Dr. Sally Wyatt will guest lecture on "Selling genetic tests online"
Genetic testing for disease is no longer confined to hospital clinics, as it is now available for purchase on the internet. This online market, known as ‘direct-to-consumer genetic testing’, is diverse, ranging from companies selling tests for rare inherited diseases, to newer companies wanting to enrol a broader public, with testing for common health conditions. Many of these newer companies utilise a range of web 2.0 platforms in order to market their product, and in one case to involve their consumers in genetic research. Sally Wyatt will present preliminary results from this ongoing project.
Sally Wyatt is Professor of ‘digital cultures in development’, Maastricht University, Programme Leader of the eHumanities Group, KNAW (http://ehumanities.nl), and Director of WTMC (the Netherlands Graduate School for Science, Technology & Modern Culture, www.wtmc.net). She has worked at the Universities of Sussex, Brighton, East London and Amsterdam as well as at the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Recently, she has worked on the internet and social exclusion and the ways in which people incorporate the internet into their practices for finding health information and what digital technologies mean for scholarly practice. Together with Andrew Webster, she is editor of a book series, Health, Technology and Society, see http://www.palgrave.com/products/series.aspx?s=HTE
