Promoters of genomic medicine, that is to say, medicine informed by the results of the recent mapping of the human genome, promise a revolution in all areas of clinical practice ranging from diagnosis to prognosis and therapeutics. From personalized medicine to genomic markers of disease and responses to therapy, the results of the application of such technologies as genome-wide mapping are expected to be wide-ranging, substantive and rapid. The purpose of the present proposal is to investigate the introduction of genomic techniques and concepts in the field of cancer medicine from two points of view: the historical and the sociological. The historical part of our study will concentrate on an analysis of the public, academic and commercial programs designed to capitalize on the therapeutic insights offered by the new molecular genetics of cancer inaugurated in the early 1980s with the discovery of the first human oncogenes. The sociological analysis will continue the study into the post-genomic era and will target the rearrangement of the relations between the laboratory and the clinic (often referred to as translational research) that results in the emergence of new collective modes of practice and interaction in the biomedical sciences.
