Profile

Biography

• D.Phil (York)
• BSc (Polytechnic of the South Bank)

I am originally from Manchester and after completing my secondary education there, spent two years at university on a scholarship to Boston College USA, before finishing my undergraduate study (BA Social Sciences) at South Bank in London.

I then completed a PhD at the Department of Sociology under the supervision of Professor Mike Mulkay exploring the relationship between traditional and modern medicine.

I worked at what is now Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge before coming to York in 1999 to a Personal Chair in Sociology, bringing my research Unit, SATSU with me to York. I was Head of Department between April 2005 and September 2009.

Research

Overview

My main research interests relate to the sociology of science and technology, and in particular the social dynamics of bioscience, biomedicine and health informatics.

Current projects

Current work is focused on genetics, pharmacogenetics, stem cells (I direct an ESRC programme on this) and regenerative medicine where I am international co-ordinator of an EC funded project (REMEDiE) that examines the global developments in the field and the implications this has for European society and culture. Other research interests relate to science policy, intellectual property, regulation and evaluation of new technologies.

I am also Director of SATSU.

Publications

Selected publications

• Webster, A. Douglas, C. and Sato, H., ‘Emergence of Asbestos-related Health Issues and the Development of Regulatory Policy in the UK’, in H. Sato (ed) Management of Health Risks from Environment and Food, London: Springer, pp 63-100. 2010
• Webster, A. Douglas, C. and Sato, H. ‘BSE in the United Kingdom’ in H. Sato (ed.) Management of Health Risks from Environment and Food, London: Springer, pp 221-267. 2010
• Webster, A. (2010) Law, Ethics, Religion, and Clinical Translation in the 21st Century— A Discussion with Andrew Webster, Stem Cells 2010; 28: 1915–1917
  
• A. Webster and L. Eriksson (2008) Governance-by-standards in the field of stem cells: managing uncertainty in the world of ‘basic innovation’, New Genetics and Society, vol 27.
• L. Eriksson and A. Webster (2008) Standardising the Unknown: practicable pluripotency as doable futures, Science as Culture, vol 17:1.
• A Webster, (2007) Health Technology and Society: A Sociological Critique ( Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
• A. Webster (2007) Crossing Boundaries: STS in the Policy Room, Science, Technology & Human Values, 32: 458-478.
• A.Webster, (2006) Social science ethics: the changing context for research, Clinical Ethics, vol 1: 39-40.
• A. Webster (2006) New Technologies in Health Care: Opening the Black Bag, in New Technologies in Health Care; Challenge, Change and Innovation,  (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan).
• Martin, P., Lewis, G., Smart, A. and Webster, A. (2006) False Positive? The commercial and clinical development of pharmacogenetics, IGBis, SATSU University of Nottingham.
• A. Webster (ed) (2006) New Technologies in Health Care; Challenge, Change and Innovation ( Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan).

Full publications list

• N, Brown and A. Webster, (2004) New Medical Technologies and Society: Reordering Life (Cambridge: Polity Press).
• A. Webster et al. (2004) Integrating Pharmacogenetics into Society: In Search of a Model, Nature Reviews: Genetics vol 5, 663-69.
• A. Webster (2005) Social science and a post-genomic future: alternative readings of genomic agency, New Genetics and Society, vol 24, no 2, pp 227-239.