Perspective

Life-Science-Governance Research Platform, University of Vienna, Department of Political Science, Universitaetsstr. 7/2, A-1010 Vienna, Austria.

Email the corresponding author at ingrid.metzler@univie.ac.at

Published Online:5 Jul 2010https://doi.org/10.2217/pme.10.41

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Abstract

Although biomarkers are not altogether new, they are gaining a new life in our postgenomic present. This article takes this as a good reason to explore biomarkers in depth and to speculate about the consequences that biomarkers might engender in clinical practices. First, the article ventures into an endeavor of ordering the dynamic field of biomarkers, suggesting a possible classification of biomarkers, and then argues that we are currently witnessing a ‘biomarkerization’ of health and disease – defined as an ongoing future-oriented process that seeks to solve biomedical as well as public health problems through investments into biomarker research at the present time. Subsequently, this article reflects on some possible consequences of this phenomenon. It argues that while the movement of candidate biomarkers into the clinic is arduous, biomarkers might develop a life of their own once they arrive in the clinic. This article outlines the direction of two such possible consequences. It suggests that biomarkers might be involved in a change of the actors that order and categorize diseases, as well as trigger transformations in our understanding of what counts as disease in the first place. Hence, this article seeks to shed light on the paradox that while biomarkers are designed to add more evidence into clinical practice, they might actually increase uncertainty and ambiguity.

Keywords:

Papers of special note have been highlighted as:▪ of interest ▪▪ of considerable interest

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Published online 5 July 2010

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my colleagues Herbert Gottweis, Christian Haddad and Georg Lauss for their comments on previous versions of this article; Deborah Oliver for copy-editing this article; as well as the two anonymous referees, whose insightful critique helped me sharpen my thoughts.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author would like to acknowledge the funding of this work by the Austrian Genome Research Programme (GEN-AU), which kindly funds the project ‘Biomarkers: towards the governance of an emerging medical technology’. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

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Biomarkers and their consequences for the biomedical profession: a social science perspective

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