Event Details

Title of talk: "Our DNA is Your Property? Reconfiguring Ethics in Genome Research"

Like the human and medical sciences of earlier centuries, progress in human genetics has depended on access to biological materials from those who are poorer and socially less powerful than the scientists who study them.

Professor TallBear is co-Principal Investigator on a multi-university project, "Genomics, Governance, and Indigenous Peoples." She will discuss her work and that of colleagues globally--geneticists, indigenes, science policy experts, and social scientists--to make genome science less about scientific control and ownership of the biological materials and data taken from others, and more about collaboration. Indigenous peoples' needs and values are often labeled as in conflict with modern science. But done in a "power sharing" mode, the social benefits of genome research do not have to bypass indigenous peoples and other vulnerable subjects. There are also indications that collaborative science is more rigorous science.

Kim TallBear is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the ways in which genomics is co-constituted with ideas of race and indigeneity. She also studies the role of science and technology in U.S. tribal governance. She has a book, Native American DNA: Origins, Ethics, and Governance, forthcoming with the University of Minnesota Press.