Health
Genomics provides opportunities for individual screening, so that people can be informed of the risk they run of hereditary diseases. Expectations are that, within the space of a few years, it will be possible to screen the entire genome of an individual for less than € 1,000. In other words, soon everybody can learn how high their risks are of contracting diseases such as diabetes or cancer. While offering unique opportunities for prevention, it also raises a large number of questions. What are the consequences for health care and preventive medicine? How do you ensure that people deal responsibly with the screening results? And what to do with genetic information on the risk of diseases that are determined to a large extent by lifestyle and environment? How, ultimately, do these new breakthroughs in screening contribute to individual health?
Current projects
-
Between uncertainty and catastrophe: Viral genomics as an imaginative science
How can genomics contribute to the management and control of viral threats?
-
Genetic susceptibility, family history and prevention
What is the opinion on genetic testing and familiy history as risk factor and how do people use this genetic information about multifactorial diseases?
-
Newborn screening: Outcomes of mixed blessing
What questions can arise as a consequence of the fact that newborn screening may results in outcomes other than initially intended?
-
Neonatal screening and beyond
How will genetic tests for ethnicity-related risks develop and how should formal screening be organized?
-
An individual interpretation of prenatal testing: Yes or no?
Ethical implications of decisions on the objective and extent of prenatal screening.
-
Promise and risks genomics to prevent antisocial behavior
What are the standards for genomics to be used as a means for prevention of antisocial behavior?
-
Genomics in health care: new forms of innovation
What sort of development is genomics going through in health care compared to clinical genetics?
-
Future scenarios of innovation processes in medical genomics
What will health care look like when it is influenced by genomics?
-
Use of predictive medicine
How can the government make responsible use of advancements in health tests?
-
Mental illness, genomics and society
What are the consequences of developments in psychogenomics for our perspective of mental illness?
Completed projects
-
Sport, genetics and prevention
What are the possibilities of genomics in sport, and what are the ethical consequences?
-
Reshaping criteria for screening in the age of genomics
What are the dynamics of the development and use of screening criteria in order to anticipate possible changes in the screening landscape as a consequence of genomics?
-
Community genetics
Interactive scenario study of developments in the field of community genetics
-
Genetics of alcoholism
To what extent is alcoholism an heritable disorder? If so, what are the moral implications?
-
Food and Health: changing government arrangements
What policy recommendations for the governance of genomics-based convergence processes in the Dutch food and health care sectors can be given?
-
The benefits and risks of cancer genomics
How new genomics-related technologies affect the perception and handling of cancer risks by patients, doctors, nurses and the public.