Human Microbiome Research and the Social Fabric

描述（由申请人提供）：更多地了解人类微生物组可能会改变医学实践的方式。它也可能对我们的社会和我们的法律的体系产生影响，对我们如何构思和解决医学和生物医学研究的伦理问题产生重要影响。因此，我们项目的目标将是确定人类微生物组研究所提出的伦理、社会和法律的含义，以便为将从事这项工作的科学家和将被要求在研究中合作并承担后果的社会成员提供见解和指导。我们的项目将汇集一个由27名来自人文和社会科学的卫生专业人员，科学家和学者组成的跨学科团队，通过相互教育，小组讨论，共识形成，写作，批评和确认我们的观点的激烈过程来探索关键问题。在此背景下，我们将继续让更广泛的社区参与一系列主题的讨论。这一系列关于发展科学的社区对话旨在为我们的听众提供基于技能的教育，让参与者参与有关问题的对话，并在一个可称为“社区咨询”的过程中征求他们的意见。“结合我们从我们小组的研究和讨论中学到的东西，以及我们从社区咨询中收集的信息，我们将编写一本关于人类微生物组的伦理、法律的和社会影响的出版物，以及一套供其他人使用的材料，以告知科学家和我们的社会这些问题。我们项目的工作假设是，人类微生物组可能会也可能不会提出完全独特的问题，但从人类微生物组的Vantage位置考虑理论问题将使我们能够从新的角度重新审视政策和立场。我们将试图通过确定相关模型和比较点来确定我们对现有丰富而复杂的社会结构中微生物组的理解，以便为我们的反应奠定基础。从人类微生物组研究的新Vantage来看问题，将促使我们提出并回答有关公认原则和区别的概念基础的问题，有关以前接受的承诺的相对重要性，以及它们如何融入两个广泛共享的价值观的经纬：个人自由和社会善。我们设想了几个不同的伦理，法律的和社会领域，其中对人类微生物组的研究可能会产生重大影响：人类受试者研究;样本库和生物库;公共卫生;隐私;财产和商业化;人格，个人身份和常态。公共卫生相关性：人体微生物组是许多疾病的一个因素。通过样本库和转化研究了解更多信息，可能会通过个性化医疗促进医疗保健，并通过提高我们在疾病预防，监测和跟踪方面的能力对公共卫生产生影响。对人类微生物组的研究也将对我们的社会和我们的法律的体系产生影响，并对我们如何构思和解决医学和生物医学研究的伦理问题产生重要影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Learning more about the human microbiome is likely to change the way medicine is practiced. It may also have implications for our society and our legal system and important implications for how we conceive and address the ethics of medicine and biomedical research. The goal of our project will, therefore, be identifying the ethical, social, and legal implication raised by the study of the human microbiome so as to provide insight and guidance for scientists who will be engaged in the work and members of our society who will be asked to cooperate in the studies and to live with the consequences. Our project will bring together an interdisciplinary team of 27 health professionals, scientists, and scholars from the humanities and social sciences to explore key issues through an intense process of mutual education, group discussion, consensus formation, writing, critiquing, and confirming our views. With that background we will go on to engage a broader community in a series of discussions of the topics. This series of Community Conversations on Developing Science will be designed to provide skill-based education to our audience, to engage participants in a dialogue about the issues, and to elicit their views in a process that could be called "community consultation." Combining what we learn from our group's research and discussions with the input that we gather from community consultation, we will prepare a volume for publication on the ethical, legal and social implications of the human microbiome and a set of materials to be used by others to inform scientists and our society about these matters. The working hypothesis of our project is that the human microbiome may or may not raise entirely unique issues, but that considering theoretical issues from the vantage point of the human microbiome will allow us to reexamine policies and positions in a new light. We will be trying to locate our understanding of the microbiome within the existing rich and intricately textured social fabric by identifying relevant models and points of comparison for grounding our responses. Seeing issues from the new vantage point of research on the human microbiome will spur us to ask and answer questions about the conceptual foundation of accepted principles and distinctions, about the relative importance of previously accepted commitments, and about how they fit within the warp and weft of two broadly shared values: individual liberty and the social good. We envision several distinct ethical, legal, and social domains in which research on the human microbiome is likely to have significant implications: human subject research; sample banking and biobanking; public health; privacy; property and commercialization; personhood, personal identity, and normalcy. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The human microbiome is a factor in many diseases. Learning more about it through sample banking and translational research is likely advance healthcare through personalized medicine and to have an impact on public health by improving our capability in disease prevention, surveillance and tracking. Research on the human microbiome will also have repercussions for our society and our legal system and important implications for how we conceive and address the ethics of medicine and biomedical research.