Bauer, Susanne | Germany

Susanne Bauer, environmental scientist and epidemiologist, will be a Fellow at IAS-STS from October 2004 to June 2005, funded by an Ernst Mach grant. She studied environmental science and engineering (TU Berlin, Mechnikov University Odessa (Ukraine)) and received her PhD in Public Health from the University of Bielefeld. Her research interests include environmental epidemiology, (radiation) risk assessment, history of epidemiology and biomedicine, science and technology studies.

Project at IAS-STS: Environment, risk and susceptibility in epidemiology and toxicogenomics

This project will focus on the emergence of new research objects such as environmental response genes and gene-environment interactions viewed from a wider context of epidemiologic risk assessment and environmental health. Based on publications related to the US-NIH Environmental Genome Project (EGP), the project examines the modes of genomic data generation and mobilisation and processes of signification – from microarray technologies to applications in environmental science, risk assessment and regulation.

The 'genomics' of environmental response and individual susceptibility have achieved prominence in particular in epidemiology and toxicology. With the availability of (toxico-)genomic data and their incorporation into aetiologic models, the understanding of environmentally related diseases and concepts of risk management undergo considerable transformation: The current shift from 'exposure' to 'predisposition' brings about fundamental re-conceptualisations in the field of environmental and occupational health, raising a host of ethical issues.

The overall goal of the project is threefold: First, a brief history of the incorporation of genomic data (in particular from the EGP) into environmental health research will be compiled. Second, papers published in peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings and workshop reports relating to the field of toxicogenomics will be analysed. Third, the constitution of population categories in the co-production of technology, data and images will be explored on a theoretical level.

Selected Publications

S. Bauer: Krankheit im Raster des Umweltgenomprojekts – Koordinaten, Lokalisationen, Fakten auf der Flucht. In: Nusser/Strowick (eds.) Rasterfahndungen. Darstellungstechniken – Normierungsverfahren – Wahrnehmungskonstitution. Bielefeld 2003:199-218.

S. Bauer: Umweltepidemiologie und sozial-ökologische Forschung – Schnittstellen und Anknüpfungspunkte für Umweltgerechtigkeit. In: Bolte G, Mielck A: Umweltgerechtigkeit : Die soziale Verteilung von Umweltbelastungen. Weinheim/München 2004: 69-91.

S. Bauer: 'Bodies' of Biomedical Knowledge—Environment and Genes in the Epidemiologic Discourse. In Body Project: CorpoRealities. Interventions in an omnipresent subject. Königstein/Taunus 2004: 408-424.