Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz

The concept of genomic privacy has recently become important due to the rise of sequencing services, which can inform people about their ancestry or genetic predispositions to health disorders. However, it is unclear what concerns people may have about data privacy. A new grant, awarded by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), aims to understand these concerns. The $35,000 grant will be used over the course of 18 months, with the option to renew for another 12 months.

Genomic technologies have the power to transform individual healthcare for the better. But with that power comes responsibility—the responsibility to protect the privacy of the individual and to make ethical choices that respect the rights of communities and populations.