Criminal DNA profiling could soon include phenotypic markers for attributes such as eye, skin, and hair color, gait, ancestry, and predisposition to behavioral traits such as smoking. This technology, referred to as forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP), transforms the existing function of criminal DNA profiling from confirming a suspect's identity to predicting it. The field of forensic genetics will have to confront the ethical and social challenges that FDP will raise.

As evidenced by the endless reports of new discoveries in genetics and genomics over the past few decades, the public's views will substantially influence the uptake and use of these new applications for personal and societal benefit. Informed decision-making regarding the use of genomic applications will depend on public understanding of both basic scientific concepts and social implications to enable consideration of personally significant risks and benefits. Furthermore, informed publics are critical for the large population studies often required in genome sciences.

Forensic DNA profiling is increasingly becoming a standard tool in the search for missing people in the aftermath of mass violence and mass disaster. Yet, there has been very little systematic effort to identify and analyze the major ethical and policy challenges associated with this new use of genetic technology. Thus, stakeholders involved in post-conflict and post-disaster investigations have had to develop their own ad hoc rules and ethical principles for the identification process.

Health information technology (HIT) is believed to be central to improving the quality and cost effectiveness of health care in the United States. As a result of recent major federal investment, the diffusion of HIT is expected to surge in the next five years. As HIT becomes widespread, it will be a potent source of detailed, population-level health information and provide new insights on how health care is delivered in the U.S. These databases will have significant value for research including genomics, comparative effectiveness studies, health services research, and clinical trials.

The Advancing Research Ethics training in Southern Africa (ARESA) program will promote responsible research in southern Africa by offering a postgraduate Diploma/Masters level educational program to health care and other professionals in research ethics and by developing a national network for Research Ethics Committee (REC) members.

With the growing importance of biobank research, concerns have been raised about how to protect the interests of donors. The current ethics framework mainly focuses on protecting against risks to donors' welfare and to their privacy. However, there has been little systematic empirical, normative, or policy focus on the non-welfare interests of donors, i.e., concerns about the moral, societal, or religious implications of research using their donation that may affect their willingness to donate.

Exome sequencing (ES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) are transformative new tools for discovery of genetic risk factors for both rare and common diseases and offer the potential of personalized genetic risk profiling in a single, cost-effective test. Because of the large number of variant results simultaneously identified, the number of results with potential clinical utility-including those that are unanticipated, and the evolving utility of results over time-use of these technologies challenges existing models of returning results to research subjects and patients.

American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) face glaring health disparities, and AIAN-specific research lags behind other racial and ethnic data in addressing AIAN health concerns. Engaging AIAN community members in the research process can reduce research mistrust, increase scientific rigor, and expose more AIAN to research both as participants and potentially as future scholars. A significant barrier to community engaged research (CEnR), however, is the absence of culturally relevant human subject's research ethics education for community partners.

This project employs a multi-method, transdisciplinary approach that combines ethnographic participant- observation, interview research methods, ethical, legal, and public policy analyses. The two goals of the present project are 1) to identify the ethical, legal, and policy challenges that the field of psychiatric genomics will face when trying to translate the findings of large-scale GWAS into clinically useful information, and 2) to make evidence-based recommendations about how to address these challenges.

Interactive Multimedia Consent for Biobanking Abstract Many biobanks in the U.S. consent thousands of contributors of biospecimens and health information. There is growing interest in the efficiency of electronic consenting (e-consent) given the scale of these efforts. However, e-consent tools also need to promote diverse users' understanding and trust, and demonstrate their effectiveness in comparison to traditional methods such as face-to-face (F2F) consenting.