{"id":10042,"date":"2013-10-13T18:43:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=10042"},"modified":"2013-10-13T18:43:30","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:43:30","slug":"race-and-ancestry-in-biomedical-research-exploring-the-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=10042","title":{"rendered":"Race and ancestry in biomedical research: exploring the challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Race and ancestry in biomedical research: exploring the challenges<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Genome Medicine<\/a> 2009
\nVolume 1, Number 8 (2009-01-21)
\nDOI: 10.1186\/gm8<\/a><\/p>\n

Timothy Caulfield
\n<\/a><\/strong>Faculty of Law and School of Public Health Research, Health Law Institute
\nUniversity of Alberta<\/em><\/p>\n

Stephanie M Fullerton
\n<\/strong>Department of Medical History and Ethics and Department of Genome Sciences
\nUniversity of Washington School of Medicine<\/em><\/p>\n

Sarah E Ali-Khan
\n<\/strong>Program on Life Sciences Ethics and Policy, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

Laura Arbour
\n<\/strong>Faculty of Medicine, Island Medical Program
\nUniversity of British Columbia<\/em><\/p>\n

Esteban G. Burchard<\/strong>
\nDepartment of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Medicine, Divisions of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenetics, Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, and Clinical Pharmacology
\nUniversity of California, San Francisco<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard S. Cooper
\n<\/strong>Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, Stritch School of Medicine
\nLoyola University<\/em><\/p>\n

Billie-Jo Hardy
\n<\/strong>Program on Life Sciences Ethics and Policy, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

Simrat Harry
\n<\/strong>Faculty of Law and School of Public Health Research, Health Law Institute
\nUniversity of Alberta<\/em><\/p>\n

Robyn Hyde-Lay
\n<\/strong>Genome Alberta, Calgary, Alberta, Canada<\/em><\/p>\n

Jonathan Kahn
\n<\/strong>Hamline University School of Law<\/em><\/p>\n

Rick Kittles
\n<\/strong>Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine, Department of Human Genetics
\nUniversity of Chicago<\/em><\/p>\n

Barbara A. Koenig
\n<\/strong>Program in Professionalism & Bioethics
\nMayo College of Medicine<\/em><\/p>\n

Sandra S. J. Lee
\n<\/strong>Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
\nStanford University Medical School<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Malinowski<\/strong>
\nPaul M Hebert Law Center
\nLouisiana State University, Baton Rouge<\/em><\/p>\n

Vardit Ravitsky
\n<\/strong>Department of Medical Ethics and Center for Bioethics
\nUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia<\/em><\/p>\n

Pamela Sankar
\n<\/strong>Department of Medical Ethics and Center for Bioethics
\nUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia<\/em><\/p>\n

Stephen W. Scherer
\n<\/strong>for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Department of Molecular Genetics
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

B\u00e9atrice S\u00e9guin<\/strong>
\nLeslie Dan School of Pharmacy; Program on Life Sciences Ethics and Policy, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

Darren Shickle
\n<\/strong>Leeds Institute of Health Sciences,
\nUniversity of Leeds, United Kingdom<\/em><\/p>\n

Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz
\n<\/strong>Pharmacology Division
\nInstituto Nacional de C\u00e2ncer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil<\/em><\/p>\n

Abdallah S. Daar
\n<\/strong>Program on Life Sciences Ethics and Policy, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network; Department of Public Health Sciences and of Surgery; McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine; Department of Medicine
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

The use of race in biomedical research has, for decades, been a source of social controversy. However, recent events, such as the adoption of racially targeted pharmaceuticals, have raised the profile of the race issue. In addition, we are entering an era in which genomic research is increasingly focused on the nature and extent of human genetic variation, often examined by population, which leads to heightened potential for misunderstandings or misuse of terms concerning genetic variation and race. Here, we draw together the perspectives of participants in a recent interdisciplinary workshop on ancestry and health in medicine in order to explore the use of race in research issue from the vantage point of a variety of disciplines. We review the nature of the race controversy in the context of biomedical research and highlight several challenges to policy action, including restrictions resulting from commercial or regulatory considerations, the difficulty in presenting precise terminology in the media, and drifting or ambiguous definitions of key terms.<\/p>\n

Correspondence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recent advances in biomedical research promise increasing insights into complex contributions to traits and diseases, and there is hope that these will lead to global health benefits [1,2] . Analytical and social-justice considerations both recommend thoughtful assessment of the role of social identity, particularly racial or ethnic identity, in the design, conduct and dissemination of clinical and basic science research. Controversies ranging from James Watson’s comments on racial differences in intelligence [3] to the adoption of racially targeted pharmaceuticals, such as the African-American heart-failure drug BiDil [4-7] , remind us that use of the concept of race in biomedical research can have far-reaching, often unanticipated social consequences.<\/p>\n

The problem of race in scientific research is not a new one, and the issue seems to perpetually reappear and remain fundamentally unresolved [8] . We are, however, entering a new era in which the fruits of initiatives, such as the Human Genome Project [9,10] , the International Haplotype Map Project [11] , and the recently proposed 1000 Genomes Project [12] , promise to elaborate more fully than ever before the nature and extent of human genetic variation and its relation to social identity. A recent interdisciplinary workshop, ‘Ancestry in health and medicine; expanding the debate’, hosted by the Alberta Health Law Institute and the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, in Toronto, Canada, sought to debate the current status and concerns surrounding these new scientific data, how we relate genetic variation to individual and population-level differences in observable traits, and what this might mean for the effective addressing of significant disparities in health status and disease. A central motivating consideration was how best to secure the anticipated benefits of genetic and related forms of biomedical research in the face of inevitable misunderstandings or misuse concerning genetic variation and race.<\/p>\n

Here, we draw together the perspectives of the scholars who participated in the workshop, who have considered the race issue from the vantage point of a variety of disciplines: anthropology, bioethics, clinical medicine, ethical, social, cultural studies, genetic epidemiology, genome sciences, global heath research, law and the social sciences. We review the nature of the race controversy in the context of biomedical research and highlight several challenges to policy action…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire correspondence here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Race and ancestry in biomedical research: exploring the challenges Genome Medicine 2009 Volume 1, Number 8 (2009-01-21) DOI: 10.1186\/gm8 Timothy Caulfield Faculty of Law and School of Public Health Research, Health Law Institute University of Alberta Stephanie M Fullerton Department of Medical History and Ethics and Department of Genome Sciences University of Washington School of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8,26],"tags":[4397,4389,4394,4385,4395,3263,3261,4401,4396,1265,4384,4391,1273,1257,4388,4387,4390,4399,4383,4386,4398,4382,4400,4393,4381,4392],"class_list":["post-10042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-politics","tag-abdallah-s-daar","tag-barbara-a-koenig","tag-beatrice-seguin","tag-billie-jo-hardy","tag-darren-shickle","tag-esteban-burchard","tag-esteban-g-burchard","tag-genome-medicine","tag-guilherme-suarez-kurtz","tag-jonathan-kahn","tag-laura-arbour","tag-michael-malinowski","tag-pamela-sankar","tag-richard-s-cooper","tag-rick-kittles","tag-robyn-hyde-lay","tag-sandra-s-j-lee","tag-sarah-ali-khan","tag-sarah-e-ali-khan","tag-simrat-harry","tag-stephanie-fullerton","tag-stephanie-m-fullerton","tag-stephen-scherer","tag-stephen-w-scherer","tag-timothy-caulfield","tag-vardit-ravitsky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}