Ocak, Gülsevim | Turkey
Gülsevim Ocak is a research assistant and a master student in Science and Technology Policy Studies in Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. She completed her undergraduate education at Sociology Department in the Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Ankara University, Turkey. Then she has started her graduate studies in Socio-Economical Development and Biotechnology Department (Ms) of Biotechnology Institute, Ankara University, Turkey. Currently, she studies to find a moderate way between biotechnological processes / products and public health and rituals because it is an important question if biotechnology started to look for cures for social problems which could be solved in that society without the intervention of biotechnological techniques. In order to find that moderate way, she decided to use sociological interpretations and field studies with literature reviews.
Project at IAS-STS: Social and ethical importance of the risks of biotechnology
Social and ethical importance of the risks of biotechnology nowadays much more concerned than the past. Thus, the awarenesses, approaches and abilities of criticism about medical biotechnology products/services and their risks for human health; in other words, the attitudes of people, who are chosen from both Turkey and Austria, towards the biotechnological applications in medical area will be compared. Some tentative objectives are to obtain:
1. The consciousness of Turkish and Austrian people towards medical biotechnology,
2. And explain the social risks of medical biotechnology; for example the risks for learning the properties of the unborn babies, designing babies, using genetic tests in health insurances and workplaces against the workers, eugenics, etc.
3. The attitudes of Turkish and Austrian people towards the social risks of medical biotechnology,
4. The differences between these people’s attitudes towards different dependent variables like as the living place, socio-economical structure, etc.
The comparison of these points will lead to many studies which were not only with similar subjects but also with broader cases, from underdeveloped countries to fight for the most effective and healthy uses of biotechnology.
Selected publications
Nov 2007 (with H. Erbaş). “Socio-Economical Differences and an Overview of Genetic Testing of Reproductive Biotechnology: a Comparison of Two Different District”, ‘6th Ankara Biotechnology Days: Biotechnology, Bio-safety and Socio-Economic Approaches’ organized by Ankara University Biotechnology Institute, Ankara, Turkey.
May 2009 “The Risk and Ethical Problems of Applying Genetic Tests in Underdeveloped Countries”, 8th Annual IAS-STS conference 2009 ‘Critical Issues in Science and Technology Studies’, 4th - 5th May 2009, Graz, Austria.