Ilana Löwy

Senior researcher emerita at INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Scientifique), Paris. Trained as a biologist, with a Ph.D. in immunology then became a historian of science and medicine. Her main research interests include relationship between laboratory sciences, clinical medicine, and public health; the history of bacteriology and immunology, tropical medicine, history of oncology, and the intersection between gender studies and biomedicine in areas such as female cancers, contraception, the medicalization of pregnancy, the history of birth defects and prenatal diagnosis, and more recently the Zika epidemics. Her most recent books include: Imperfect Pregnancies: A History of Birth Defects and Prenatal Diagnosis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017) and Tangled Diagnoses: Women, Prenatal Testing and Risk (Chicago University Press, 2018).