Cancer Research in Situ: Organizational Cultures of Vaccine Innovation in the National Cancer Institute's Directed Virus-Cancer Programs, 1961-2008 (2016)
Lampland, Martha (Advisor)
Natalie Brooke Aviles (Author)
University of California, San Diego
Lampland, Martha
This study combines archival research and oral history interview data to construct a single case temporal comparison of organizational reforms in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that were designed to foster innovation by directing basic science findings around virally induced cancers toward the development of vaccines. This project is poised to make a significant contribution by addressing an unresolved theoretical problem: how can sociologists and interdisciplinary science, technology, and society (STS) scholars understand how formal organizations affect scientific knowledge production and innovation? My work contributes to sociological theory and the sociology of culture by offering a coherent theoretical framework that unifies process theories of organization and pragmatist social theory. I develop this “pragmatist process theory of organization” to analyze organizational culture as a temporal process comprising iterative cycles of meaning-making anchored in sequences of organizational problem-solving. I apply this pragmatist process theory of organization to analyze virus-cancer research programs under organizational cultures of “targeted research” in 1961-1976 and “translational research” in 1991-2008. In each period, I show how NCI researchers drew upon local understandings of the relationship between basic and applied science articulated in these organizational cultures to address the scientific and administrative problems they faced around routine organizational events. Over time, sequences of problem-solving fed back into strategic planning and collaborative scientific practices to further articulate these organizational cultures in ways that affected science going forward. In the first period, this process yielded consensus around a limited number of RNA and herpes-like viruses identified early in the development of the program. Priority-setting around operational reporting and contract funding allowed virus-cancer program scientists to justify de-prioritizing DNA viruses more promising for vaccine development, such as hepatitis-B. In the second period, the ambiguity of cultural understandings of translation encouraged a more dispersed collaborative structure. This cultivated an environment of distributed cognition based on fluid and dynamic collaborations that utilized emerging technologies to develop a biomedical innovation—the HPV vaccine. Arguing against existing models, I show how the substantive understandings embedded in organizational cultures as they are produced over time provide centripetal or centrifugal forces that make a difference in the possibilities for innovation.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Scheffler, Robin Wolfe;
(2014)
Managing the Future: The Special Virus Leukemia Program and the Acceleration of Biomedical Research
(/isis/citation/CBB001421647/)
Article
Robin W Scheffler;
Natalie B Aviles;
(April 2022)
State planning, cancer vaccine infrastructure, and the origins of the oncogene theory
(/isis/citation/CBB592344187/)
Book
Wailoo, Keith;
Livingston, Julie;
Epstein, Steven G.;
(2010)
Three Shots at Prevention: The HPV Vaccine and the Politics of Medicine's Simple Solutions
(/isis/citation/CBB001031343/)
Book
Samantha D. Gottlieb;
(2018)
Not Quite a Cancer Vaccine: Selling HPV and Cervical Cancer
(/isis/citation/CBB615198972/)
Article
Scheffler, Robin Wolfe;
(2014)
Following Cancer Viruses through the Laboratory, Clinic, and Society
(/isis/citation/CBB001421641/)
Book
Robin Wolfe Scheffler;
(2019)
A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB660913926/)
Article
Oscar Javier Maldonado Castañeda;
(2021)
Connective data: Markov chain models and the datafication of cervical cancer and HPV vaccination in Colombia
(/isis/citation/CBB001445188/)
Article
Giampietro Gobo;
Barbara Sena;
(2022)
Questioning and Disputing Vaccination Policies. Scientists and Experts in the Italian Public Debate
(/isis/citation/CBB026130989/)
Article
Nussenzweig, Ruth Sonntag;
(2011)
Breakthroughs towards a Malaria Vaccine
(/isis/citation/CBB001420528/)
Article
Alessandro Demichelis;
(2018)
Understanding vaccine hesitancy: Cognitive biases and the role of trust
(/isis/citation/CBB568141355/)
Article
Gustav Nossal;
Christopher Parish;
(2015)
Gordon Leslie Ada 1922–2012
(/isis/citation/CBB177240747/)
Article
Garnelo, Luiza;
(2011)
Aspectos socioculturais de vacinação em área indígena
(/isis/citation/CBB001420515/)
Book
Cristina Munno;
Elena Iorio;
(2018)
Vaccini e paure. Salute pubblica, resistenze popolari
(/isis/citation/CBB068311554/)
Chapter
Elena Iorio;
(2018)
La libertà (di cura) non è star sopra un albero… Riflessioni sulle resistenze alle vaccinazioni
(/isis/citation/CBB337833759/)
Book
Eugenia Tognotti;
(2020)
Vaccinare i bambini tra obbligo e persuasione: Tre secoli di controversie. Il caso dell'Italia
(/isis/citation/CBB142911314/)
Article
Bernardino Fantini;
(2022)
Continuità e discontinuità nelle posizioni intorno alla vaccinazione
(/isis/citation/CBB600266039/)
Book
Jonathan M. Berman;
(2020)
Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement
(/isis/citation/CBB269088658/)
Book
David Harker;
(2015)
Creating Scientific Controversies: Uncertainty and Bias in Science and Society
(/isis/citation/CBB156153688/)
Chapter
Silvia Garofalo;
(2018)
Dal caso Tremante alla nascita dei movimenti no-vax in Italia
(/isis/citation/CBB648845123/)
Thesis
Beza Merid;
(2015)
Performing Health: Stand-up Comedy and the Production of Biomedical Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB740044209/)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society
Social Studies of Science
Historical Records of Australian Science
Be the first to comment!