Consent on the Continent: Technologies of Inclusion in Global Health Genomics

Stanford Professor Duana Fullwiley will present on her resaerch into the large-scale genomic databases that provide DNA and tissues from many different global populations increasingly provide valuable sources of medical, pharmaceutical and forensic information. The resultant products, discoveries and raw materials hold the promise for numerous innovations. These possibilities, in turn, raise issues of who profits from DNA databases and on what scale. How will benefits be shared, and do individuals, families and populations truly understand what can be done with DNA in the genomic age?  Lastly, how has the prospect of genomics in one’s country made scientists and everyday people feel obliged to please funders’ requests for “broad consent” to reuse African biospecimens—and thus participate in a form of global health that may reproduce racialized hierarchies of colonial power dynamics?  This lecture is part of the Center for African Studies: Producing Knowledge in and of Africa series.