This research project focuses on the social contexts, implications and effects of „expanded carrier screening“ (ECS), a genetic technology which emerged in recent years. ECS aims at providing couples who wish to have children with information, ideally prior to a pregnancy, about whether both of them carry the genetic variant for the same recessively inheritable and usually rare condition, which means that both of them are „carriers“. In this case each child of the couple would have a 25 percent chance of inheriting the disease-related variant from both parents, whereas the carriers themselves are asymptomatic and not at risk of being affected by the condition. Given the fact that almost all humans are believed to be carriers of at least one recessive genetic variant, the whole population becomes the target group of ECS.
 
ECS has been developed by commercial laboratories and, since 2009, offered directly to consumers via the internet. The project analyses how the emerging biosocial category of „carriers“ is shaped by ascribing specific risks, responsibilities and agency to them in commercial marketing as well as in medical and bioethical discourse. In addition, we are investigating to what extent such framings are adopted, modified or rejected in self-interpretations of individuals or couples. Based on the preliminary project findings, there is evidence that the fact of being a putative carrier is rarely understood in terms of an identity but rather linked to taking on highly gendered and subjectifying responsibilities which are held to result from carrier status. However, the aim of testing individuals or couples who are asymptomatic and do not have a family history of genetic disease even prior to pregnancy to date appears to meet a lack of interest among the target group. Therefore, strategies of „successfully“ motivating the target group are crucial both for the uptake of ECS and its social effects.
 
Given this background, two recent developments which could be both substantially transform the current market-based features of ECS are of particular interest in the final research phase (2019-2020): Both the international debates on „responsible“ and „successful implementation“ of ECS in public health services, which started around 2015, and the simultaneous tendencies and efforts to combine carrier screening with other reproductive or genetic technologies (such as newborn screening or genome sequencing), are likely to produce novel forms of targeted communication, responsibilisation and gender asymmetries. Analysing these developments will also provide important insights for discussions on the implementation of ECS which may develop in the near future in Germany and elsewhere.