en marcha de separación cultural entre los nuevos hombres de letras, los llamados "criollos ilustrados" -aficionados a la historia natural-, y el conjunto de la sociedad: tanto los grupos sociales dominantes defensores de la tradición, como la sociedad popular -urbana y rural-, en el Virreinato de Nueva Granada a finales del siglo XVIII, e intenta mostrar las condiciones de ese proceso de "distancia cultural creciente", poniendo de presente que tal proceso, producto de la propia evolución cultural, no constituye ninguna rareza y ha estado presente en muchas otras sociedades y épocas, y debe ser reconstruido y analizado más allá de todo juicio de valor.

En el transcurso de estas páginas nos referiremos a la obra siempre por su título en francés, pues es difícil encontrar un equivalente preciso. ¿Hacer ciencias sociales? ¿Producir ciencias sociales? ¿Investigar en ciencias sociales? ¿Dedicarse a las ciencias sociales?, no me parecen títulos ni exactos ni atractivos, aunque todas son formas que recogen en parte la idea y espíritu de la obra. Por otra parte, hay que advertir desde ahora al lector que aunque se mencionan varias obras de Ciencias sociales e Historia –en general todas conocidas para un lector sin mayor especialización–, el texto no constituye un ensayo bibliográfico, y solo se ofrecen las referencias bibliográficas precisas en los casos en que así debe hacer por necesidades argumentales y de demostración.

Texto leído en octubre de 2011 en la Universidad EAFIT como Lección inaugural de la Maestría en Estudios Humanísticos. Una nueva lectura corregida del presente texto se ofreció en el marco de los Coloquios del Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de los Andes en marzo de 2012. Para la versión final hemos introducido una serie de pies de páginas bibliográficas y algunos comentarios, sin recargar en exceso el texto, amparándome abusivamente detrás de Pierre Bourdieu para dar una forma legítima a lo que son reflexiones por las que solamente yo respondo. El epígrafe del texto está tomado de “Los Cuadernos de Notas” a las Memorias de Adriano de Marguerite Yourcenar.

El primero de dos volúmenes que contienen los cursos del Collège de France sobre conceptos fundamentales de la sociología de Pierre Bourdieu ha aparecido en 2015. Es una oportunidad para reflexionar sobre esa exposición de los conceptos fundamentales que ocupan el centro de la obra del sociólogo francés, y sobre un conjunto de supuestos en los que se apoya su particular visión de la sociedad y de la forma como se transmite el saber sobre la sociedad y el oficio correspondiente. Estas notas de lectura quieren ser una primera reflexión sobre esos temas y una invitación a examinar y someter a crítica lo que es, sin duda, un gran legado cultural del siglo XX.