11/28/2014

Does Your Genome Belong to Your Family, Too?

29:27 minutes

If you donate DNA anonymously to a research project and doctors discover a risky gene, should they track you down to tell you? Should they share that information with your family, since they, too, might harbor that suspect DNA sequence? And what happens to that information after you die? Susan M. Wolf, a biomedical ethicist at the University of Minnesota, and Robert Green, a medical geneticist at Harvard Medical School, debate these issues, and whether our genomes might some day be an indispensable part of our medical records.

Segment Guests

Susan Wolf

Susan Wolf is the McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy and a principal investigator on an NIH grant on whether families have the right to an individuals’ genomic information at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Robert Green

Robert Green is a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Meet the Producer

About Christopher Intagliata

Christopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer. He once served as a prop in an optical illusion and speaks passable Ira Flatowese.