This course developed by Vardit Ravitsky, PhD, and Ingrid Holm, MD, MPH, explores the science, the ethical debates and the main policy approaches to well-established and emerging genomics technologies. Topics include germline gene editing, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, donor conception, and more.
This course developed by Steven Joffe, MD, MPH explores the ethical, legal, and social implications of recent advances in the genetic and genomic sciences. Topics include whole genome testing, ancestry and race, forensic genetics, and the relationship of genetics to health disparities.
This course developed by William Allen and Marta Wayne covers topics pertaining to ethics, science policy, and translation in genetics research, as well as responsible conduct of research.
This core course offered by the Institute for Public Health Genetics provides an introduction to the ethical, legal, social, and policy issues arising as genetic or genomic knowledge and technologies are developed and made available to individuals and populations. Students will learn to identify and anticipate potential ethical, legal, social, financial, and policy considerations that arise with emerging technologies when applied in clinical, research, consumer, and public health contexts.
Today, once marginal far-right political parties are supported by a growing proportion of the electorate. Some far-right figures insist that foreigners are and will always remain fundamentally different from natives; others do not hesitate to describe them as belonging to inferior races. Many far-right parties also prescribe gender roles according to traditional norms. Meanwhile, on what may seem like a different planet, scientists study how genes impact human beings.
Over the past decade, a new generation of precise and efficient gene editing techniques has brought new urgency and attention to the discussion of the ethics of human enhancement. In 2015, gene editing research in non-viable human embryos signaled that human applications were on the horizon which, in theory, could be aimed beyond disease treatment toward improvements upon normal human traits.
"The Meaning of Eugenics: Historical and Present-Day Discussions of Eugenics and Scientific Racism" was a two-day virtual symposium convened by the NHGRI in December 2021 and led by NHGRI Historian Christopher Donohue, PhD, and Oxford Brookes University Professor Marius Turda, PhD. The recorded presentations and slides are available online.
A team of researchers from the Dolan DNA Learning Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory created the Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement website to host 2,500 photos, correspondence, journals, texts, manuscripts, charts, and data. The Archive was created between 1998-2004 with funding from the ELSI Program of the NHGRI.