C9. Interpret the ethical, legal, medical, and social implications of biological data. The increasing scale and penetration of human genetic and genomic data has greatly enhanced our ability to identify disease-related loci, druggable targets, etc. and to identify potential genes for replacement with developing techniques. However, with this information also comes many ethical, legal, and social questions; suggested resolutions are often outpaced by the technological advances. As part of their scientific training, students should debate the medicinal, societal, and ethical implications of these information sets and techniques.
- Explain the implications, good and bad, of being able to walk into a doctor’s office and have your genome sequenced and analyzed or of being able to obtain information from direct-to-consumer testing services.
- Be able to discuss different perspectives about who should have access to this data and how it should be protected.
- Describe how the scientific community protects against the falsification or manipulation of large datasets.