Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

Author(s):Show less -

Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songul ^{[1, 2, 3]} ; Anthony, David ^{[4, 5]} ; Babiker, Hiba ^[6] ; Banffy, Eszter ^[7] ; Booth, Thomas ^[8] ; Capone, Patricia ^[9] ; Deshpande-Mukherjee, Arati ^[10] ; Eisenmann, Stefanie ^{[6, 11]} ; Fehren-Schmitz, Lars ^{[12, 13]} ; Frachetti, Michael ^[14] ; Fujita, Ricardo ^[15] ; Frieman, Catherine J. ^[16] ; Fu, Qiaomei ^[17] ; Gibbon, Victoria ^[3] ; Haak, Wolfgang ^[6] ; Hajdinjak, Mateja ^[8] ; Hofmann, Kerstin P. ^[7] ; Holguin, Brian ^[18] ; Inomata, Takeshi ^[19] ; Kanzawa-Kiriyama, Hideaki ^[20] ; Keegan, William ^[21] ; Kelso, Janet ^[11] ; Krause, Johannes ^[11] ; Kumaresan, Ganesan ^[22] ; Kusimba, Chapurukha ^[23] ; Kusimba, Sibel ^[23] ; Lalueza-Fox, Carles ^[24] ; Llamas, Bastien ^{[25, 26, 27]} ; MacEachern, Scott ^[28] ; Mallick, Swapan ^{[29, 1, 30]} ; Matsumura, Hirofumi ^[31] ; Morales-Arce, Ana Y. ^[32] ; Matuzeviciute, Giedre Motuzaite ^{[33, 34]} ; Mushrif-Tripathy, Veena ^[10] ; Nakatsuka, Nathan ^[1] ; Nores, Rodrigo ^[35] ; Ogola, Christine ^[36] ; Okumura, Mercedes ^[37] ; Patterson, Nick ^{[29, 4]} ; Pinhasi, Ron ^{[2, 38]} ; Prasad, Samayamantri P. R. ^[39] ; Prendergast, Mary E. ^{[39, 40]} ; Punzo, Jose Luis ^[41] ; Reich, David ^{[29, 1, 4, 30]} ; Sawafuji, Rikai ^[42] ; Sawchuk, Elizabeth ^{[43, 44]} ; Schiffels, Stephan ^{[6, 11]} ; Sedig, Jakob ^{[1, 4]} ; Shnaider, Svetlana ^[45] ; Sirak, Kendra ^{[1, 4]} ; Skoglund, Pontus ^[8] ; Slon, Viviane ^{[46, 47, 48]} ; Snow, Meradeth ^[49] ; Soressi, Marie ^[50] ; Spriggs, Matthew ^{[16, 51]} ; Stockhammer, Philipp W. ^{[11, 52]} ; Szecsenyi-Nagy, Anna ^[53] ; Thangaraj, Kumarasamy ^{[39, 54]} ; Tiesler, Vera ^[55] ; Tobler, Ray ^{[23, 25, 26]} ; Wang, Chuan-Chao ^{[56, 57, 58]} ; Warinner, Christina ^{[11, 59]} ; Yasawardene, Surangi ^[60] ; Zahir, Muhammad ^{[6, 61]}

Affiliation:Show less -

^[1] Harvard Med Sch, Dept Genet, Boston, MA 02115 - USA

^[2] Univ Vienna, Dept Evolutionary Anthropol, Vienna - Austria

^[3] Univ Cape Town, Dept Human Biol, Div Clin Anat & Biol Anthropol, Cape Town - South Africa

^[4] Harvard Univ, Dept Human Evolutionary Biol, Cambridge, MA 02138 - USA

^[5] Hartwick Coll, Dept Anthropol, Oneonta, NY 13820 - USA

^[6] Max Planck Inst Sci Human Hist, Jena - Germany

^[7] German Archaeol Inst, Romano German Commiss, Frankfurt - Germany

^[8] Francis Crick Inst, London - England

^[9] Harvard Univ, Peabody Museum Archaeol & Ethnol, Cambridge, MA 02138 - USA

^[10] Deccan Coll Post Grad & Res Inst, Dept Ancient Indian Hist Culture & Archaeol, Pune, Maharashtra - India

^[11] Max Planck Inst Evolutionary Anthropol, Leipzig - Germany

^[12] Univ Calif Santa Cruz, UCSC Genom Inst, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 - USA

^[13] Univ Calif Santa Cruz, Dept Anthropol, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 - USA

^[14] Washington Univ, Dept Anthropol, St Louis, MO 63130 - USA

^[15] Univ San Martin Porres, Fac Med, Ctr Genet & Biol Mol, Lima - Peru

^[16] Australian Natl Univ, Sch Archaeol & Anthropol, Canberra, ACT - Australia

^[17] Chinese Acad Sci, Ctr Excellence Life & Paleoenvironm, Inst Vertebrate Paleontol & Paleoanthropol, Key Lab Vertebrate Evolut & Human Origins, Beijing - Peoples R China

^[18] Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Dept Anthropol, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 - USA

^[19] Univ Arizona, Sch Anthropol, Tucson, AZ - USA

^[20] Natl Museum Nat & Sci, Ibaraki - Japan

^[21] Florida Museum Nat Hist, Gainesville, FL - USA

^[22] Madurai Kamaraj Univ, Sch Biol Sci, Dept Genet, Madurai, Tamil Nadu - India

^[23] Univ S Florida, Dept Anthropol, Tampa, FL 33620 - USA

^[24] CSIC UPF, Inst Evolutionary Biol, Barcelona - Spain

^[25] Univ Adelaide, Sch Biol Sci, Australian Ctr Ancient DNA, Adelaide, SA - Australia

^[26] Univ Adelaide, Inst Environm, Adelaide, SA - Australia

^[27] Univ Adelaide, ARC Ctr Excellence Australian Biodivers & Heritag, Adelaide, SA - Australia

^[28] Duke Kunshan Univ, Off Chancellors, Suzhou, Jiangsu - Peoples R China

^[29] Broad Inst MIT & Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142 - USA

^[30] Howard Hughes Med Inst, Boston, MA 02115 - USA

^[31] Sapporo Med Univ, Sch Hlth Sci, Sapporo, Hokkaido - Japan

^[32] Univ Bern, Inst Ecol & Evolut, Bern - Switzerland

^[33] Vilnius Univ, Lithuanian Inst Hist, Vilnius - Lithuania

^[34] Vilnius Univ, Dept Archaeol, Hist Fac, Vilnius - Lithuania

^[35] Univ Nacl Cordoba, Inst Antropol Cordoba IDACOR, CONICET, Dept Antropol, Fac Filosofia & Humanidades, Cordoba - Argentina

^[36] Natl Museums Kenya, Earth Sci Dept, Nairobi - Kenya

^[37] Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Genet & Evolutionary Biol, Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[38] Univ Vienna, Human Evolut & Archaeol Sci, Vienna - Austria

^[39] DBT Ctr DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnost, Hyderabad - India

^[40] Rice Univ, Dept Anthropol, Houston, TX 77005 - USA

^[41] Inst Nacl Antropol & Hist, Morelia, Michoacan - Mexico

^[42] Grad Univ Adv Studies SOKENDAI, Sch Adv Sci, Sagamihara, Kanagawa - Japan

^[43] Univ Alberta, Dept Anthropol, Edmonton, AB - Canada

^[44] SUNY Stony Brook, Dept Anthropol, Stony Brook, NY 11794 - USA

^[45] CNRS IAET SB RAS Int Res Lab, ArchaeoZOOl Siberia & Cent Asia ZooSCAn, Novosibirsk - Russia

^[46] Tel Aviv Univ, Sackler Fac Med, Dept Anat & Anthropol, Tel Aviv - Israel

^[47] Tel Aviv Univ, Sackler Fac Med, Dept Human Mol Genet & Biochem, Tel Aviv - Israel

^[48] Tel Aviv Univ, Dan David Ctr Human Evolut & Biohist Res, Tel Aviv - Israel

^[49] Univ Montana, Dept Anthropol, Missoula, MO - USA

^[50] Leiden Univ, Fac Archaeol, Leiden - Netherlands

^[51] Vanuatu Cultural Ctr, Port Vila - Vanuatu

^[52] Ludwig Maximilians Univ Munchen, Inst Pre & Protohist Archaeol & Archaeol Roman Pr, Munich - Germany

^[53] Eotvos Lorand Res Network, Res Ctr Humanities, Inst Archaeogenom, Budapest - Hungary

^[54] CSIR Ctr Cellular & Mol Biol, Hyderabad - India

^[55] Univ Autonoma Yucatan, Sch Anthropol Sci, Merida - Mexico

^[56] Xiamen Univ, State Key Lab Cellular Stress Biol, Sch Sociol & Anthropol, Dept Anthropol & Ethnol, Inst Anthropol, Sch Life S, Xiamen - Peoples R China

^[57] Zhejiang Univ, Sch Med, Sch Basic Med Sci, Hangzhou - Peoples R China

^[58] Zhejiang Univ, Inst Asian Civilizat, Hangzhou - Peoples R China

^[59] Harvard Univ, Dept Anthropol, Cambridge, MA 02138 - USA

^[60] Univ Sri Jayewardenepura, Dept Anat, Nugegoda - Sri Lanka

^[61] Hazara Univ, Dept Archaeol, Mansehra - Pakistan

• Document type: Review article
• Source: Nature; v. 599, n. 7883 OCT 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 3

Abstract

We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward. In this Perspective, a group representing a range of stakeholders makes the case for a set of five proposed globally applicable ethical guidelines for ancient human DNA research. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/23282-5 - Change and continuity in prehistoric human groups from Ribeira de Iguape Valley (São Paulo and Paraná): applying evolutionary theory to bioarchaeology and material culture
• Grantee: Maria Mercedes Martinez Okumura
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants