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Snuffling Up Your DNA, Oops

Started by Recusant, May 16, 2023, 01:22:41 AM

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Recusant

Interesting extrapolations from this. Not entirely ominous.  :maskwink:

"Human DNA is everywhere. That's a boon for science, and an ethical quagmire" | Phys.org

QuoteOn the beach. In the ocean. Traveling along riverways. In muggy Florida and chilly Ireland. Even floating through the air.

We cough, spit, shed and flush our DNA into all of these places and countless more. Signs of human life can be found nearly everywhere, short of isolated islands and remote mountaintops, according to a new University of Florida study.

That ubiquity is both a scientific boon and an ethical dilemma, say the UF researchers who sequenced this widespread DNA. The DNA was of such high quality that the scientists could identify mutations associated with disease and determine the genetic ancestry of nearby populations. They could even match genetic information to individual participants who had volunteered to have their errant DNA recovered.

David Duffy, the UF professor of wildlife disease genomics who led the project, says that ethically handled environmental DNA samples could benefit fields from medicine and environmental science to archaeology and criminal forensics. For example, researchers could track cancer mutations from wastewater or spot undiscovered archaeological sites by checking for hidden human DNA. Or detectives could identify suspects from the DNA floating in the air of a crime scene.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Inadvertent human genomic bycatch and intentional capture raise beneficial applications and ethical concerns with environmental DNA" | Nature Ecology & Evolution

QuoteAbstract:

The field of environmental DNA (eDNA) is advancing rapidly, yet human eDNA applications remain underutilized and underconsidered. Broader adoption of eDNA analysis will produce many well-recognized benefits for pathogen surveillance, biodiversity monitoring, endangered and invasive species detection, and population genetics.

Here we show that deep-sequencing-based eDNA approaches capture genomic information from humans (Homo sapiens) just as readily as that from the intended target species. We term this phenomenon human genetic bycatch (HGB). Additionally, high-quality human eDNA could be intentionally recovered from environmental substrates (water, sand and air), holding promise for beneficial medical, forensic and environmental applications.

However, this also raises ethical dilemmas, from consent, privacy and surveillance to data ownership, requiring further consideration and potentially novel regulation. We present evidence that human eDNA is readily detectable from 'wildlife' environmental samples as human genetic bycatch, demonstrate that identifiable human DNA can be intentionally recovered from human-focused environmental sampling and discuss the translational and ethical implications of such findings.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Asmodean

Well, molest me gently! eDNA? Really? And I suppose what we have inside us would be "internal DNA," thus iDNA?

...I died and went to marketing Hell. A couple of decades ago, I think. :sadnod:

That said though, I agree. There are questions of ownership, privacy and probably a whole host of issues we have not yet thought about that will at one point or another need to be addressed. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean that one cannot pursue the abovementioned avenues of inquiry - just that one would have to pursue them in certain ways and with certain concideration in mind.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.