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Values in Nanomedical Research: A Discussion Based on the NANOCAN Project on Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis

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Abstract

The NANOCAN project aims to enhance our understanding of the behavior of nanomaterials in the body, focusing on biodegradable nanoparticles for cancer diagnostics, and targeted cancer drug delivery. There is a range of available and potentially useful nanoparticles and drugs that might be of interest to such a project. In this paper, we make values implied in—and relevant to—choices between these alternatives explicit, thereby offering a case study of how values enter research processes in this area. From a project centered perspective, we observe that values often play their role implicitly, as a result of funding incentives, regulations, and structural and organizational features of the research process. Based on our observations and categorization of relevant values, we turn to a broader discussion of how responsible research and innovation can be facilitated by making value priorities, value conflicts, and biases explicit targets of normative assessment.

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Notes

  1. NANOCAN is a national competence building project in which ten research groups, several Norwegian universities, and a private company participate: Oslo University Hospital, University of Oslo, University of Tromsø, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU Trondheim), SINTEF Oslo, SINTEF Trondheim, and PCI Biotech (Oslo). Starting in 2013, it is a five year project funded by the Research Council of Norway's NANO2021 program. The author of this paper is part of the NANOCAN project group but has no funding from NANOCAN.

  2. See Reichenbach [15] for the origin of the distinction between context of discovery and context of justification.

  3. Chauhan and Jain [2]

  4. Chauhan and Jain [2]. See also http://www.fda.gov/drugs/informationondrugs/approveddrugs/ucm279174.html.

  5. Even traditional chemotherapy exploits a kind of targeting in that chemotherapeutic agents typically kill cells during division, and cancer cells divide more frequently than most other cells (this explains the typical side-effects of hair loss, decreased production of blood cells, and inflammation of the digestive tract during chemotherapeutic treatment, since these processes involve frequent cell division).

  6. Bae and Park [1], p 199

  7. Ibid, pp 202–203.

  8. For a brief discussion and some references, see page 1297 in Skotland, Iversen, and Sandvig [16] “Development of nanoparticles for clinical use” Nanomedicine 9(9) pp. 1295–1299.

  9. See e.g., [8, 12] and [23].

  10. See e.g., [6, 17] for critical discussions.

  11. There is an extensive literature on how to operationalize and measure value and on how to select among various measures for applications in health economics. See e.g., Ubel et al. [22].

  12. CUDOS: Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized Skepticism.

  13. http://www.rri-tools.eu/documents/10182/16038/RRI+Tools+Policy+Brief/fcadbf7f-5b82-401c-8cfe-d478c45fec59

  14. https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation

  15. For this reason, one might expect us to be biased toward the researcher’s perspective when we discuss diachronic value conflicts and distribution of responsibility in chapter 4. That is a possibility. We have dealt with it by keeping it in focus and making the possibility explicit.

  16. RCN, NANO2021 work program page 5.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Call for proposals NANO2021 from RCN 13.02.2013, named “Nasjonalt koordinerte forskerprosjekter innen nanoteknologi og avanserte materialer.”

  19. Skotland et al. [16].

  20. The development of a proposal for a project like NANOCAN will typically involve consultation between the project managers and the RCN in the application process. Suggestions, constraints, and advice communicated in meetings and conversations are not documented here but were likely to have played a role. We assume they complied with the more general guidelines and constraints under the RCN NANO2021 work program.

  21. US and European clinical approval procedures differ. Information on the current state of affairs can be obtained from European Medicine Agency (http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/) and US National Cancer Institute (http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/drugs/cancer-type).

  22. This was raised at the third annual NANOCAN meeting.

  23. Estimates of future product price are dependent on several factors and are sometimes highly uncertain. It can be argued on this ground that they should not guide research, but this is a topic that deserves further attention.

  24. See discussions reported in media at e.g.,

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/prostate-cancer-drug-abiraterone-too-expensive-to-use-on-terminally-ill-patients-9669849.html

    and (in Norwegian) http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/helse-og-medisin/opposisjonen-vil-ha-prostatakreftmedisin-paa-blaaresept/a/10114993/

  25. http://www.rri-tools.eu/

  26. Grand challenges defined in the Horizon 2020 include health and are available here: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/societal-challenges

  27. http://www.rri-tools.eu/documents/10182/16038/RRI+Tools+Policy+Brief/fcadbf7f-5b82-401c-8cfe-d478c45fec59

  28. Recently, the NRK documentary “Bakterietrusselen” documented disposal of huge amounts of antibiotics from manufacturers in Patancheru, India:

    http://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/-fabrikkene-skaper-resistente-bakterier-1.12853101

  29. See e.g., Westin and Giæver “Loven om den omvendte evidens” in Larsen et al. Medisinsk Kunnskap, Gyldendal [9] (in Norwegian).

  30. [3, 10, 20].

  31. Document available here: http://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/budget/plan

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the NANOCAN project (financed by the Research Council of Norway, NANO2021, project number 228200/070), its project leaders, and to Tore Skotland in particular for helpful discussions and feedback. Thanks to Gry Oftedal, Ellen Marie Forsberg, Kristine Bærøe, and Anders Braarud Hansen for discussions and feedback on earlier drafts, and to the two anonymous reviewers for this journal for the helpful comments and suggestions.

Part of the work reflected in this paper was financed by the project pilot NanoRedux (financed by the Research Council of Norway, project number 220637).

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  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Anders Strand

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Strand, A. Values in Nanomedical Research: A Discussion Based on the NANOCAN Project on Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis. Nanoethics 11, 259–271 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-017-0295-4

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