Keynote Speaker: Andrew Lakoff, Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Communication, University of Southern California

Chair: Stefan Elbe, Director, Centre for Global Health Policy

Paper title:

"Antimicrobial Assemblages: Global Health in a Molecular Age"

This talk will analyse tensions that have emerged as the new techniques of molecular biology have been applied to the broad problem-area of "global health." It begins by distinguishing between two normative orders within global health: humanitarian biomedicine, which focuses on treating existing diseases afflicting populations in the developing world; and global health security, which prepares for the onset of potential future diseases that might afflict members of the advanced industrial world. The techniques of molecular biology do not have a unitary effect on the field of global health; rather, their impact depends on the normative order to which they are applied. The talk will focus on a series of recent global health controversies to elaborate this argument.