Dr Viviane Quirke

quirke v p0073270
Senior Lecturer in Modern History and History of Medicine
Oxford Brookes University
+44 (0)1865 483706
vquirke@brookes.ac.uk

Viviane Quirke has been researching and teaching at Oxford Brookes University since 2001. She had previously been a Research Associate on a Wellcome Trust Pilot Project at the Royal Institution in London. Her work has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, the European Science Foundation, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the British Council in partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others. She was educated at the University of Paris X and at Oxford University, where she completed her D.Phil. in Modern History in 2000.

Oxford Brookes University

Research

History of science, technology and medicine in Britain, France and the USA in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a special focus on the history of biomedicine, drug therapies and the pharmaceutical industry.

Her current research areas are:

  • The history of pharmaceutical R&D, focusing on the history of drug treatments for chronic diseases and the impact of drug safety regulation.
  • The history of cancer chemotherapy, from the perspective of the patients who have experienced it as well as the scientists and clinicians responsible for its development.
  • The material culture of biomedicine, from bench, to bedside, and public engagement.

Dr Quirke was a co-applicant on a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award on 'Healthcare in Public and Private' (2007-2012), and was co-investigator on a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant on 'Subjects' Narratives of Medical Research in Europe' (09568/Z/11/A). More recently she was awarded a grant from the Scientific Instrument Society for a study entitled: 'From Pharmaceutical Innovation to Public Engagement: Stephen Carter and the Micrarium in Buxton'. 

In the Media

2019

Panel member for a discussion on drug innovation, access, and stewardship at the Oxford Martin School in November 2019 in connection with the WHO’s antibiotic awareness week: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/events/antibiotics-panel/

2018

‘The Medical Sciences Video Archive’ (introductory talk for the launch of the MSVA, Oxford Brookes Special Collections, 23 January 2018; blog: http://brookes-culturalthinking.blogspot.com/2018/03/medical-science-in-archive-msva.html)