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Underutilization of Specimens in Biobanks

December 20, 2016

After the Revolution? Ethical and Social Challenges in ‘Personalized Genomic Medicine’

December 20, 2016
Personalized genomic medicine (PGM) is a goal that currently unites a wide array of biomedical initiatives, and is promoted as a ‘new paradigm for healthcare’by its champions. Its promissory virtues include individualized diagnosis and risk prediction, more effective prevention and health promotion, and patient empowerment. Beyond overcoming scientific and technological...

Research Priorities. ELSI 2.0 for Genomics and Society

December 20, 2016
Anticipating and addressing the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of scientific developments has been a key feature of the genomic research agenda (1–4). Research in genomics is advancing by developing common infrastructures and research platforms, open-access and sharing policies, and new forms of international collaborations (5–12). In this paper,...

IRB Perspectives on the Return of Individual Results From Genomic Research

December 20, 2016
Return of individual research results from genomic studies is a hotly debated ethical issue in genomic research. However, the perspective of key stakeholders—institutional review board (IRB) professionals—has been missing from this dialogue. This study explores the positions and experiences of IRB members and staff regarding this issue. In-depth interviews with...

Personalized Genomic Medicine and the Rhetoric of Empowerment

December 20, 2016
A decade after the completion of the Human Genome Project, the widespread appeal of personalized genomic medicine’s vision and potential virtues for health care remains compelling. Advocates argue that our current medical regime “is in crisis as it is expensive, reactive, inefficient, and focused largely on one size fits all...

What Research Ethics Should Learn From Genomics and Society Research

December 20, 2016
Research on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of human genomics has devoted significant attention to the research ethics issues that arise from genomic science as it moves through the translational process. Given the prominence of these issues in today’s debates over the state of research ethics overall, these...

Ethical and Legal Issues in Enhancement Research on Human Subjects

December 20, 2016
The United States, along with other nations and international organizations, has developed an elaborate system of ethical norms and legal rules to govern biomedical research using human subjects. These policies govern research that might provide direct health benefits to participants and research in which there is no prospect for participant...

The Ethics of Using Transgenic Non-Human Primates to Study What Makes Us Human

December 20, 2016
A flood of comparative genomic data is resulting in the identification of human lineage-specific (HLS) sequences. As apes are our closest evolutionary relatives, transgenic introduction of HLS sequences into these species has the greatest potential to produce ‘humanized’ phenotypes and also to illuminate the functions of these sequences. We argue...

From Metagenomics to the Metagenome

December 20, 2016
As the international genomic research community moves from the tool-making efforts of the Human Genome Project into biomedical applications of those tools, new metaphors are being suggested as useful to understanding how our genes work – and for understanding who we are as biological organisms. In this essay we focus...

Origin Myths in Bioethics

December 20, 2016
Bioethics, the term now usually standing in for Biomedical Ethics, is a field of medical anthropological engagement. While many anthropologists and other social scientists work with bioethicists and physicians, this paper instead takes Bioethics as a topic of cultural research from the perspective of Cultural Bioethics and Interpretive Medical Anthropology....