Ethical, legal, and social considerations in conducting the Human Microbiome Project

Abstract

The early days of the genomic revolution-from the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA in 1975 to the founding of the Human Genome Project in 1990-were marked by awareness among researchers, government officials, and policy makers that emerging scientific knowledge raised a host of ethical, legal, and social challenges. Scientists now undertaking research on the human microbiome-including those engaged in the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) latest Roadmap initiative, the Human Microbiome Project (HMP)-confront a similarly uncharted ethical landscape. Not only does the conduct of human microbiome research raise important ethical considerations, but the longterm implications of the HMP also present the possibility of fundamental shifts in understandings of human life and health.