Specimen Science: Ethics and Policy Implications

Date: 

Monday, November 16, 2015, 8:00am to 5:00pm

Location: 

Harvard Law School, venue TBA

Many important advances in human health depend on the effective collection, storage, use, and sharing of biological specimens and their associated data. However, recent controversies involving specimen-based research have raised important questions about ownership, data-sharing, privacy considerations, group harms, and standards for responsible specimen stewardship. 

Please join us for a symposium to discuss the key ethical and policy issues raised by genetics and other research involving human biological materials, covering the entire trajectory from specimen source to new discovery. The experts at this day-long event will cover key topics, such as historical, legal, and international perspectives; donor attitudes, researcher perspectives, and institutional considerations; broad vs. specific informed consent; privacy, ownership, and control; use of specimens collected through mandatory newborn screening; research with discrete and insular populations; and others. Conference papers eventually will be published as an edited volume with a major academic press. 

For a full agenda and to register for this event, visit our website

This event is a collaboration between Case Western Reserve University, the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School, and the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center at Harvard. It is supported by funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute.