Mette Nordahl Svendsen, new member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

The Academy functions as a collaborative body and meeting place for researchers, organizing member meetings, symposia, lectures, and publishing publications. Members also work on research and climate policy, public service, education, and science communication.

Mette has a background in anthropology with a specialization in medical anthropology and science studies. She researches the ethical, social, and organizational dimensions of new medical technology and science. How are boundaries drawn between species when pigs become 'almost human' in experimental research? How is the value of life established in concrete clinical practices when some terminal cancer patients are selected for personalized medicine, while others – due to their genetic profile – do not get the opportunity? How should we store, use, and reuse genetic data, which both contains a truth about the individual's body and life and simultaneously constitutes a collective data resource in a transnational data economy? These questions are central to her research. Mette leads the research group MeInWe, which investigates ethical questions within personalized medicine. Recently, Mette has started a project on the ethical and practical challenges of gene editing in plants, exploring how gene editing not only shapes the plant's DNA but also our ways of understanding and intervening in our relationships with nature.

What do you expect from your membership in the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters?
“I look forward to learning more about other sciences and participating in discussions about the relationship between science and society. I am interested in how different forms of knowledge can engage in dialogue with each other in ways that help expand the horizons for all involved. And I am interested in how we in the sciences can create creative spaces by starting from the premise that ideas arise in and belong to research collectives rather than individuals.”