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Commentary

Nature 437, 27-29 (1 September 2005) | doi:10.1038/437027a; Published online 31 August 2005

Open Innovation Challenges

The ethics of research on great apes

Pascal Gagneux1, James J. Moore2 & Ajit Varki3

  1. Pascal Gagneux is at Conservation and Research for Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego, San Diego, California, USA
  2. James J. Moore is in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
  3. Ajit Varki is in the Department of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.

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In the wake of the chimpanzee genome publication, Pascal Gagneux, James J. Moore and Ajit Varki consider the ethical and scientific challenges for scientists who work on captive great apes.

Publication of the draft sequence of the chimpanzee genome is an exciting event; it opens the door to learning a great deal about our closest evolutionary cousins — and about ourselves in the process. But unlike the human genome project, the chimpanzee sequencing effort was not accompanied by studies addressing ethical, legal and social issues1.

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