Research Interests

My research centers on the interaction of science, norms, and political structure in the governance of human health and the environment, with a particular focus on biotechnology and the law. The work draws upon law and Science, and Technology Studies (STS) to analyze and address socio-legal problems. I am especially interested in the processes and practices through which rules and rights are constructed, decisions exerted, and power exercised in regulatory domains involving the life sciences, e.g., intellectual property, environmental protection, food safety, human research subject protection, and public health. Through this work, I also aim to make theoretical contributions in the areas of bioethics, globalization, constitutional law, and the science-democracy relationship.

Current Projects

(1) Science, technology and democracy at the WTO.

This stream of work centers on the politics of regulation and the biosciences in a global context, focusing on the WTO as a crucial site for the emergence of international governance in the areas of environment, public health, and biotechnology. Here I am especially interested in concurrent constructions of global regulation, global knowledge and global citizenship. Most recently I have been working on the current dispute regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) at the WTO, and the legalization of risk assessment and the precautionary principle in this context.

(2) Ethical, legal and social aspects of new genetic technologies.

This work focuses on the emergence of new institutions, norms, and understandings of “nature” and the “human” arising out of technological change in the life sciences. Currently, I am conducting a comparative study of large-scale genetics projects across Iceland, the USA, and the UK to understand ways in which ideas of genetic citizenship are emerging and should be encouraged to emerge. Crucial aspects of this work include rethinking individual and collective property rights, bioethical norms, and the social contract of biomedical research.

D. Winickoff and L. Neumann, Towards a Social Contract for Genomics: Property and the Public in The 'Biotrust' Model, 1 (3) Genomics, Society, and Policy 8 (2005).
 

D. Winickoff, S. Jasanoff, L. Busch, R. Grove-White, B. Wynne, Adjudicating the GM Food Wars: Science, Risk, and Democracy in World Trade Law, 30 Yale Journal of International Law 81 (2005).
 

D. Winickoff (with L. Busch, R. Grove-White, S. Jasanoff, B. Wynne), amicus curiae brief submitted to the Dispute Settlement Panel of World Trade Organization, in the case of EC: Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (28 April 2004).
 

D. Winickoff, R. Winickoff, The Charitable Trust as a Model for Genomic Biobanks, 349 New England Journal of Medicine 12: 1180-1184 (18 September 2003) (link requires NEJM online subscription).
 

D. Winickoff, Governing Population Genomics: Law, Bioethics, and Biopolitics in Three Case Studies, 43 Jurimetrics 187-228 (Winter 2003).
 

D. Winickoff (with Sheila Jasanoff), Hard facts and soft law: what’s the evidence?, OpenDemocracy.net (18 November 2002).
 

D. Winickoff, Biosamples, Genomics, and Human Rights: Context and Content of Iceland’s Biobanks Act, 4 Journal of Biolaw and Business 2:11-17 (January 2001). Reprinted in 62 Notizie di Politeia 157-166 (2001).
 

D. Winickoff, E. Arnason, J.R. Gulcher, K. Stefansson, The Icelandic Healthcare Database, Correspondence, 343 New England Journal of Medicine 23: 1734-1735 (7 December 2000).
 

David Winickoff, Prop. 71 a risky experiment in squandering public monies, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 17, 2004.
 

Quoted in: Jon Herskovitz, South Korean Scientist in Seclusion; Storm Continues, Reuters, Dec. 3, 2005.
 

Bonnie Azab Powell, Berkeley bioethicist David Winickoff tackles the really big questions -- just don't ask him what bioethics is, UC Berkeley News, July 6, 2005.

 

 
ESPM 162: "BIOETHICS & SOCIETY" (Upper division undergraduates and graduates by special arrangement)
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30 - 5
159 Mulford Hall
4 credits
Professor David Winickoff

Developments in biotechnology and the life sciences have thrown into question existing policy approaches and instruments dealing with intellectual property, reproduction, health, informed consent and privacy. Rapid changes in science and technology appear to be reconstituting concepts of the self and its boundaries, kinship, ownership, and legal rights and obligations of people in relation to their governing institutions. Through reading primary materials and relevant secondary sources, this course seeks to identify and explore salient ethical, legal, and policy issues.and possible solutions.associated with these developments.

ESPM 256: "SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND THE POLITICS OF NATURE" (Graduate students)
Wednesdays 2-5
ROOM TBA
3 Credits
Professor David Winickoff

This graduate seminar is a reading, discussion, and research course that will introduce the methods and theories of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in order to explore the relationship of science, technology, law and politics in the domains of environment and health. The course will focus attention on the tension between technocracy and democracy in science policy, and the role of biotechnology in reshaping the natural and political order. The course will equip graduate students in the social sciences, law, life sciences and public policy with theoretical and practical tools for analyzing complex problems at the science, technology and society interface.