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NewsletterBringing you the latest news from CISoR at the University of Kent January 2017

CISoRCentre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction

A happy new 2017 to you all andwelcome to the 4th of our newsletters.This chronicles the achievements ofCISoR in what may forever be termedthe Brexit and Trump year.

Cover image by Keith Robinson entitledConception as part of the BIOPRONETproject run by Professor Mark Smales

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CISoR at theCanterbury Festival 0

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2 University of Kent Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction

In December of last year The London Women’s Clinic (LWC)opened its doors at a premises on St Dunstan’s. Initially, thetreatments at LWC Kent involve consultations, ultrasoundscanning, pre-treatment screening, assessment monitoring,semen analysis and insemination services. Embryologyservices including egg collection and embryo transfer continueto be carried out at ‘base’ in Harley Street followingconsultations in Canterbury.

Patients can also be referred to the London Sperm Bank, the London Egg Bank and for specialistservices such as Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis or LWC’s ‘three cycle IVF package.’

Since opening in 1985, LWC has been a leading UK centre with high IVF success rates. Expansioninto Canterbury also accompanies opening of clinics in Cambridge, Luton, Buckhurst Hill, Cardiffand Swansea. As part of the JD Healthcare group (which also includes the Bridge Centre – withwhich the University of Kent has a long standing collaboration) this centre is part of one of theUK’s leading providers of fertility and women’s health services.

Since its opening, the clinic has treated over 250 patients. Managing Director Dr Kamal Ahuja said‘the choice of location had a lot to do with our blossoming collaboration with the Centre forInterdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction at the University of Kent.’ He added ‘we look forward tocontinuing this productive collaboration with a range of exciting projects.’

New Canterbury fertility centrein collaboration with CISoR

News

Contents2 New fertility centre in

Canterbury4 Sex, lives and conspiracy5 Surrogacy reform 6 Many births of the test tube

baby8 Research10 Canterbury festival12 YouNome

University of Kent Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction 3

Tensions in abortion lawAt a Knowledge Exchange Seminar on the 16November 2016 concerning Abortion Policy andLaw. Dr Lesley Hoggart, (Open University) andProfessor Sally Sheldon presented a paper onTensions in Abortion law and policy, and effectson women. This presentation focused on thetensions between the legal and policy frameworkfor abortion, and women’s abortion experiences,throughout the UK. They reported on a mixedmethods study into different aspects of youngwomen’s experiences (aged 16-24) of one ormore unintended pregnancies ending in abortionin England and Wales.

They then drew on a recently completed study ofthe home use of abortion pills in Northern Ireland(and elsewhere), highlighting some of the ways inwhich the current law fails either to preventabortion or to protect women’s health. At a timewhen it is possible to end a pregnancy using pillsthat are readily available on line, the studyassessed some of the challenges for effectiveregulation and posed some fundamentalquestions regarding the need for legal reform.Some of the results of Sally’s study appear in themost recent issue of Reproductive Health Matters(www.rhm-elsevier.com/article/S0968-8080(16)30034-9/fulltext)’

Objectification of womenRachel Calogero (along with James Tyler andCatherine Adams from the US) recentlypublished an article in the British Journal ofSocial Psychology on the objectification ofwomen. They reported that women are sexuallyobjectified when viewed and treated by othersas mere objects. Previous research hasexamined the negative consequences of beingthe target of sexual objectification; however,limited attention has focused on the persondoing the objectification. The focus of this studywas thus is on the agent and how self-regulatoryresources influence sexual objectification.Consistent with past evidence, they reasonedthat people have a well-learned automaticresponse to objectify sexualized women, and assuch, they expected objectifying a sexualized(vs. personalized) woman would deplete fewerregulatory resources than not objectifying her.Findings across three studies confirmed theirexpectations, demonstrating the extent to whichpeople objectify a sexualized woman or not isinfluenced by the availability of regulatoryresources, a case that until now has been absentfrom the literature.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12157/abstract

‘Three parent’ babies andbinge drinkingDarren Griffin commented on a story on the first‘three parent baby’ born. He said: ‘This studyheralds a new era in preimplantation geneticsand represents a novel means for the treatmentof families at risk of transmitting genetic disease.

‘With radical new treatments like this there arealways challenging ethical issues, however, anyconcerns need to be balanced against theramifications of not implementing such atechnology when families are in need of it. Thediseases to which this treatment is relevant aredevastating and thus this treatment brings newhope to many families.’

Remarking on a recent study about drinkingduring pregnancy Darren, said: ‘Theoverwhelming message of this study is steadyas she goes. If you do drink while trying to havechildren, do it in moderation and don’t bingedrink.’

Teenage pregnancy fallingEllie Lee commented on a recent story reportedon the BBC news web site on the reduction inproportion of teenage mothers in the UK. Elliesaid ‘Teenage births were already at historicallylow levels, and the trajectory before the TeenagePregnancy Strategy was already in a downwardsdirection,’ She added that the strategy ‘shouldbe much more controversial than it is’, she said,because ‘there was a push, through the strategy,of long-term contraceptives such as implantsand injections. It was presented as improving thesexual and reproductive health of children but ateen needs to be able to have a choice-baseddiscussion about what’s right for her. There arestill negative attitudes towards teenage mothersand it is unwarranted. It is seen as a disaster, butthere is no reason to suggest that they are anyworse than any other mother.’

Finest British pigs set togo to India to develop itsburgeoning pig sectorA high-level delegation from the Punjabgovernment has paid a visit to the Universityof Kent to assess British pig production andgenetics as the Indian state intends todevelop its burgeoning pig sector.

The visit was organized by the British PigAssociation in conjunction withTheAgriculture and Horticulture DevelopmentBoard (AHDB) and included trips to pigbreeding firms, a feed mill, an abattoir andAHDB Pork, where they were givenpresentations on the economics of the UKpork sector as well as pig health andwelfare. At Kent, the visitors were hosted byProfessor Griffin and JSR Genetics to lookat research into pig breeding, includingembryo transplantation.

AHDB Pork senior export managerJonathan Eckley said: ‘They are seeking ourpig genetics and management systems asthey want to improve productivity, welfareand product quality. Punjab has been takingthe lead in the modernisation of Indianagriculture and already produces 76,000tonnes of pork on a yearly basis.

‘We also spent some time discussing thedifferent production methods used in theUK and how these could be applied inPunjab. It was a very successful visit. Thedelegation went away with a huge amountof information which they will need toevaluate to determine which systems andpractices best suit the conditions in India.Of course, all the pig breeding stock in Indiais of British origin.’

Egg ‘nobbles’Darren Griffin was quoted in a recent story“Egg ‘nobbles’ can be used to createembryos, say scientists in fertilitybreakthrough.” ‘The authors have pulled offan impressive technical feat of gettingpreimplantation embryos from polar bodiesrather than oocytes’ he said. ‘Thecommunity will watch with interest how thework progresses. However, the current lowsuccess rate of generating embryos frompolar bodies compared to the usual wayusing oocytes potentially could indicateunderlying problems with the approach.’

On 26 February 2016, and drawing on researchcarried out as part of the ‘Uses and Abuses ofBiology’ programme, Ellie spoke about the rise of‘neuroparenting’ and discuss how Government‘early intervention’ policies based on dubiousclaims about neuroscience both undermine theautonomy of the family and tarnish science’.


Events

Café Scientifique: should the state define what makesa good parent?

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Inaugural lecture doubleact in the Douglas-SuttonhouseholdOn 22 January 2016 our very own KarenDouglas and Robbie Sutton (bothProfessors of Social Psychology) gave theirinaugural lectures. Being partners in bothacademia and in life Robbie and Karenentertained a packed KLT1 lecture theatrewith essentially a double act punctuated by a‘modest’ amount of drinking and good cheer.

Karen kicked off proceedings with her workon the psychology of conspiracy theories.Highlighting the area in general and itsimportance to society, she pointed out thekey contributions of her work includingresearch on the psychological processesassociated with conspiracy belief, and theconsequences of conspiracy theories forpeople’s political, health, andenvironmental decisions.

After a short refreshment break, Robbie’stalk addressed why we don’t live in a post-sexist age. Robbie explored some theultimate and timeless sources of sexism,such as women’s relatively scarcereproductive capacity (they can’t have asmany children as men). He then presentedhis studies on how benevolent sexism – thepopular and apparently benign belief thatwomen are morally superior – paradoxicallyrestricts women’s autonomy and worsenstheir disadvantage.

In the Q&A, in true reciprocal style, Karenwas asked whether sexism came intoconspiracy theories at all and Robbiewhether conspiracy theories impacted onattitudes to sexism.

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Whilst funders are increasingly pushing forinterdisciplinary research, actually making ithappen is a tough challenge. At the Universityof Kent we were established to break down thebarriers between disciplines – to be ‘acommunity where different disciplines mix up,’to quote the first Vice Chancellor, GeoffreyTempleman. I’ve written in the past about thedifficulty of reaching ‘beyond the safety of thesilo’, and what we’ve done to try and help theprocess, such as through sandpits.

Ultimately though it is up to the academics toreach across the disciplinary boundaries, to lookat what others are doing, and to recognise theways in which their work can inform, broaden anddeepen your own and vice versa. I’ve followedvery closely how Professor Darren Griffin(Biosciences) and Professor Sally Sheldon (KLS)have established the CISoR and recently went, forthe first time, to one of their events. Entitled ‘Sex,Lives and Conspiracy,’ it brought togethercolleagues from across the University, and wasan opportunity to learn about a very diverserange of research going on in all three faculties.

I came to the event late: I was showing visitorsfrom the British Academy around the campus,and thought that they would be interested ineavesdropping on this conversation. And how:you could see their eyes light up at fizzing,crackling mix of papers that were presented,from the creative clash of Dorothy Lehaneworking with colleagues in biomedical scienceand crafting poetic responses to their life andwork, to the psychological determinants ofconspiracy theorists, to the ‘biography’ of the1967 Abortion Act.

Altogether there were eleven speakers, andbetween them they represented a huge variety ofresearch. Interestingly, for a centre led by

a Professor of Genetics, there was less ‘hardscience’, and more explorations of the effects thatsuch science had had on society and culture.Thus, for instance, Jan Macvarish exploredquestions of evidence and trust in the fertilitysector, and the implications for concepts of‘informed consent.’ Becki Gould, who works inthe London Women’s Clinic, relayed stories ofpatients who were undergoing a revolutionarynew IVF technique. Extending an exploratorythread further, David Ayers, from the School ofEnglish, gave a fascinating insight into the waythat intimacy and birth control were representedin the novels and newspapers of the first half ofthe twentieth century.

On the face of it, there was little binding thesethreads together, and it would be a tough quiznight question that tried to link Shakespeare andgrammar schools, impact bias and behaviouralgenetics. However, I was impressed by therecurring issues. and the ways in which they(reproduction, conspiracy and so forth) weredealt with by different academic disciplines.

There was an opportunity to explore these furtherin the coffee break, and in the drinks receptionthat followed. And that, ultimately, was key to thesuccess of the day: it got people talking,informally, animatedly, about the common threadsthat weaved through the diverse researchlandscape. Often it is at the edge of disciplineswhere the discoveries happen, in the hinterlandwhere perspectives change and the unexpectedis more likely to be encountered; where nothing istaken for granted. Darren suggested that furtherworkshops and symposia might use some ofthese themes, some of these threads, to explorethe common landscape further. In so doing he isreturning the University to its interdisciplinaryroots, and through these ensuring its futuredevelopment, strength and success.

Sex, lives and conspiracyA commentary on the latest CISoR cross-disciplinary event held on 19 October2016 by Phil Ward, Deputy Director of Research Services

Since the law on surrogacy was created, we havealso witnessed astonishing amounts of socialchange, not only in terms of who we consider tobe ‘families’ or ‘parents’, but also in wider socialacceptance of difference. In addition, the internetexplosion has made surrogacy an internationalbusiness, often raising both ethical and practicalconcerns when overseas arrangements areentered into from the UK.

This one-day event was designed to test andchallenge the assumptions that underpin theexisting UK law on surrogacy, showing how andwhy it has become out of date, in a variety ofdifferent contexts, and how it fails to protect theinterests of children and families created viasurrogacy. It drew upon and discussed thefindings in the November 2015 report of theSurrogacy UK Working Group on SurrogacyLaw Reform, along with reflections from a rangeof other commentators including ProfessorMargot Brazier and Baroness Mary Warnock,who each chaired government inquiries intosurrogacy, publishing their reports in 1998 and1984, respectively.

Kirsty Horsey was a speaker at this conference,which was motivated by the fact that 30 year oldsurrogacy laws in the UK are looking increasinglyout of date. Within the same timeframe, assistedreproductive technologies (ARTs) havesignificantly developed, and their place inmodern society has become firmly established,both in terms of family creation and with regard tothe extended medical research opportunitiesthey provide. Surrogacy is a form of assistedreproduction, whether an arrangement requiresthe use of IVF, the storage of gametes of one ormore parties outside of the body in a licensedsetting, the use of donated gametes, or none ofthese. It is a legitimate form of family creation forthose who have no other option to have their ownchild, and who exercise the choice not to adopt.

The law relating to ARTs was overhauled in 2008,but little changed in relation to surrogacy otherthan small and necessary extensions of thecategories of people to whom a ‘parental order’might be available. No consideration was givento the fundamental assumptions that underpinthe entirety of the regulation of surrogacy.


1 Professors Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton2 Dr Ellie Lee3 Surrogacy Law Reform project4 Professor Karen Douglas – a pub sceptic

Surrogacy law reform conference, 6 May 2016Surrogacy in the 21st century: rethinking assumptions, reforming law

3Skeptics in the pub –the psychology ofconspiracy theoriesMost of us are pretty good at being scepticalin the pub, but Professor Karen Douglas ismaking an art form out of it. Speaking in CafeScientifiques and and in the ‘Skeptics in thePub’ series on ‘Secrets and lies: thepsychology of conspiracy theories’, Karen hasspoken in Edinburgh, Canterbury and Bristol.She’s also put in an an appearance at theGlasgow Film Festival.

... or has she ???

Policing pregnancyEllie Lee, Robbie Sutton, Rachel Calogero andJan MacVarish took prominent roles in a one-day conference on maternal autonomy, risk andresponsibility organised by the BritishPregnancy Advisory Service, Birthrights andthe Centre for Parenting Culture Studies. Itexplored the tensions that exist between effortsto promote awareness of risk to pregnantwomen and the often unconsidered problemsof this approach, including the formalised andinformal policing of pregnancy that results. Thetopic of alcohol use in pregnancy forms thestarting point and the conference welcomedLynn Paltrow of the US National Advocates forPregnant Women to open the event withperspectives from the US, were then exploredin a European context. Afternoon sessionsconsidered topics where trends seemapparent and considered how developmentscontest the principle of autonomy. A roundtablesession discussed how food intake hasbecome a locus for policy-making throughelevated concerns about overweight andobesity, and the conference ended with adiscussion about the ways in which women’sbirth choices and experiences are constrained.The conference was of interest to practitioners,advocates, academics, policy-makers,journalists and anyone else who is concernedabout the expansion of risk thinking and itsimplications for the autonomy of women.

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Events 1 Cross city gathering at Discovery Park 2 Dr Nick Hopwood delivering his lecture

On 2nd March NickHopwood of theUniversity ofCambridge gave theHG Wells lecture on‘The many births ofthe test-tube baby’.It is generallyaccepted thatfollowing in vitrofertilization inOldham, LouiseBrown became theworld’s first ‘test-tube baby’. Her birth, thanksto 2010 Nobel prize winner Robert Edwards,Patrick Steptoe and their team, was a majorinternational news story in July 1978. Followingmuch apprehension about such ‘implants’, thepress celebrated Louise, a ‘miracle ofordinariness’, as making medical history. Thiswas, however, far from the first claim to a test-tube baby; since 1944, various researchers hadreported fertilizing human eggs to produceembryos and even infants. Nick highlighted twopoints about these reports. Some were made injournal articles, some in the general press andsome in both. And some later announcementsmaintained far less than some early ones, a signthat standards changed. In 1969, for example,when Edwards et al. reported ‘early stages offertilization’, not all specialists accepted even

this, while others dismissed it as old hat. Rather than taking us through a litany of claimand counter-claim Nick gave us a deep insightinto the manner, means and enthusiasm withwhich the claims were made and, equally themanner, means and vitriol with which opponentsand colleagues assessed and contested them.

Nick’s analysis focused on changes, on the onehand, in standards of evidence, and on the other,in norms of communication, especially the waysthat scientists used not only learned journals andtextbooks, but also newspapers and television.The most striking example was the birth ofBrown herself, of which for many months theDaily Mail provided the fullest account.

For nearly 2 hours of talk and discussion, Nickintrigued a 50-strong audience with freshperspectives on this, the founding achievementof reproductive biomedicine. He helped us graspwhy some of the claims were more credible thanothers and why, after a far from certain beginning,and a good deal of controversy, the world agreedthat Louise was ‘the one’. Nick ended with thepoint that, for impactful discoveries such as IVF,journal articles, however desirable, may beneither sufficient nor necessary successfully tostake medical and scientific claims. The Centresfor the History of the Sciences (CHotS) and forInterdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction (CISoR)are incredibly grateful for Nick for his time andenthusiasm and hope to work together with himfurther in the future.

Many births of the test tube baby

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Cross-city collaboration inanimal reproduction

Academics from The Universities of Kent,Nottingham and Christ Church Universitytogether with industrial leaders held a mini-symposium on the topic of agriculturalanimal reproduction on Friday 15 April, atDiscovery Park in Sandwich.

It was the first event hosted by theCanterbury Christ Church University sincethe launch of its Life Sciences IndustryLiaison Lab at the business park in March.University scientists joined together withindustrialists from Illumina, JSR Genetics,Topigs Norsvin and IVF Biosciences toexplore the importance of collaborativeresearch as part of ongoing CISoRinitiatives in non-human reproduction.Three BBSRC grant applications havearisen from the collaboration.

‘How can a state controlswallowing?’ Medicalabortion and the lawThe Medical Society of London,23 March 2016, 12.45-17.15

Professor Sally Sheldon (Kent Law Schooland Deputy Director, CISoR) launched thefindings of her AHRC-funded research intothe legal implications of abortion pills at thisevent, where she was joined by a panel ofspeakers with expertise in relevant law,medicine and policy.

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Research 1 Global reduction in fertility according to the UNpopulation division

2 Jan Macvarish

Economic and SocialResearch Council awardfor conspiracy theoryresearchKaren Douglas and Co-investigator RobbieSutton have been awarded over £56,000from the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil to ask ‘Why do people adoptconspiracy theories, how are theycommunicated, and what are their risks?’

In their multi-disciplinary work, they willexplore perspectives from psychology,information engineering, political science,and sociology. Co-investigators alsoinclude Aleksandra Cichocka, Jim Angand Farzin Deravi

Informed consent and ARTCISoR members, Sally Sheldon (KLS),Darren Griffin (Biosciences), Ellie Lee andJan Macvarish (SSPSSR) are undertakingexploratory research into informed consentpractices in assisted reproduction.

The Wellcome Trust has awarded Sheldona small grant (£4,242) to support a pilotstudy that will potentially laying thegroundwork for a larger project.

The work takes its starting point from thefact that infertility treatment services havesometimes been subject to accusations thatprofit has been prioritised over patientbenefit, with patients encouraged toundergo costly, unnecessary, experimentaltreatments which are unlikely to succeed.

However, there is little high quality analysisthat allows for an objective assessment ofthe merits of such claims and little researchexploring patients’ experience of informedconsent in this area. The larger project willpotentially aim to fill that gap.

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In two recent papers Oskar Burger andcolleagues are furthering our understanding offertility behaviour, how it changes, and what itmight do in the future. Both papers address thetheme of the the historical reduction in thenumber of births per woman (so called‘demographic transition’). This began in 19thCentury England and is ongoing worldwide.

In the first paper, Oskar and Daniel Hruschka ofArizona State University examine how the variationin fertility changes during a general overall decline.Many investigations have looked at changes in theaverage fertility behaviour, and have usuallyfocused on national or county-level data. Hruschkaand Burger however analyse individual-level datafrom the Demographic and Health Survey, lookingat fertility data on women from 92 low- and middle-income countries. They show that a great deal ofthe variation among individuals is due to chancerather than to measurable individual differences.This means that chance might have more to dowith fertility outcomes than characteristics suchas education or wealth.

In the second paper, Oskar and John DeLong ofthe University of Nebraska, address the pressingtopic of projecting population sizes of the future.They specifically question a commonassumption that once a population begins thefertility decline, that the process is irreversible.

This assumption is based on basic observationsof population history, but Burger and DeLongpoint out that such an assumption is suspect froman evolutionary point of view. They provide fivepropositions based on evolutionary andecological principles that suggest fertility mightincrease in the future. The five propositions arebased on the following: 1) genetic changeoccurring from natural selection; 2) the difficultyof maintaining cultural norms that are at oddswith evolutionary pressure, especially across anuncertain and complex future; 3) the adjustmentsof institutions that lower the costs of childbearing;4) the influence of wealth inequality on bothculture and the distribution of energy; and 5) theproblem of meeting the escalating demands of agrowing modernized and affluent population.

Global reduction in fertility – what’s going on?

Mothers who have postnatal depression areunlikely to have more than two childrenaccording to research carried out by Kentevolutionary anthropologists.

Until now very little has been known about howwomen’s future fertility is impacted by theexperience of postnatal depression.

A research team from Kent’s School ofAnthropology and Conservation collected data onthe complete reproductive histories of over 300women to measure the effect postnataldepression had on their decision to have morechildren. The mothers were all born in the early tomid-20th century and the majority were based inindustrialised countries while raising their children.

The team concluded that postnatal depression,particularly when the first child is born, leads tolowered fertility levels. Experiencing higherlevels of emotional distress in her first postnatalperiod decreased a woman’s likelihood ofhaving a third child, though did not affectwhether she had a second.

Furthermore, postnatal depression after both thefirst and the second child dissuaded womenfrom having a third child to the same extent as ifthey had experienced major birth complications.The research by Sarah Myers, Dr Oskar Burgerand Dr Sarah Johns is the first research tohighlight the potential role postnatal depressionhas on population ageing, where the median ageof a country becomes older over time. Thisdemographic change is mostly caused bywomen having fewer children, and can havesignificant social and economic consequences.Given that postnatal depression has a prevalencerate of around 13% in industrialised countries,with emotional distress occurring in up to 63% ofmothers with infants, this research suggests thatinvesting in screening and preventative measuresto ensure good maternal mental health now mayreduce costs and problems associated with anaging population at a later stage.

http://m.emph.oxfordjournals.org/content/2016/1/71.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=4gMcpViL2LJypJb?view=full.pdf&uritype=cgi&ijkey=4gMcpViL2LJypJb&keytype=ref

Postnatally depressed mothers reluctant to have more children

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Professor of Law, Sally Sheldon has beenawarded more than £0.5m to conduct a uniquetwo-year biographical study of the Abortion Act.

The grant of £512,000 has been awarded by theArts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) toProfessor Sheldon for a research project called‘The Abortion Act (1967): a Biography’. Theproject will begin in May 2016 and its findings willbe launched at the Houses of Parliament on 27April 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the AbortionAct coming into force.

Professor Sheldon said: ‘This project offers ahistorical study and biography of the AbortionAct, taking seriously the idea of ‘living law’: lawexists only in its interpretation and while the textof the Abortion Act has changed little since1967, its interpretation has evolved significantly.’

The project will draw on extensive archivalresearch (some of which has only recently comeinto the public domain), around 20 interviewswith people who have extensive experience ofworking with the Act, and library research.

The project has two methodologically innovativefeatures; the application of biographicalmethodologies to the study of statute; and theapplication of comparative methodologies to thestudy of the same law as interpreted within thecountries that make up the UK.

Professor Sheldon will be working with Dr GayleDavis (Co-Investigator), a senior lecturer in theSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology atEdinburgh. The team also includes twopostdoctoral researchers; Jane O’Neill, who iscurrently finishing a PhD at Edinburgh and thesecond, yet to be appointed, will be based atKent (apply online by 7 February 2016).

Intended project outcomes include a book; arange of academic articles in law, history,sociology and gender studies journals; a seriesof shorter papers for practitioner journals; atleast nine conference papers; teaching packs forschools; and active dissemination of researchvia the media and social networking sites.

A project website will be a key reference pointwhich will provide copies of all publications,further reading, links to further resources, anda special section with resources for schools.The website will also host an engaging onlineexhibition, accessible to a wide audience andbringing together key findings, extracts from theoral histories and key documents from thearchives.

Professor Sheldon said:‘The Act has clearlylived throughinteresting times and,in line with the bestbiographies, thisaccount of its life willaim also to offer awindow into the seismicbroader changes thathave occurred since1967. In this sense, thestory of the AbortionAct is also the story of evolving ideas of genderand family; the development of the NHS;changes to abortion technologies and the ethicalvalues that inform modern medicine; shiftingdemographics, including in the religious andethnic make-up of the UK; and the ongoingnegotiation of the UK constitutional settlement.

‘My hope is that the project will offer a far moredetailed understanding of the operation of theAbortion Act in historical and geographicalcontexts. We also hope that a close study of theAbortion Act can offer a window into the times inwhich it ‘lived’. And I would hope also to showthat the use of biographical methodologies canoffer something of value to other legal scholars,who work in very different areas of law and,likewise, that one can usefully apply comparativemethodologies for studying how the same pieceof law operates across borders within the UK.’

Professor Sheldon teaches Health Care Lawand Ethics to undergraduate and postgraduatestudents at Kent Law School. She is a leadingexpert and commentator on the regulation ofabortion in the UK and contributed to adiscussion about the decriminalisation ofabortion at the House of Commons in October2014. She is Deputy Director of Kent’s Centrefor Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction(CISoR).

Professor Sheldon has published widely in thearea of health care ethics and law with booksincluding Beyond Control: Medical Power andAbortion Law, a co-edited collection of essayson Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Lawand a socio-legal study of fatherhood calledFragmenting Fatherhood, co-authored withRichard Collier of Newcastle Law School. Hercurrent research, which centres on the legalimplications of abortion pills, is supported byan AHRC fellowship.

Professor Sally Sheldon awarded £0.5m forbiographical study of the Abortion Act

Research

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StudentsAward winning talk: Postnataldepression – weighing theevolutionary evidence’Sarah Myers won the best studentpresentation at European Human Behaviourand Evolution Association (EHBEA)Conference held at LSHTM in early April.Sarah gave an excellent andgroundbreaking presentation titled‘Postnatal depression – weighing theevolutionary evidence’. She is supervisedby Dr Sarah Johns and was recentlyawarded her PhD.

Myers, S; Burger, O & Johns, S E (2016).Postnatal depression and reproductivesuccess in modern, low-fertility contexts.Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 1,71-84.

Prizes for AnnaRecent MSc in Reproductive Medicinegraduate Anna Vassiliou won the ‘bestposter’ prize in the Health ServicesLaboratories (HSL) annual research andinnovations symposium in November thisyear. The event is held to showcase theadvances made throughout all disciplinesover the past 12 months, whilst alsohighlighting where the company can moveforward in the future. Speakers included DrAlexi Baidoshvili of LabPON based in theNetherlands, Professor MartinWidschwendter, Head of the Department ofWomen’s Cancer at UCL and Dr SherylHoma, consultant clinical lead for Andrologyat The Doctors Laboratory and honorarySenior Lecturer at the University of Kent.

Throughout the day, the poster competitionwas held at the venue, allowing staff,researchers and scientists at HSL and itspartners to present their work. Anna won theprize along with Catherine Martin with theirposter titled ‘Validation of a test measuringoxidation-reduction potential to determineoxidative stress in human semen’.

Competition judge Wendy Leversuch said‘Anna and Catherine’s work was chosendue to a clear and well-presented posteddemonstrating innovative research in thefield of Andrology resulting in a positiveimpact to the laboratory and patient.’

It was a good week for Anna as she alsowon the course prize for her MSc on the daythat she graduated.


1 Professor Sally Sheldon2 From left to right, Dr Christian Ottolini (Company

Supervisor and recent PhD graduate of ProfessorGriffin’s lab); Dr Kamal Ahuja (Scientific andManaging Director of LWC); Dr Becki Gould (KTPAssociate); Professor Darren Griffin; Eddie Kuan(Special Projects Manager at LWC); Clare Witcher(Knowledge Transfer Officer, University of Kent).

You’re mid-sentence when your companionwhips out their smart phone and starts tappingaway. Your words hang in the air as your frienddisappears into the digital world. You feelinvisible. You have been ‘phubbed’.

Etiquette would dictate that ‘phubbing’ snubbingsomeone while you concentrate on your phone isincredibly rude. But with the rise of the smartphone, ‘phubbing’ has become so common thatit’s now considered normal.

Researchers at the University of Kent have beeninvestigating ‘phubbing’. They say that there arethree factors that cause people to reach for theirphone; internet addiction, fear of missing out(FOMO) and a lack of self-control.

Karen Douglas, social psychology professor andco-author of the study says that while humanshave always experienced issues around self-control, smart-phone use has exacerbated it.

‘Being constantly connected via smartphonesand the internet generally means that informationis available to people all the time, so there is moreto know and potentially more to miss out on thanbefore these technologies existed,’ she says.

Another factor that has caused ‘phubbing’ tobecome normal is that when we are ‘phubbed’we are more likely to go on and ‘phub’ someoneelse. We go from ‘phubee’ to ‘phubber’.

In other words, we are caught in a vicious cycleof ‘phubbing’ behaviour. And the more we seepeople whipping out their phones in socialsituations the more we accept it.

Karen notes that while smart phone addiction isthe most proximal explanation for ‘phubbing’ itsconstant reinforcement is a huge problem.

“People ‘phub’, are ‘phubbed’, then ‘phub’ evenmore. So a behaviour that is potentiallydetrimental to human communication hasbecome self-perpetuating,” she says.

There is, however, a backlash to the anti-socialtrend.

‘Anti-phubbers’ can download posters, stage‘phubbing’ interventions or name and shame a‘phubber’ via the website stopphubbing.com,started by 23-year-old Australian graduatestudent Alex Haigh in 2013.

Psychologist Jocelyn Brewer says we need todevelop ‘nettiquette’ in our peer and friendshipgroups.

‘We really need to work on developing emotionalintelligence and soft skills, rather than expectingsoftware to do the work for us.’

Taken from the Sydney Morning Herald (10/06/16)

Chotpitayasunondh, V, & Douglas, K M (inpress). How ‘phubbing’ becomes the norm: Theantecedents and consequences of snubbing viasmartphone. Computers in Human Behavior.

Phubbing’ now considered normal behaviour

A recently awarded Knowledge TransferPartnership (KTP) project is already deliveringexciting results. The 30 month project recentlyestablished between Professor of Genetics,Darren Griffin, at the School of Biosciences andthe London Women’s Clinic (LWC) will enable theClinic to screen for couples at risk of transmittingchromosome abnormalities in human embryos.Professor Griffin and Professor Alan Handysideat The Bridge Centre, now part of LWC, jointlydeveloped a universal means of detecting anygenetic disease in an IVF embryo in 2010. Theprocess was called ‘Karyomapping’ and will formpart of the project.

LWC is one of the leading centres for infertilitytreatment and women’s health services in Britain.The clinic is based in Harley Street, London andhas a number of satellite clinics around thecountry including one recently opened inCanterbury in December 2015.

The Associate, Dr Becki Gould, a recent PhDgraduate of Professor Griffin’s lab is responsiblefor delivering the KTP project on a day-to-daybasis. She will take on the temporary role of anandrologist at the Canterbury clinic providingvaluable new knowledge to the team.

She will also be Patient Coordinator for the new‘One by One Plus’ programme that aims toreduce the cost of IVF while improving itssuccess rate through genetic screening. Muchof the groundwork has already been done, inpart through Becki’s efforts, and LWCannounced the launch of the programme at ameeting in London last week.

Knowledge transferred through this project willenable the highest quality of genetic diagnosisand screening and Becki is looking forward toplaying an integral role in the Clinic under theguidance and support of Professors Griffin,Handyside and the LWC team.

From bench to bedside in reproductive genetics

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CISoR at the Canterbury Festival

More responsible parenthood was on offer inChildbirth as an Athletic Feat (1939) whichadvised women on how to prepare for labourwith a series of exercises demonstrated by aninfuriatingly elegant ballerina, notwithstandingher advanced stage of pregnancy. Thisregimented (though well intentioned) vision ofhuman reproduction was contrasted by the finalfilm of the evening, Stan Brakhage’s WindowWater Baby Moving (1959) chronicling the labourof his then-wife, Jane Wodening. This was theleast ‘scientific’ film we saw; it aspired to benothing but art. The camera lingered overWodening’s body made strange by pregnancy,and the unflinching shots of her pelvic area asthe baby emerges are challenging for some towatch without squeamishness. Towards the endof the film, we realise that some of thecamerawork has been done by Wodeningherself; a powerful feminist gesture. Her bodywas at once as automatic as the twirling,geotropic peas, and as human as a painting byCaravaggio. A true meeting of science and art.

The whole event was enhanced by the wonderfulimprovisations of the ensemble Bog Bodies.Rather than accompanying the films, like apianist in a Chaplin film, they created a parallelwork of art that was a meditation on the scienceand the humanity that was on show.

Here is a list of what we watched, and where youcan find it online:

Gestation of the Ovum (Friedrich Kopsch,Germany, 1924), 9 min. SILENT.www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxFFX3h_SNQ

Peas and Cues (Mary Field, 1930), 9 min.SOUND.www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7za10Kd1IQ

Childbirth as an Athletic Feat (Kathleen Vaughan,UK, 1939), 8 min. SILENT.www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wRBWDxReY

The Private Life of a Cat (Alexander Hammid,US, 1944), 22 min. SILENT.www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmYYzcMIozY

Growing Girls (Winifred Holmes, UK, 1949), 12min. SOUND.www.youtube.com/watch?v=97cYt0b02oI

Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Brakhage, US,1959), 12 min. SILENT.www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNhjD1Z0jSo

CHOTS (Centre for the History of the Sciences)and CISoR joined forces in October to put on theCanterbury Festival’s only 18-rated event. Theevent was curated by Filippo Guizetti, one of ourScience Communication masters students, whoinvited Dr Jesse Olszynko-Gryn from theUniversity of Cambridge to show some of themedical films he has been studying as part ofhis research project Gestation to Reproduction.

What we saw was both visually and scientificallyextraordinary.

Movie-makers began experimenting with specialeffects as soon as cameras were invented, andone result of this was the pioneering use of stop-motion to capture biological-time events. Webegan with a 1924 down-the-microscope film ofa developing axolotl, from single cell to earlyembryo. Amphibians were a popular choice forearly developmental biology, and this film,Gestation of the Ovum, was at the cutting edgeof research as well as of visualisation likelyshown only to university students. In a nice visualcontinuity (as Geraldine Travers astutely pointedout), the film finished with a bean-shapedembryo the exact same shape as the seedwhose growth formed the topic of the nextspeeded-motion epic, Peas and Cues (1930).This film was for popular consumption, part ofthe first wave of natural history film making. In it,the swirling, curling plants grew like Jugendstilillustrations; they flowered, fruited and died andin a Groundhog Daymoment, began again.

The same theme, namely the endless cycle oflife and death, framed a 1944 film about the lifeof cats. Presenting possibly the first everLOLcats, this film, made in a New Yorkapartment, featured intimate footage, lovingly cutto create a warm and anthropomorphic narrativeabout feline parenthood. Reproduction beganwith a lascivious lick shared between ‘he’ and‘she’ and no sooner were the kittens scramblingabout the floor, than it began again.

Reproduction on filmA really clean sex showAs part of the Canterbury Festival the self-styled ‘Dr D’n’A’ (in reality Professors DarrenGriffin and Alan Thornhill of Biosciences)took to the stage.

The two pioneers in the field of IVF andgenetics led an interactive whistle-stop tourof the early stages of human development,and discussed some recent developmentsin reproductive technologies. The showinvolved a ‘mocked up’ IVF lab some ‘real’patients, balloons and a very large syringe!

The show was based on the fact that 1 in 50people in the UK don’t have children the‘normal’ way. The advent of in vitrofertilisation (IVF) in 1978 led to hundreds ofthousands of births worldwide – but also adeeper understanding of the appearance,process and genetics of the ball of cells thateventually develops into the human body.The presentation was supported by theLondon Women’s Clinic and explored someof the innovations, stories and perceptionsthat IVF has given the world.

Doctors, conscience,abortion law and practiceSally Sheldon and Ellie Lee are hosting aone-day workshop at the University of Kent,as a collaboration between the Centre forthe Interdisciplinary Study of Reproduction(CISoR), the Centre for Parenting CultureStudies (CPCS) and the British PregnancyAdvisory Service.

This event is one of a number taking placeduring 2017, the year of the 50thAnniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act. Theprogramme takes ‘conscience’ as its coretheme. Part of the discussion will considerconscientious objection; its place in abortionlegislation (in the 1967 Abortion Act, and inlegislation in other jurisdictions) and theissues raised by its invocation by doctors asthey ‘opt out’ of abortion provision.

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1 Dr D’n’A – AKA Professors Griffin and Thornhill2 Clip from Growing Girls3 Darren and Keith on the King's Mile YouNome trail

Keen-eyed Canterbury festival goers would haveseen the same face, but in a different disguise,adorning the shop windows of the King’s Mile.

The face is that of artist Keith Robinson and theproject is called ‘YouNome’ – an attempt toportray aspects of the human genome throughself-portraiture. What follows is a truncatedversion of the accompanying text written by NickBackovic of the University of Kent School ofEnglish that explains a little what the project isall about.

Everybody is identical in their secret unspokenbelief that way deep down they are different fromeveryone else [David Foster Wallace. InfiniteJest]. From a genetic point of view, it reallydepends on how deep down you want to go.What we can say is that you, reading this, arecomprised of cells – trillions of them. And storeddeep in every cell is genetic information: longstrands of DNA, joined in pairs, twisting likespiral staircases within the nucleus of each ofyour cells. These are your chromosomes, andwithin these chromosomes reside your genes.Imagine: if someone were to (theoretically ofcourse) create a new version of you fromscratch, they’d need some solid instructions onhow to do it. They’d need to take all that geneticinformation and store it with those instructions sothat we can copy it to every single nucleus-containing cell in your body. CTRL+C, CTRL+V.Repeat 37 trillion times. What they’d need is yourgenome. Your genome is many things: it is thesum total of all your genes, it makes the proteinsthat drive the chemical reactions in your bodyand the structures that keep you upright. It is theblueprint that sketches out aspects of yourappearance, your health and your behaviour; itcontains shadows of your evolutionary past.There are many things also that it is not. Yourgenome is not a script for your life, it is not a listof pre-determined events that set you on aspecific path. Like any blueprint, it is no morethan an outline. And when your genome is in theprocess of copying itself, your chromosomes doa wonderful thing – they remove their masks andreveal their true identities. They appear asserpent like structures, sort of elongated minthumbugs that an awful lot of scientists havespent their lives counting and classifying.

Chromosomes help drive our evolution and definemany of the differences between us; theydetermine our sex, help us diagnose disease,and are crucial to our reproductive success. Theyare home to our genes, and in every cell of everyhuman body you will find each gene aligned inthe same exact order on each chromosome.

When misaligned, over-represented, deleted ormutated, disease or pregnancy loss can occur.Scientists around the world have therefore beentrying to unlock the mysteries of the chromosomefor many years.

Like many ideas, YouNome started over a pint,but unlike most of those conceived in pubs, itwasn’t to be abandoned the next morning.Instead, as a result of Bioscience’s Dr GaryRobinson (Keith’s brother), Professor DarrenGriffin, Keith and a few beers, the project tookshape and grew to tell a personal version of avisual story of the human genome. How do youtake something so vast as a genome, and thensummarize it in a few portraits? The startingpoint was one portrait per chromosome, 25chapters to capture the character of eachchromosome. YouNome is therefore Darren andKeith’s personal interpretation designed toeducate, inspire, raise awareness and perhapseven generate a little controversy about thefascinating subject of genomics.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. Forman has closed himself up, till he sees all thingsthro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. [William Blakeand Geoffrey Keynes. The Marriage of Heavenand Hell]

Your genome is big and complex, portraying itsimply is an impossible task. Even the mosteminent molecular biologist will focus on theirown specific area and see the genome in anarrow way through their own eyes. To expressthis, in this gloss portrait inspired by GerhardRichter’s painted photographs, Keith’s is not oneof a parochial world-view but one of tunnelvision. A gene on chromosome 1, whenmutated, can cause a tunnel vision in the literalsense – a condition known as RetinitisPigmentosa. Though it is the first and largest ofthe human chromosomes, and one that couldhave been represented in numerous other ways,this self-image, with only eyes and nose visible.

We admit that we are like apes, but we seldomrealize that we are apes, asserts RichardDawkins, conjuring images in our minds aboutevolution. Chromosome 2 only appeared inevolution after a fusion of two smaller pairs ofchromosomes in our great ape ancestors; it isthe mark, in chromosomal terms, that identifiesus as humans. As a tribute to this, in the secondportrait, Keith is depicted as the ‘ape-man’ toacknowledge that we are, in many ways, stillindeed both ape and human. A commonmisconception among humans about geneticsis that our genes pre-determine everythingabout us before we’re even born. Our genomes are just a blueprint and constantlyinteract with our environment. Thomas Lewiswrote that DNA is not the heart’s destiny; thegenetic lottery may determine the cards in yourdeck, but experience deals the hand you canplay. Our weight, for example, is determinedpartly by the cards that our genome deals us,but also by what we eat and there are severalgenes on chromosome 3 that are involved in theprocess, this portrait reflecting the style ofFrancisco Botero. The collection continues forchromosomes 4-22, the sex determining X andY chromosomes, as well as the mitochondrialDNA in its many thousands of copiesrepresenting the ‘batteries’ of the cell.

Together these portraits comprise YouNome –a name deliberately chosen to invoke multiplemeanings (Your Genome; You, no me; You knowme) and a collection designed to help youvisualize your own genome, what it means toyou, your history, your environment, and tosociety. Looking at ourselves through the 25different lenses inspired by the chromosomeswe can learn a significant amount about boththe similarities and the differences between us.The project has also extended to personalizedYouNome portraits using face manipulationsoftware to create reasonable facsimiles ofKeith’s portraits using images of selectedindividuals. If you look in the foyer of the Senatebuilding, you’ll see that Peter and Julia Goodfellowhave been given the YouNome treatment.

The full text of Nick Backovic’s article can befound at www.kent.ac.uk/cisor/projects/content/genome.html

Twitter: #YouNome #younomeincanterburyFacebook: @younomeincanterbury

During the festival, Keith could be seen walkingup and Down the King’s Mile in the guise of oneof his characters, occasionally accompanied byDarren in the guise of ‘Chromosome 6’ AlbertEinstein (see image 3).

Continued on back page overleaf

About your genome

3

12 University of Kent School of Biosciences

YouNome

A ‘personalized genome’ in 25 self portraitsAbout your genome continued from page 11

Chromosome 4: Evolution – a bird man picturein homage to Bosch

Chromosome 5: Allergies – Victorian style handtouch photograph with red eyes and eczemaassociated with Ig genes

Chromosome 6: Intelligence in part influencedby IGF2 gene

Chromosome 7: Blue-yellow colour blindness(OPN1SW gene)

Chromosome 8: Ageing (eg the WRN gene)

Chromosome 9: Blood (eg the ABO blood groupgene)

Chromosome 10: Stress (in homage to vanGogh) – CYP17 gene

Chromosome 11: Pleasure – dopamine receptorgene D4DR

Chromosome 12: Development – baby picturein poster paint representing HOX gene cluster

Chromosome 13: Eyes – representingheterochromia iridis

Chromosome 14:Ancient Fayum style portraitrepresenting immortality

Chromosome 15:Albino (OCA2 gene)

Chromosome 16: Readhead (MC1R gene)

Chromosome 17: Unchanged to representcancer

Chromosome 18: Baldness (APCDD1 gene)

Chromosome 19: Pigment

Chromosome 20: Immunity – boy in the bubblestyle (SCID gene)

Chromosome 21: Down Syndrome

Chromosome 22: Philadelphia chromosome –Keith as Rocky!

X chromosome: Feminine

Y chromosome: Masculine

Mitochondrial DNA: LHOH gene causingoccluded vision

DPC 123015 1/17

Professor Darren Griffin (Director)Professor Sally Sheldon (Deputy Director)

Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction (CISoR)School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NJE: [email protected]

www.kent.ac.uk/cisor

The YouNome portraits by Keith Robinson (Photography by Rob Gravenor)

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