Emerging Technologies for Diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease - Innovating with Care

This book explores international biomedical research and development on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. It offers timely, multidisciplinary reflections on the social and ethical issues raised by promises of early diagnostics and asks under which conditions emerging diagnostic technologies can be considered a responsible innovation. 

The initial chapters in this edited volume provide an overview and a critical discussion of recent developments in biomedical research on Alzheimer's disease. Subsequent contributions explore the values at stake in current practices of dealing with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, both within and outside the biomedical domain. Novel diagnostic technologies for Alzheimer's disease emerge in a complex and shifting field, full of controversies. Innovating with care requires a precise mapping of how concepts, values and responsibilities are filled in through the confrontation of practices. In doing so, the volume offers a practice-based approach of responsible innovation that is also applicable to other fields of innovation. 

Marianne Boenink is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on the philosophical and ethical issues posed by emerging biomedical technologies. She has published on the ethics of predictive testing, concepts of disease in molecular medicine, and methods for ethics of emerging technologies. 

Harro van Lente is Full Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He was trained in physics and philosophy and he studies the dynamics of emerging technologies. He has published widely on the sociology of expectations, technology assessment, foresight, sustainability and the politics of knowledge production. 

Ellen Moors is Full Professor of Sustainable Innovation at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on technology dynamics and governance of life sciences innovations, the role of users and institutions in emerging technologies, and sustainable or responsible health innovation business models.