Homepage of Martin Boeckhout

Biography

Martin Boeckhout studied Science Dynamics (Science and Technology Studies, MSc (hons.), 2006) and Philosophy of Science (MA (hons.), 2007) at the University of Amsterdam. After having worked at the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) on the project Uncertain Safety: Responsibilities for Physical Safety (2008), he started on a PhD project provisionally titled ‘Governing Scientific Resources: the Case of Biobank Governance’, supervised by prof. Gerard de Vries. His teaching activities include lecturing in philosophy of social science and working as a tutor on a course on ‘genetic identity’ for students in a Liberal Arts & Sciences programme.

PhD project: Governing scientific resources: the case of biobank governance

Genomics is big science. In turn, such big science requires big data. Collecting sufficient information on and tissue samples of large groups of patients and healthy individuals in ever more, ever larger biobanks is a prerequisite for medical genomics. Many efforts to enable large-scale data exchange between biobanks and between researchers are underway, leading to the creation of cross-border networks of biobanks and the biological material and personal information.

The emergence of biobanks and biobank networks puts well-known questions about the relationship between biomedicine and politics into a new perspective. Discussions on the future of biobanks therefore requires reconsideration. Do the well-known themes such as privacy, informed consent, intellectual property and commercialization cover all the issues involved or should other issues be considered as well? How are the responsibilities for resolving particular issues distributed between various parties?

The project’s prime concern is to understand how issues pertaining to the collection, governance, curation and use of tissue or information to biobanks arrive on, get discussed in relation to, and eventually disappear from various agendas. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the development of socially responsible forms of biobank governance. The project is funded by the Centre for Society and Genomics.

Other academic interests include: Science and Technology Studies; philosophy of science; risk, uncertainty and regulation; political theory.

Centre for Society and Genomics

Articles & reports

Boeckhout, M. (2010) Medisch-ethische toetsing van het Parelsnoer Initiatief. Verslag en analyse van een proces. Een analyse van de kwesties die spelen bij medisch-ethische toetsing van biobanken, toegespitst op Nederland en het Parelsnoer Initiatief.

Medisch-ethische toetsing biobanken

Reviews & miscellaneous

Boeckhout, M. (2010) ‘Beroep: Wetenschapper.’ Krisis 2: 85-89.

Boeckhout, M. (2010) ‘Interdisciplinaire onderzoeksnetwerken.’ Blind, aflevering over netwerken.

Boeckhout, M. (2008) ' Hedendaagse biomacht. Empirisch-filosofische bijdragen aan depolitiek van de levenswetenschappen .' Krisis 2: 57-63.


Beroep: wetenschapper

Interdisciplinaire onderzoeksnetwerken

Hedendaagse biomacht