‘Remaking the Human Body: Biomedical Imaging Technologies, Professional and Lay Visions’ is a research project designed to investigate the use of imaging technologies during IVF. It aims to explore the clinical use of artefacts that produce images and more specifically, how images of developing embryos are received by IVF patients as well as professionals.
Images of bodies, internal organs and cells are common in medical practice. The development and diffusion of biomedical imaging technologies allows medical professionals to explore the human body in new ways. Biomedical staff undergo training in order to develop the skills required to interpret images of the inner body. These images can also be used when communicating with patients, and they can then travel through the social world, thus contributing to a changing understanding of what the body is and how it works. However, the relationships between these new visual tools and professional and lay visions remains underexplored.
The project is led my Dr Manuela Perrotta, Reader in Technology and Organisation at Queen Mary’s School of Business and Management, and the research is funded through the Wellcome Trust’s Investigator Award in Medical Humanities/Society and Ethics. Dr Marcin Smietana and Dr Josie Hamper are postdoctoral researchers on the project.
See our website for further details about the research project and team.