'Harnessing the little white cells': tracing practices of immunity in cancer

The project researched how novel immunotherapy treatments in cancer are shifting how cancer is approached, managed and experienced. Immunotherapy treatments are used in clinical practice and are also currently being tested as part of experimental clinical trials to treat patients with some forms of cancer. These treatments utilise the patient's own body to treat cancer and the scientific and clinical hope attached to these novel therapies is that they have the potential to extend survival time for patients. There are, however, clinical concerns regarding long-term treatment side-effects and toxicities, predicting response and prognosis, and management of patients' hopes and expectations.

The collection consists of qualitative semi-structured interviews with patients, healthcare practitioners and scientists in a cancer centre in the UK to answer three research questions:

(1) How are developments in immunology shifting conceptualisations of what cancer is and how it is treated?
(2) How are patients' experiences and subjectivities configured by immunological developments in cancer treatment?
(3) How is immunity in cancer constituted through the material practices of scientists, clinicians and patients within the context of personalised cancer medicine?

It is an interdisciplinary project with science and technology studies, medical sociology and anthropology. This is a Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Science awarded to Julia Swallow (PI Edinburgh then Sheffield).