Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics, Policy, Practice: A Monthly Digest

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May 2023 :: Number 05

Genomic medicine – spanning pre-clinical basic science through clinical development and translation into daily patient interventions – continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. Advances in the scientific and technical dimensions of genomic medicine are extensively communicated through the peer-reviewed journal ecology and supporting grey literature.

Complementing this technical literature is a growing body of commentary, analysis and research around the governance, ethics, regulation, and policy dimensions of genomic medicine. Much of this content is communicated through academic journals and grey literature, but is also appearing in the general media. This digest intends to capture and curate the most substantive examples of this non-technical content.

In aggregating and editing this digest, we directly review a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and grey literature, as well as announcements and strategic actions from various practice domains and organization types including international agencies, INGOs, governments/regulatory bodies, academic and research institutions, consortia and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. More broadly, we utilize Google Scholar’s alert capability to scan current literature. We acknowledge that this approach and scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive digest product.

This digest is a service of the GE2P2 Global Foundation and its newly formed Center for Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics & Policy. The Foundation is solely responsible for its content. Comments and suggestions should be directed to the Editor or Associate Editor as below:

Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics, Policy, Practice: A Monthly Digest

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April 2023 :: Number 04

Genomic medicine – spanning pre-clinical basic science through clinical development and translation into daily patient interventions – continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. Advances in the scientific and technical dimensions of genomic medicine are extensively communicated through the peer-reviewed journal ecology and supporting grey literature.

Complementing this technical literature is a growing body of commentary, analysis and research around the Aprilgovernance, ethics, regulation, and policy dimensions of genomic medicine. Much of this content is communicated through academic journals and grey literature, but is also appearing in the general media. This digest intends to capture and curate the most substantive examples of this non-technical content.

In aggregating and editing this digest, we directly review a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and grey literature, as well as announcements and strategic actions from various practice domains and organization types including international agencies, INGOs, governments/regulatory bodies, academic and research institutions, consortiums and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. More broadly, we utilize Google Scholar’s alert capability to scan current literature. We acknowledge that this approach and scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive digest product.

This digest is a service of the GE2P2 Global Foundation and its newly formed Center for Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics & Policy. The Foundation is solely responsible for its content. Comments and suggestions should be directed to the Editor or Associate Editor as below:

Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics, Policy, Practice: A Monthly Digest

---

March 2023

Genomic medicine – spanning pre-clinical basic science through clinical development and translation into daily patient interventions – continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. Advances in the scientific and technical dimensions of genomic medicine are extensively communicated through the peer-reviewed journal ecology and supporting grey literature.

Complementing this technical literature is a growing body of commentary, analysis and research around the governance, ethics, regulation, and policy dimensions of genomic medicine. Much of this content is communicated through academic journals and grey literature, but is also appearing in the general media. This digest intends to capture and curate the most substantive examples of this non-technical content.

In aggregating and editing this digest, we directly review a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and grey literature, as well as announcements and strategic actions from various practice domains and organization types including international agencies, INGOs, governments/regulatory bodies, academic and research institutions, consortiums and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. More broadly, we utilize Google Scholar’s alert capability to scan current literature. We acknowledge that this approach and scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive digest product.

This digest is a service of the GE2P2 Global Foundation and its newly formed Center for Genomic Medicine Governance, Ethics & Policy. The Foundation is solely responsible for its content. Comments and suggestions should be directed to the Editor or Associate Editor as below:

Getting genetic ancestry right for science and society
We must embrace a multidimensional, continuous view of ancestry and move away from continental ancestry categories
Anna C. F. Lewis, et al.
Policy Forum
Science, Volume 376| Issue 6591| 22 Apr 2022
Abstract

Glaring health disparities have reinvigorated debate about the relevance of race to health, including how race should and should not be used as a variable in research and biomedicine (1). After a long history of race being treated as a biological variable, there is now broad agreement that racial classifications are a product of historically contingent social, economic, and political processes. Many institutions have thus been reexamining their use of race and racism and stating intentions about how race should be used going forward. One common proposal is to use genetic concepts—in particular, genetic ancestry and population categories—as a replacement for race (2). However, the use of ancestry categories has technical limitations, fails to adequately capture human genetic diversity and demographic history, and risks retaining one of the most problematic aspects of race—an essentialist link to biology—by allowing genetic ancestry categories to stand in its place.