Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society

The third and final day of our Reflective Events was on Friday 28 February, - series of Love Hub events run in partnership with The Love Tank CIC

The events focused on themes of activism, mutual-aid, care, performance, research, disability justice, abortion justice, and more. We are grateful to our event hosts and featured speakers including Georgia Bartlett-McNeil, Dr Nicola Boydell, Oliver Ellis, Jj Fadake, Dr Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril, Ese Johnson, Dr Chase Ledin, Dr Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril, Niall Moorjani, Dr Nat Raha, Phil Samba, Dr Kylo Thomas, Dr Benjamin Weil and Dr Ingrid Young.

Based on The Love Tank’s annual collaboration with Fringe! Q***r Arts & Film Fest in London, these events featured our work with key community partners. We were delighted to have The Love Tank working with us, reflecting our commitment to engaged and collaborative research.

The activities convened as part of the Between Biomedicine, Self and Society programme were an excellent opportunity to come together as a Centre, share our work and reflect on our past, present, and future - thanks to all involved!

Read more about the events: https://edin.ac/3DRgreZ

Last month the CBSS gathered for a series of Reflective Events to explore the work of the Centre – its past, present and future 🔍

Day two: Between Collaboration and Critique took place on 27 February at The Edinburgh Futures Institute and included salon sessions, a zine workshop, and highlights from some of our CBSS PhD and staff members.

Chaired by Dr Karissa Patton, the first salon began with an overview of work and a meditation of the microbial gut with Visiting Arts Fellows Baum & leahy. This was followed by a wide ranging discussion on Art and Science in Times of Crises with Joana Formosinho, Dr Nandini Manjunath, Dr Kirsten Lloyd and Olivia Plender.

The thought-provoking second salon was chaired by Dr Lukas Engelmann, exploring the theme of Beyond the Boundaries of Medicine with Dr Nicola Boydell, Prof Jeni Harden, Dr Haris Haseeb, and Dr Will Nutland.

The day was also a wonderful chance to hear from a range of CBSS members, both past and present, and to share and celebrate their successes.

Into the evening, attendees moved to the Pleasance Cabaret Bar for the first of the Love Hub events, The Activist Monologues: Spoken Word on Loud Actions. The Love Hub events, the final part of Between Biomedicine, Self and Society, were run in partnership with The Love Tank CIC

Read more about the Between Biomedicine, Self and Society events: https://edin.ac/3DRgreZ

EFI photos: Craig Nicol
Love Hub photos: Marie de Lutz

Last month CBSS gathered for a series of Reflective Events to explore the work of the Centre – its past, present and future 🔍

Day one: Humanities and Social Science in dialogue with Biomedicine and Public Health took place on 26 February at The Usher Building and explored the impact of the interdisciplinary work CBSS has established and advanced. It began with an informal zine-making workshop over lunch with Dr Chase Ledin and Ellen Richardson. Through this, participants learned about the use of zines in health-related research and created one for themselves.

The workshop was followed by a CBSS showcasing event, which celebrated the achievements of CBSS and some of its members. Introduced by Prof Sarah Cunningham-Burley, Centre members, alumni and invited guests came together to hear about recent work from Dr Giulia De Togni, Dr Andrea Ford and Dr Jaime García Iglesias 🎉

Prof Martyn Pickersgill then chaired a lively panel discussion with Prof Lisa Boden, Prof Richard Chin, Dr Anne-Marie Coriat, Prof Hilary Critchley, Prof Ross Fitzgerald and Prof Liz Grant. This explored the contributions and insights that the humanities and social sciences make to leadership, education, and research within biomedicine and health.

Read more about the events: https://edin.ac/3DRgreZ

Photos: Craig Nicol

Last month CBSS gathered for a series of Reflective Events to explore the work of the Centre – its past, present and future. We spent three days across four venues celebrating achievements, and reflecting on the interdisciplinary nature of our work with welcome guests. Each day had its own focus, which will be highlighted in a series of posts. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed and attended. Stay tuned for more!

Event highlights: https://edin.ac/3DRgreZ

Pics by Craig Nicol/Marie de Lutz 📸

Time to get designing!

This spring Chancellor's Fellow Dr Giulia De Togni is inviting youngsters and their adults to come an unleash your creativity at Edinburgh Science Festival 🤖.

Design the robots (or any other kind of technologies) you want for the future, to help you at home, in school or in the hospital. Join Giulia and Dr Marta Romeo at Heriot-Watt University, Computer Science) as they guide you through this exciting exploration.

Date: 15 April
Times: 11am and 2pm (event lasts 1 hour)
Location: National Museum of Scotland
Adult and child ticket: £6

Book now: https://buff.ly/wk2zb9H

Great to see last year's event ‘Gutscapes: Meditative Encounters with Microbial Messmates’ hosted by Joana Formosinho and Baum & Leahy at the Scottish Storytelling Centre featured in the Being Human Festival Highlights:

2024 Being Human Festival Highlights Read more about some of the highlights from the 2024 festival

Congratulations to Dr Laia Ventura Garcia, our UKRI Guarantee Postdoctoral Fellow whose film ‘The Moral Value of Our Cells’ was selected for the Short Uncut Competition at the 2025 Censurados Film Festival in Peru.

We're delighted to share that the film, which forms part of Laia's EthnoCC Study, funded by UK Research and Innovation, was awarded a Special Mention.

See the film and read more: https://buff.ly/4aJTIgX

Content warning: the film discusses cancer

In the last of our 2024 look-back posts, here are two papers co-authored by Dr Nicola Boydell, which focus on the perspectives of both healthcare providers and patients! 📝

In September, Nicola co-authored Providers’ perspectives on the barriers to post-20-week Ground C abortion in Scotland, with Lucy Grieve and Professor Jeni Harden, a study exploring barriers faced by abortion care providers in Scotland.

Read it now: https://buff.ly/4h3M1nD

In November, Nicola published 'Abortion patients’ perspectives on enhancing a telemedicine model of post-abortion contraception (PAC) : a qualitative study looking at patients’ with Sophie Buijsen, Dr John Reynolds-Wright, Dr Sharon Cameron, Professor Jeni Harden which explored views on PAC consultations and decision-making, aiming to inform future PAC service models in the age of telemedicine.

See the paper: https://buff.ly/4h161as

Now we're reflecting on how Professor Martyn Pickersgill shared his expertise in two important papers. 📝

In ‘Stalling or oiling the engines of diagnosis? Shifting perspectives on the DSM and categorical diagnosis in psychiatry’, Martyn explored how powerful actors within psychiatry simultaneously critique and accommodate the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). These critiques can themselves contribute to the overarching project of psychiatric diagnosis.

See paper: https://buff.ly/3Pw8UUY

Among other outputs, he also co-authored ‘Can biosampling really be ‘non-invasive’? An examination of the socially invasive nature of physically non-invasive biosampling in urban and rural Malawi’ with Myness Kasanda Ndambo, Christopher Bunn, Robert Stewart, Amelia Crampin, Maisha Nyasulu, Beatson Kanyenda, Wisdom Mnthali, Eric Umar, Rebecca Reynolds, and Lucinda Manda-Taylor. This study showed the different ways in which the collection of ostensibly ‘non-invasive’ biological samples in Malawi can be experienced as highly socially invasive, with implications for the ethical conduct of biomedical and public health research.

Read the paper: https://buff.ly/4fNzcNu

Explore Martyn's other research outputs: https://buff.ly/40b4BDA

Funding news! We're thrilled that Qualitative Research Fellow Dr Marie Larsson and Lecturer Dr Chase Ledin have both been successful in securing funding from the Moray Endowment Fund for two fascinating interdisciplinary projects that they will be working on over the coming months.

Read about their projects: https://buff.ly/3WGrSfU

Upcoming event alert!

Do machines feel🤔 ? And how do they make *you* feel? Come and join our discussion and creative writing event, with Jacinthe Flore, Martyn Pickersgill and Angie Spoto!

Date: 4 February 2025
Time: 10am - 12pm
Location: Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street Edinburgh EH1 1SR

More info & book: https://buff.ly/40Mg4uX

In August 2024, Dr Jaime Garcia-Iglesias delved into the ethical considerations in public engagement with co-authors Dr Iona Beange, Professor Donald J Davidson, Dr Suzanne Goopy, Dr Huayi Huang, Dr Fiona Murray, Carol Porteous, Dr Elizabeth Stevenson, Dr Sinead Rhodes, Faye Watson and Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson' . 🔍

'Ethical Considerations in Public Engagement: Developing Tools for Assessing the Boundaries of Research and Involvement' explores the process and outcomes of a collaborative effort to address the ethical implications of Public Engagement with Research (PEwR) activities and develop tools to navigate them within the context of a University Medical School.

Take a look: https://buff.ly/3WbOQuS