Using genomic technology to rapidly sequence and analyse pathogens has the potential to deliver a robust, evidence-based approach to the challenge of infectious disease management. The successful implementation of such a response is going to require consideration of the associated ethical, legal and social issues.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
An implementation science approach to evaluating pathogen whole genome sequencing in public health
Genome Medicine Open Access 28 July 2021
-
Transparency, trust, and community welfare: towards a precision public health ethics framework for the genomics era
Genome Medicine Open Access 20 November 2020
-
Community perspectives on the benefits and risks of technologically enhanced communicable disease surveillance systems: a report on four community juries
BMC Medical Ethics Open Access 25 April 2020
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$189.00 per year
only $15.75 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Ladner, J. T. et al. Precision epidemiology for infectious disease control. Nat. Med. 25, 206–211 (2019).
Vandamme, A.-M. & Pybus, O. G. Viral phylogeny in court: the unusual case of the Valencian anesthetist. BMC Biol. 11, 83 (2013).
Millar, M. Moral permissibility and responsibility for infection. Public Health Ethics 5, 314–317 (2012).
Gardy, J. L. & Loman, N. J. Towards a genomics-informed, real-time, global pathogen surveillance system. Nat. Rev. Genet. 19, 9 (2017).
Parker, M. & Kingori, P. Good and bad research collaborations: researchers’ views on science and ethics in global health research. PLOS ONE 11, e0163579 (2016).
Parker, M. & Kwiatkowski, D. P. The ethics of sustainable genomic research in Africa. Genome Biol. 17, 44 (2016).
World Health Organization. World Malaria Report 2018 56–57 (WHO, 2018).
Acknowledgements
The authors are supported by a Wellcome Centre Grant (203132/Z/16/Z) and a Wellcome Strategic Award (096527).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
S.B.J. reviewed the literature and wrote the article. M.P. provided substantial contributions to discussions of the content. Both authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Johnson, S.B., Parker, M. The ethics of sequencing infectious disease pathogens for clinical and public health. Nat Rev Genet 20, 313–315 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-019-0109-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-019-0109-3
This article is cited by
-
An implementation science approach to evaluating pathogen whole genome sequencing in public health
Genome Medicine (2021)
-
Community perspectives on the benefits and risks of technologically enhanced communicable disease surveillance systems: a report on four community juries
BMC Medical Ethics (2020)
-
Transparency, trust, and community welfare: towards a precision public health ethics framework for the genomics era
Genome Medicine (2020)
-
A genomic approach to microbiology
Nature Reviews Genetics (2019)