Scanning the human genome for "signatures" of positive selection: Transformative opportunities and ethical obligations.

The relationship history of evolutionary anthropology and genetics is complex. At best, genetics is a beautifully integrative part of the discipline. Yet this integration has also been fraught, with punctuated, disruptive challenges to dogma, periodic reluctance by some members of the field to embrace results from analyses of genetic data, and occasional over-assertions of genetic definitiveness by geneticists. At worst, evolutionary genetics has been a tool for reinforcing racism and colonialism. While a number of genetics/genomics papers have disproportionately impacted evolutionary anthropology, here we highlight the 2002 presentation of an elegantly powerful approach for identifying "signatures" of past positive selection from haplotype-based patterns of genetic variation. Together with technological advances in genotyping methods, this article transformed our field by facilitating genome-wide "scans" for signatures of past positive selection in human populations. This approach helped researchers test longstanding evolutionary anthropology hypotheses while simultaneously providing opportunities to develop entirely new ones. Genome-wide scans for signatures of positive selection have since been conducted in diverse worldwide populations, with striking findings of local adaptation and convergent evolution. Yet there are ethical considerations with respect to the ubiquity of these studies and the cross-application of the genome-wide scan approach to existing datasets, which we also discuss.

Patient-Reported Outcomes and Experiences with Population Genetic Testing Offered Through a Primary Care Network.

Aims: To explore patient experiences in a large-scale primary care-based, preemptive genetic testing program. Methods: Patients who received genetic results from the initiative were invited to participate in an online survey 3 weeks postresult disclosure. A 6-month follow-up survey was sent to assess changes over time. Results: The initial survey was completed by 1646 patients, with 544 completing the 6-month follow-up survey. The following outcomes were high overall: patient-reported understanding of results (cancer: 87%; cardiac: 86%); perceived utility (75%); positive emotions (relieved: 66.8%; happy: 62.0%); family result sharing (67.6%); and satisfaction (87%), although analysis by demographic factors identified groups who may benefit from additional education and emotional support. Results-related health behaviors and discussions with providers increased over time (screening procedures 6.1% to 14.2% p < 0.001; provider discussion 10.3% to 25.3%, p < 0.001), and were more likely to take place for patients with positive cancer and/or cardiac results (39.8% vs. 7.6%, p < 0.001). Forty-seven percent of patients reported insurance discrimination concerns, and most (79.4%) were not familiar with privacy and nondiscrimination laws. Concerns regarding discrimination and negative emotions decreased between the two survey time points (privacy issues 44.6% to 35.1% p < 0.001; life insurance discrimination concerns 35.5% to 29.6%, p = 0.001; anxiety 8.1% to 3.3%, p < 0.001; and uncertainty 19.8% to 12.8%, p < 0.001). These findings led to the development and integration of additional patient resources to improve program implementation. Conclusion: Our findings highlight patient experiences with and areas of need in a community-based genomic screening pilot initiative using a mixed primary care/genetics provider model to deliver precision medicine.

A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean.

Humans settled the Caribbean about 6,000 years ago, and ceramic use and intensified agriculture mark a shift from the Archaic to the Ceramic Age at around 2,500 years ago1-3. Here we report genome-wide data from 174 ancient individuals from The Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (collectively, Hispaniola), Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Venezuela, which we co-analysed with 89 previously published ancient individuals. Stone-tool-using Caribbean people, who first entered the Caribbean during the Archaic Age, derive from a deeply divergent population that is closest to Central and northern South American individuals; contrary to previous work4, we find no support for ancestry contributed by a population related to North American individuals. Archaic-related lineages were >98% replaced by a genetically homogeneous ceramic-using population related to speakers of languages in the Arawak family from northeast South America; these people moved through the Lesser Antilles and into the Greater Antilles at least 1,700 years ago, introducing ancestry that is still present. Ancient Caribbean people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools that reflect small effective population sizes, which we estimate to be a minimum of 500-1,500 and a maximum of 1,530-8,150 individuals on the combined islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola in the dozens of generations before the individuals who we analysed lived. Census sizes are unlikely to be more than tenfold larger than effective population sizes, so previous pan-Caribbean estimates of hundreds of thousands of people are too large5,6. Confirming a small and interconnected Ceramic Age population7, we detect 19 pairs of cross-island cousins, close relatives buried around 75 km apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across islands. Genetic continuity across transitions in pottery styles reveals that cultural changes during the Ceramic Age were not driven by migration of genetically differentiated groups from the mainland, but instead reflected interactions within an interconnected Caribbean world1,8.

After geneticization.

The concept of geneticization belongs to a style of thinking within the social sciences that refers to wide-ranging processes and consequences of genetic knowledge. Lippman's original use of the term was political, anticipating the onerous consequences of genetic reductionism and determinism, while more recent engagements emphasise the productivity and heterogeneity of genetic concepts, practices and technologies. This paper reconstructs the geneticization concept, tracing it back to early political critiques of medicine. The argument is made that geneticization belongs to a style of constructionist thinking that obscures and exaggerates the essentializing effects of genetic knowledge. Following Hacking's advice, we need a more literal sense of construction in terms of 'assembly' to give a clearer account of the relationship between processes and products. Using the 'assemblage' concept to explore the social ontology of genetics, the paper reviews three areas of the empirical literature on geneticization - disease classification, clinical practice and biosociality - to show that a new style of thinking has appeared within the social sciences. In the final assessment, the conditions that gave rise to geneticization are now obsolete. While it may serve as a useful ritual of debate, conceptually geneticization offers a limited account of the heterogeneity of socio-technical change.

[Genes for extreme violent behaviour?]. / Encore le « gène du crime ¼ ? - Chroniques génomiques.

A new genetic study focussing on the degree of violence in criminals and using both candidate gene and GWAS approaches finds statistically significant associations of extreme violent behaviour with low activity alleles of monoamine oxydase A (MAOA) and with the CD13 gene. However, the alleles implicated are common in the general population, thus they cannot be causal, and only represent potential indicators of increased risk.

Genetic research and aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

While human genetic research promises to deliver a range of health benefits to the population, genetic research that takes place in Indigenous communities has proven controversial. Indigenous peoples have raised concerns, including a lack of benefit to their communities, a diversion of attention and resources from non-genetic causes of health disparities and racism in health care, a reinforcement of "victim-blaming" approaches to health inequalities, and possible misuse of blood and tissue samples. Drawing on the international literature, this article reviews the ethical issues relevant to genetic research in Indigenous populations and considers how some of these have been negotiated in a genomic research project currently under way in a remote Aboriginal community. We consider how the different levels of Indigenous research governance operating in Australia impacted on the research project and discuss whether specific guidelines for the conduct of genetic research in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are warranted.

Localized past, globalized future: towards an effective bioethical framework using examples from population genetics and medical tourism.

This paper suggests that many of the pressing dilemmas of bioethics are global and structural in nature. Accordingly, global ethical frameworks are required which recognize the ethically significant factors of all global actors. To this end, ethical frameworks must recognize the rights and interests of both individuals and groups (and the interrelation of these). The paper suggests that the current dominant bioethical framework is inadequate to this task as it is over-individualist and therefore unable to give significant weight to the ethical demands of groups (and by extension communal and public goods). It will explore this theme by considering the inadequacy of informed consent (the 'global standard' of bioethics) to address two pressing global bioethical issues: medical tourism and population genetics. Using these examples it will show why consent is inadequate to address all the significant features of these ethical dilemmas. Four key failures will be explored, namely, • That the rights and interests of those related (and therefore affected) are neglected; • That consent fails to take account of the context and commitments of individuals which may constitute inducement and coercion; • That consent alone does not have the ethical weight to negate exploitation or make an unjust action just ('the fallacy of sufficiency'); • That consent is a single one-off act which is inappropriate for the types of decision being made. It will conclude by suggesting that more appropriate models are emerging, particularly in population genetics, which can supplement consent.

Genetics of the Framingham Heart Study population.

This chapter provides an introduction to the Framingham Heart Study and the genetic research related to cardiovascular diseases conducted in this unique population. It briefly describes the origins of the study, the risk factors that contribute to heart disease, and the approaches taken to discover the genetic basis of some of these risk factors. The genetic architecture of several biological risk factors has been explained using family studies, segregation analysis, heritability, and phenotypic and genetic correlations. Many quantitative trait loci underlying cardiovascular diseases have been discovered using different molecular markers. Additionally, initial results from genome-wide association studies using 116,000 markers and the prospects of using 550,000 markers for association studies are presented. Finally, the use of this unique sample to study genotype and environment interactions is described.

Will developing countries benefit from their participation in genetics research?

There is an increase in the amount of genetics research being conducted in both developed and limited resource countries. Most of this research is sponsored by developed countries. There are concerns in limited resource countries on how the benefits from this research are currently being shared or will be shared in the future. There is need for caution, to ensure that populations from limited resource countries are not exploited by being used as subjects in genetics research which is meant to benefit populations from developed countries. This paper addresses the issue of fairness in benefits sharing and argues for justice in the sharing of both burdens and benefits of genetics research. The paper responds to some of the issues and arguments in recent literature on the meaning and limits of the concept of benefit sharing in human genetics research.

Population genomics and research ethics with socially identifable groups.

In this paper, the author questions whether the research ethics guidelines and procedures are robust enough to protect groups when conducting genetics research with socially identifiable populations, particularly with Native American groups. The author argues for a change in the federal guidelines in substance and procedures of conducting genetic research with socially identifiable groups.