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In traditional predictive genetic testing single gene variants are analyzed to determine whether an individual is at high risk of developing a disease. The vast majority of diseases, however, are polygenic—caused by many different genes. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) have been heralded for their promise to predict risk for these more complex diseases like heart disease or diabetes by measuring the contribution of hundreds or thousands of genetic variants at once. Yet beyond prediction of health or medical outcomes, the realm of ‘sociogenomics’ is developing polygenic scores (PGS) measuring genetic contributions to social traits and behavioral factors, such as income, educational attainment, sexuality, and optimism. Proponents of sociogenomic PGS cite the potential for this research to increase understanding of the interplay between genetic and environmental factors, to account for genetic factors in social science research, and to create personalized social interventions akin to personalized medicine. But others worry that sociogenomic PGS findings could lead to discrimination and an exacerbation of existing social disparities. This talk will consider the ethical, legal, and social implications of sociogenomic PGS and consider how these scores may be used outside the research and medical settings and how the law might regulate such use.

Anya Prince is a Professor and the Joseph F. Rosenfield Fellow in Law at the University of Iowa College of Law. Professor Prince’s teaching and research interests explore health and genetic privacy, with a particular focus on genetic discrimination, the health privacy implications of big data, and the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic testing. Her research particularly explores the intersections of social and biological data by interrogating the ethical and legal implications of how genetic data can be used to predict social traits and behaviors and, conversely, how social data can be used to predict medical information, including reproductive information.