Global guidelines and ethics for ancient DNA research presented in new paper
View(s):The University of Sri Jayewardenepura has helped to prepare global guidelines and ethics in ancient DNA research.
According to new guidelines outlined in a paper co-authored by Senior Professor Surangi Yasawardene from the Department of Anatomy at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, geneticists and archaeologists studying ancient DNA should engage with stakeholders in the places where they conduct research, minimise damage to human remains and share their data.
DNA research has exploded in scale over the last decade, according to Prof. Yasawardene and one of the authors of the open access paper, “Ethics of DNA Research on Human Remains: Five Globally Applicable Guidelines.”
“When researchers sample ancient human remains, they must do everything they can to minimise damage, and once their research is complete they must make their data available to other scientists for replication purposes. This will prevent the unnecessary destruction of remains for similar or duplicate studies and allow researchers to independently confirm the results of previous work,” the paper said.
Finally, the guidelines say researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure their perspectives are respected.
“Stakeholders are people who are connected to the ancient individuals, whether as descendants, curators, researchers or other invested individuals,” the paper added.
“Using this approach, we will be able to better understand our shared origins as a species, and to seek answers to all kinds of important questions – about things like migration, marriage, diet and more. It is our hope that these guidelines will help researchers make decisions that respect both the living and the deceased, while advancing research that is revealing new insights about the past.
Human ancient DNA research requires using a small piece of bone or tooth to generate genetic data. From this small piece we can learn a lot about an individual’s ancestry, but the practice itself is sensitive because it involves destructive techniques,” Prof. Yasawardene said.
The advantage of this new paper is that researchers from around the globe, despite their different regional complexities, have agreed on a set of principles, as a starting point and a commitment in the discipline towards improving the ethical foundations of the discipline.
“My colleagues and I believe that the set of guidelines we have created are strong and universally applicable. We have committed to applying them in our own work,” Prof. Yasawardene said.
“The on-going research collaboration between the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Dr. David Reich’s research group at Harvard University, is strictly adhering to the proposed guidelines from the start of the research collaboration,” she added.