Human, Medicine and Society at the Orient-Institut Istanbul

New types of medical innovations enable previously unknown interventions into the nature of man. Culturally different interpretations and modes of behavior affect the handling of these fundamentally new challenges for society, culture, law, and politics. Genome editing, eugenics programs, modern reproductive technologies, and health apps that analyze our fitness and health data everyday are just some examples of Science, Technology, and Medicine changing various dimensions of individual and social life. As a result of these dynamic changes, questions arise as to how these developments shape socio-technical, socio-cultural, and socio-political processes. For a young and dynamic society like Turkey, these questions are particularly explosive. Dealing with them is thus of particular importance. On May 15, 2015, we launched the new research field “Human, Medicine, and Society”. It will focus mainly on the way society in Turkey deals with practices of Human Enhancement through medical innovations and thus understanding the developments in science, technology, and medicine in relation to their social contexts. With this research field, the Orient-Institut Istanbul broke new ground in Turkey, treating for the first time the current challenges of biotechnology, neurosciences, nano- and information technologies in the medical field. Central to the development of this research field is the close cooperation with the leading German scientific institution in this field, the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT). For this purpose, a cooperation agreement has been signed. To officially kick off the partnership, a ceremony took place at ITAS on Monday, December 7, 2015. As the research field “Human, Medicine, and Society” is currently still in development, you can find a few details of several (planned) individual projects on this website.