ELSI Beyond the Genome

Abstract: Omics, or large biological data, is not limited to genomics – additional examples include transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, and proteomics. However, the exploration of the ethical, legal, and societal implications (ELSI) of omic technologies has largely been focused on the genome. This panel will feature a multidisciplinary group with expertise in computational and experimental omics, genetic counseling, bioethics, and policy.

The first panelist, a computational geneticist and ELSI scholar, will give a brief overview of unique properties and ethical considerations of omes beyond the genome, including transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, and proteomics. The second panelist, a genetic counselor, will describe factors to be considered when integrating omic technologies into clinical care and use case-based scenarios to illustrate challenges and opportunities when using non-genomic omes in a patient-facing setting. The third panelist, an experimental geneticist and ELSI scholar with experimental omics expertise, will share the results of interviews with an international subset of scientists on the novel risks, benefits, and ethical implications of epigenome editing in contrast with classic genome editing. The fourth panelist, a bioethicist and legal scholar with expertise in policy for new omic technologies, will address ethical and policy challenges created by advanced computational techniques that predict genotypes from non-genomic omic data and will touch on ethical and policy questions associated with the potential for multi-omics to yield more and different kinds of sensitive information than genomics alone. An interactive discussion will follow the panel eliciting audience feedback on key priorities in ELSI research beyond the genome.

Keywords: ELSI, omics