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Public Health Genomics, Biobanking, and Ethics

April 12, 2019

As large-scale biobanks are developed for translational genomic research and health care quality improvement, they are also becoming attractive as sites for public health interventions, such as population-based preventive sequencing for actionable variants. With the rapid advance of next-generation sequencing, the feasibility of such population health interventions is also increasing. The resulting confluence of public … Read more

Is Enhancement the Price of Prevention in Human Gene Editing?

November 26, 2018

New gene-editing tools challenge conventional policy proscriptions of research aimed at either human germline gene editing or human enhancement by potentially lowering technical barriers to both kinds of intervention. Some recent gene-editing reports have begun to take up the prospect of germline editing, but most experts are in broad agreement that research should prioritize medical … Read more

Age and Perceived Risks and Benefits of Preventive Genomic Screening

September 1, 2018

PurposeAs genome sequencing moves from research to clinical practice, sequencing technologies focused on “medically actionable” targets are being promoted for preventive screening despite the dearth of systematic evidence of risks and benefits and of criteria for selection of screening subjects. This study investigates researchers’ and research participants’ perceptions of these issues within the context of … Read more

Returning Negative Results to Individuals in a Genomic Screening Program: Lessons Learned

June 8, 2018

In genomics, the return of negative screening results for rare, medically actionable conditions in large unselected populations with low prior risk of disease is novel and may involve important and nuanced concerns for communicating their meaning. Recruitment may result in self-selection because of participants’ personal or family history, changing the characteristics of the screened population … Read more

Ethics of Treatment Interruption in HIV Cure Research: Addressing the Conundrum of Risk/Benefit Assessment.

March 22, 2018

Though antiretroviral therapy is the standard of care for people living with HIV, its treatment limitations, burdens, stigma and costs lead to continued interest in HIV cure research. Early-phase cure trials, particularly those that include analytic treatment interruption (ATI), involve uncertain and potentially high risk, with minimal chance of clinical benefit. Some question whether such … Read more

Ethics of Treatment Interruption Trials in HIV Cure Research

November 10, 2017

Though antiretroviral therapy is the standard of care for people living with HIV, its treatment limitations, burdens, stigma and costs lead to continued interest in HIV cure research. Early-phase cure trials, particularly those that include analytic treatment interruption (ATI), involve uncertain and potentially high risk, with minimal chance of clinical benefit. Some question whether such … Read more

Online Education and E-Consent for GeneScreen, a Preventive Genomic Screening Study

November 1, 2017

BACKGROUND: Online study recruitment is increasingly popular, but we know little about the decision making that goes into joining studies in this manner. In GeneScreen, a genomic screening study that utilized online education and consent, we investigated participants’ perceived ease when deciding to join and their understanding of key study features. METHODS: Individuals were recruited … Read more

Modernizing Research Regulations Is Not Enough

July 1, 2017

We are a multidisciplinary collaborative made up of bioethicists, social scientists, clinicians, and lawyers whose work focuses on the ethical challenges posed by a networked approach to biorepositories. Like many, we have been concerned that our human research regulations had become woefully out of date. While the interventional, hypothesis-driven research envisioned by the 1991 Common … Read more

“Forward-Thinking” in U.S. Biobanking

March 15, 2017

Aims: Do biobanks enact policies and plans that allow them to anticipate and respond to potential challenges? If a biobank has one such policy or plan, is it likely to have more? Using survey data from 456 U.S. biobanks, we assess four possible indicators of such “forward-thinking.” Methods: We present response frequencies and cross-tabulations regarding … Read more