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Genetics

  • From Bioethics Briefings

    Law Enforcement and Genetic Data

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    From Bioethics Briefings
    Framing the Issue DNA has been a powerful crime-solving tool for decades, but law enforcement’s ability to harness it for investigative purposes has grown immensely in recent years. This is due primarily to the massive amount of genetic data now housed in government-run, public, and private databas...
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  • From Bioethics Briefings

    Genomics, Behavior, and Social Outcomes

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    From Bioethics Briefings
    Framing the Issue The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 ushered in technological advancements that have made genetic information more accessible to researchers and the public than ever before. While scientists have traditionally studied human genetics using twin, family, and adoptio...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    A Narrow Path for Optimism that Social Genomics Can Combat Inequality

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    In his recent piece, “The genes we’re dealt,” Erik Parens puts his finger on cause for concern with what he calls social genomics: while progressives can use insights from this new field to justify combating inequality, conservatives can use them to justify the existence of that same inequality. This pessimistic conclusion—which Parens argues convincingly for—follows from a focus on insights at the societal level, that of a whole population. But there are grounds for optimism by focusing instead on potential insights from social genomics derived from local-level comparisons between different environments. Such insights could point to interventions that progressives and conservatives might just be able to agree on.
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  • Hastings Center News

    Progressives, Conservatives, and Social Genomics

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    Hastings Center News
    Over the past decade, the new field of social genomics has investigated how genomic differences among people are linked to differences in their behaviors and social outcomes, including educational attainment and socioeconomic success. But the findings can be interpreted differently by progressives a...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Could Genetic Testing for Educational Attainment Cause Harm? Hastings Researcher Begins First-Ever Study to Find Out

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    Hastings Center News
    Hastings Center postdoctoral researcher Lucas J. Matthews is undertaking the first-ever study to examine the potential harms of telling students about their genetic propensity for educational attainment.
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Transcending Borders in the Ethical Oversight of Human Genome Editing

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    The bioethics and legal communities must come together to find ways to move with the same ease of the scientific research community--to transcend the geopolitical borders and jurisdictional concerns that make international regulation so difficult.
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  • Hastings Center News

    Hastings Center Scholars Respond to Prison Sentence of Researcher Who Created First Gene-Edited Babies

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    Hastings Center News
    The Compassionate Use Advisory Committee, headed by Hastings Center Fellow Arthur Caplan, of NYU Langone, received the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration’s Innovation Award. The committee was recognized for transforming how expanded access requests, also known as compassionate use requests, are granted by drug developers.
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Immigrant DNA Collection: Fighting Crime or Moral Panic

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    Last week, the Trump Administration proposed a new rule that would “require DNA-sample collection from individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted, and from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States.” Collecting DNA of people detained under the Department of Homeland Security is not permitted under U.S. law. The proposed rule aims to change that.
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  • Hastings Center News

    New Hastings Project: How Can We Responsibly Study the Genetics of Behavioral Traits?

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    Hastings Center News
    Scientists have high hopes for using “polygenic risk scores” to better understand social and behavioral characteristics such as intelligence and obesity. But much behavioral genetics research has an ugly history and contemporary research risks exacerbating health inequities. A new Hastings Cente...
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  • Hastings Center News

    New Hastings Researcher Tackles Questions About Genetic Research on Human Behavior

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    Hastings Center News
    Lucas J. Matthews has been named a postdoctoral researcher at The Hastings Center and the Columbia Center for Research on Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics. In this two-year position, he will take on conceptual, methodological, and ethical ...
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  • Hastings Center News

    New Book: Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing

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    Hastings Center News
    New book edited by Hastings Center scholars explores fundamental questions about the nature and well-being of human beings at a time when a revolutionary new biotechnology could permanently change the human species.
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  • Hastings Center News

    Hastings Partners on Unprecedented Genetics Resource Hub

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    Hastings Center News
    The Hastings Center is a collaborator on a major new federally funded center – the Center for ELSI Resources and Analysis — that will fill a void in genetics research by collecting and sharing information about its ethical, legal, and social (ELSI) implications. This resource hub, the first ...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Does Genetic Testing Pose Psychosocial Risks?

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    Hastings Center News
    For the last quarter century, researchers have been asking whether genetic information might have negative psychosocial effects. Anxiety, depression, disrupted relationships, and heightened stigmatization have all been posited as possible outcomes—but not consistently found. What accounts for the ...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Watch the Livestream: Genomics Enters the Clinic

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    Hastings Center News
    What do patients and DTC genetic test consumers need to know about the clinical applications of genetics? That question was the focus of a recent public event at the New York Academy of Sciences, cosponsosred by The Hastings Center. Read a recap of the highlights and watch the livestream.
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Is GINA Unjust?

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    The protections of GINA play a key role in the decision of many of my healthy patients to decide to undergo genetic testing. My criticism is that GINA is unfair to people who might suffer discrimination in health. insurance for non-genetic reasons.
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  • Hastings Center News

    Genomics Enters the Clinic: What Should Savvy Consumers Know?

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    Hastings Center News
    Genetics is finally being integrated into the clinic: cancer patients are having their cancer’s genome sequenced, fertility patients are having their embryos tested, and parents are being offered sequencing of their newborn babies.
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  • Hastings Center News

    ‘Designer Babies’ (You Say That Like It’s a Bad Thing)

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    Hastings Center News
    Advances in preimplantation genetic diagnosis, genetic testing, and genome editing have renewed discussion about the ethics of “designer babies,” or children selected or engineered to have certain preferred traits, like superior intelligence or tall stature. But the same techniques used to create...
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  • Hastings Center News

    The Hastings Center Celebrates Outstanding Journalists

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    Hastings Center News
    Three journalists received The Hastings Center Awards for Excellence in Journalism on Ethics and Reprogenetics. The awards were presented at an event in New York City on December 6 that celebrated the role of journalists in helping the public understand the science of heredity and the power of geneti...
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  • Hastings Center News

    New in Braingenethics: What Role Should Genetic Testing Play in Psychiatric Care?

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    Hastings Center News
    Several DNA tests claim to predict how well particular psychiatric medications are likely to work for individual patients with depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. And 23andMe just received approval to market the first direct-to-consumer pharmacogenomics report, which detects 33 variants ...
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  • Hastings Center News

    The Gift and Weight of Genomic Knowledge

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    Hastings Center News
    With the popularity of direct-to-consumer genetic testing, genomic knowledge is assuming a growing role in shaping human life. On the one hand, this knowledge is a gift, offering insights into the genetic drivers of disease and the geographical paths of our ancestors. On the other hand, it is a weigh...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Do You Want the Police Snooping in Your DNA?

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    In late April, a suspect thought to be the Golden State Killer, a man who had eluded police for decades after committing a string of murders and rapes in Northern California and Orange County between 1976 and 1986, was identified on the basis of DNA evidence. Although we celebrate the dogged pursuit ...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Addressing Questions About DTC Genetic Tests and Privacy

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    The process is fairly simple. You select one of the companies that offer direct-to-consumer genetic tests; pay online; receive a neatly packed kit that contains a tube designed to collect your spit; return the package using prepaid postage; and wait for the results that will unravel the mysteries of ...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Documentary Series Premiere on Genetic Medicine Features Hastings Scholars

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    Hastings Center News
    Hastings Center president Mildred Z. Solomon and director of research Josephine Johnston were featured speakers at the premiere screening of The Code, a series of three documentaries on the origins of genetic medicine and what its successes and failures mean for the future. The series was produced by...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Looking for the Psychosocial Effects of Genomic Test Results

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    Hastings Center News
    For the last quarter century, researchers have been asking whether genetic test results might have negative psychosocial effects. Anxiety, depression, disrupted relationships, and heightened stigmatization have all been posited as possible outcomes—but not consistently found. What accounts for the ...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Is Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing Eugenic?

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    Before noninvasive prenatal screening becomes a routine part of gestational care, society needs to have difficult conversations about the ethical implications and establish a paradigm for truly informed consent in reproductive decision-making. These are admirable goals, set out in an article by Vardi...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Responsible Science in a Perilous Time: Hastings and Union of Concerned Scientists Join Forces

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    Hastings Center News
    Climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the advancement of gene editing and other transformative biotechnologies pose enormous global challenges. How can we promote responsible science, good governance, and opportunities for public engagement at time when anti-intellectualism on the rise and socie...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Hastings Center Genetics Symposium Draws Journalists from Around the World

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    Hastings Center News
    Is there a parental obligation to create “better” babies? Now that scientists can genetically edit plants and animals for agricultural and other purposes, what can we learn from the longstanding international debate over GMOs?
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Do We Have a Moral Obligation to Genetically Enhance our Children?

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    The Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu, among others, has argued that prospective parents engaging in embryo selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis not only may seek to have genetically enhanced children but are morally obligated do so. (See, for example, his essay “Procreative Benefice...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Hastings Scholars in New England Journal of Medicine: Supporting Women’s Autonomy in Prenatal Testing

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    Hastings Center News
    Noninvasive fetal genetic sequencing done early in pregnancy is poised to become a routine part of prenatal care. While it could offer patients substantial benefits, there is a risk that it will be integrated into care “without the robust, evidence-based informed consent process necessary for respe...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Genome Sequencing of Newborns: How Can It Be Done Responsibly?

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    Hastings Center News
    This was one of the many big questions explored at Genomics and Society, a major conference last week on the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic research.
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Morally Indefensible Health Care Bills

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    There is a broad and deep moral conviction that health care should be distributed according to genuine need and not left to the cold mercy of pure market forces or the logic of actuarial fairness. Unfortunately, the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed last week in the House of Representatives, and other legislation threaten to undermine that moral commitment.
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  • Hastings Center News

    Ethical Questions About Whole-Genome Sequencing, 23andme, and More from the Brain-Genetics Frontier

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    Hastings Center News
    Braingenethics Update, a free monthly newsletter, aggregates recent scientific literature, commentary, and news on questions raised by findings on the genetics of complex human behaviors. It is produced by the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and The Hastings Center as part of a...
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  • Hastings Center News

    Playing God: From Frankenstein to Gene Editing

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    Hastings Center News
    What lessons does Frankenstein hold for us today, when powerful new technologies such as gene editing and artificial intelligence are bringing us closer than ever to playing God? That question was the focus of  “Spawn of Frankenstein,” a public event that featured Josephine Johnston, dir...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    DNA Phenotyping and Baby’s First Portrait

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    Some researchers are at work generating images of people’s faces by relying on DNA samples alone, in a process known as DNA phenotyping.The process involves linking genetic traits and their typical manifestations in traits such as eye color, hair color, and features associated with ancestry. The r...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    A Decade’s Worth of Gene-Environment Interaction Studies, in Hindsight

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    In the early 2000s, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and their colleagues published two papers (here and here), which suggested that we could finally begin to tell rather simple but evidence-based stories about how genetic and environmental variables interact to influence the emergence of complex ph...
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Genetic Testing in Torts Litigation – Justice or Injustice?

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
     
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  • Bioethics Forum Essay

    Genetic Information Is Not Always Benign

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    Bioethics Forum Essay
    Ethicists and others have been concerned that the disclosure of genetic information to patients might have negative consequences. The suspicion has been that negative effects, say, becoming depressed, are particularly likely when people are being informed about predispositions to diseases that are no...
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