Aditya Bharadwaj

Biography

Aditya Bharadwaj joined the Graduate Institute as Research Professor of Anthropology and Sociology in January 2013. He completed doctoral research at the University of Bristol and post-doctoral fellowship at Cardiff University before joining University of Edinburgh where he taught and researched for over seven years. His research uncovers the local and global dimensions underscoring the production, utilisation and circulation of biomedicine and biotechnologies. In particular his research examines: (a) global politics of biotechnologies (b) emerging bioeconomies (c) cultural production of knowledge (d) subject formation (e) ethical and moral governance (f) transnational therapeutic mobility. In particular his academic and research interests are focused on the burgeoning rise of bioscience and biotechnologies in India. His current research covers two major contemporary developments in the domain of bioscience in India, namely: assisted reproductive technologies and human embryonic stem cells. Through this work he is examining the emerging face of India’s tryst with biotechnologies in a globalised research system. This principally entails: (a) mapping transnational connections linking patients, research laboratories and clinics (b) understanding national/local scientific contexts (c) interrogating moral and ethical debates cross culturally (d) explaining global governance and local regulation of new biotechnologies.

Research Interest

In 2013, Aditya Bharadwaj was awarded the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant for a project examining the emergence of stem cell biotechnologies in India. The project is explaining the agential and structural processes authoring unprecedented new developments in stem cell research and therapeutics in India. The research seeks to understand how stem cell biotechnologies straddle multiple interlaced domains ranging from public health, governance, ethics, markets to therapeutic application.   Biomedicine (in local/global perspective, Biotechnologies (embryonic stem cells/molecular genetics), Reproductive health and technologies (medically managed birth/new reproductive technologies), Area study (south Asia/India)