Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg; David Anthony; Hiba Babiker; Eszter Bánffy; Thomas Booth; Patricia Capone; Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee; Stefanie Eisenmann; Lars Fehren-Schmitz; Michael Frachetti; Ricardo Fujita; Catherine J. Frieman; Qiaomei Fu; Victoria Gibbon; Wolfgang Haak; Mateja Hajdinjak; Kerstin P. Hofmann; Brian Holguin; Takeshi Inomata; Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama; William Keegan; Janet Kelso; Johannes Krause; Ganesan Kumaresan; Chapurukha Kusimba; Sibel Kusimba; Carles Lalueza-Fox; Bastien Llamas; Scott MacEachern; Swapan Mallick; Hirofumi Matsumura; Ana Y. Morales-Arce; Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute; Veena Mushrif-Tripathy; Nathan Nakatsuka; Rodrigo Nores; Christine Ogola; Mercedes Okumura; Nick Patterson; Ron Pinhasi; Samayamantri P.R. Prasad; Mary E. Prendergast; Jose Luis Punzo; David Reich; Rikai Sawafuji; Elizabeth Sawchuk; Stephan Schiffels; Jakob Sedig; Svetlana Shnaider; Kendra Sirak; Pontus Skoglund; Viviane Slon; Meradeth Snow; Marie Soressi; Matthew Spriggs; Philipp W. Stockhammer; Anna Szécsényi-Nagy; Kumarasamy Thangaraj; Vera Tiesler; Ray Tobler; Chuan Chao Wang; Christina Warinner; Surangi Yasawardene; Muhammad Zahir

doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg
, David Anthony
, Hiba Babiker
, Eszter Bánffy
, Thomas Booth
, Patricia Capone
, Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee
, Stefanie Eisenmann
, Lars Fehren-Schmitz
, Michael Frachetti
, Ricardo Fujita
, Catherine J. Frieman
, Qiaomei Fu
, Victoria Gibbon
, Wolfgang Haak
, Mateja Hajdinjak
, Kerstin P. Hofmann
, Brian Holguin
, Takeshi Inomata
, Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama

William Keegan, Janet Kelso, Johannes Krause, Ganesan Kumaresan, Chapurukha Kusimba, Sibel Kusimba, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Bastien Llamas, Scott MacEachern, Swapan Mallick, Hirofumi Matsumura, Ana Y. Morales-Arce, Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, Veena Mushrif-Tripathy, Nathan Nakatsuka, Rodrigo Nores, Christine Ogola, Mercedes Okumura, Nick Patterson, Ron Pinhasi, Samayamantri P.R. Prasad, Mary E. Prendergast, Jose Luis Punzo, David Reich, Rikai Sawafuji, Elizabeth Sawchuk, Stephan Schiffels, Jakob Sedig, Svetlana Shnaider, Kendra Sirak, Pontus Skoglund, Viviane Slon, Meradeth Snow, Marie Soressi, Matthew Spriggs, Philipp W. Stockhammer, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Vera Tiesler, Ray Tobler, Chuan Chao Wang, Christina Warinner, Surangi Yasawardene, Muhammad Zahir

Anthropology

Harvard University
University of Vienna
Hartwick College
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
German Archaeological Institute
The Francis Crick Institute
Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
University of California at Santa Cruz
Washington University St. Louis
Universidad de San Martín de Porres
Australian National University
CAS - Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
University of Cape Town
University of California at Santa Barbara
University of Arizona
National Museum of Nature and Science
University of Florida
Madurai Kamaraj University
University of South Florida
Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (UPF-CSIC)
Adelaide University
Duke Kunshan University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Broad Institute
Sapporo Medical University
University of Bern
Vilnius University
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
National Museums of Kenya
Universidade de São Paulo
Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics
Rice University
Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies
University of Alberta
Stony Brook University
ArchaeoZOOlogy in Siberia and Central Asia
Tel Aviv University
Leiden University
Vanuatu Cultural Centre
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Research Centre for the Humanities
CSIR - Centre for Cellular Molecular Biology
Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan
Xiamen University
Zhejiang University
University of Sri Jayewardenepura
Hazara University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

103 Scopus citations

Abstract

We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	41-46
Number of pages	6
Journal	Nature
Volume	599
Issue number	7883
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x
State	Published - Nov 4 2021

Funding

Acknowledgements The participants in the workshop on ancient DNA ethics who are authors thank many colleagues who improved this article through discussions and critical comments. To ensure open access, the authors have applied a CC BY licence to any accepted manuscript arising from this submission. C.J.F. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP160100811. V.G. acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation (NRF) South Africa; opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and are not necessarily attributed to the NRF. M.O. acknowledges support from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico grant 302163/2017-4 and from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo grant 2018/23282-5. P.S. acknowledges Francis Crick Institute core funding (FC001595) from Cancer Research UK, the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. V.S. acknowledges funding from the Alon Fellowship. M. Soressi acknowledges support from Dutch Research council grant VI.C.191.070. A.S.-N. acknowledges the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. K.T. was supported by a J. C. Bose Fellowship (JCB/2019/000027), SERB and CSIR, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. C.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC-2017-StG 804844-DAIRYCULTURES) and the Werner Siemens Stiftung. The authors from Harvard Medical School acknowledge support from the John Templeton Foundation (6122) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The authors from MPI Leipzig and MPI Jena are funded by the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean. R.N., E.S., J.S., K.S., V.T., and J.L.P. acknowledge support from the National Geographic Society.

Funders	Funder number
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
6122
National Geographic Society
Wellcome Trust
The Francis Crick Institute	FC001595
844014
Medical Research Council
Cancer Registry of Norway Institute of Population-Based Cancer Research
ERC-2017-StG 804844-DAIRYCULTURES
Australian Research Council	DP160100811
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India
2018/23282-5
VI.C.191.070
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico	302163/2017-4
JCB/2019/000027

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10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

Cite this

Alpaslan-Roodenberg, S., Anthony, D., Babiker, H., Bánffy, E., Booth, T., Capone, P., Deshpande-Mukherjee, A., Eisenmann, S., Fehren-Schmitz, L., Frachetti, M., Fujita, R., Frieman, C. J., Fu, Q., Gibbon, V., Haak, W., Hajdinjak, M., Hofmann, K. P., Holguin, B., Inomata, T., ... Zahir, M. (2021). Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines. Nature, 599(7883), 41-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

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title = "Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines",

abstract = "We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward.",

author = "Song{\"u}l Alpaslan-Roodenberg and David Anthony and Hiba Babiker and Eszter B{\'a}nffy and Thomas Booth and Patricia Capone and Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee and Stefanie Eisenmann and Lars Fehren-Schmitz and Michael Frachetti and Ricardo Fujita and Frieman, \{Catherine J.\} and Qiaomei Fu and Victoria Gibbon and Wolfgang Haak and Mateja Hajdinjak and Hofmann, \{Kerstin P.\} and Brian Holguin and Takeshi Inomata and Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama and William Keegan and Janet Kelso and Johannes Krause and Ganesan Kumaresan and Chapurukha Kusimba and Sibel Kusimba and Carles Lalueza-Fox and Bastien Llamas and Scott MacEachern and Swapan Mallick and Hirofumi Matsumura and Morales-Arce, \{Ana Y.\} and Matuzeviciute, \{Giedre Motuzaite\} and Veena Mushrif-Tripathy and Nathan Nakatsuka and Rodrigo Nores and Christine Ogola and Mercedes Okumura and Nick Patterson and Ron Pinhasi and Prasad, \{Samayamantri P.R.\} and Prendergast, \{Mary E.\} and Punzo, \{Jose Luis\} and David Reich and Rikai Sawafuji and Elizabeth Sawchuk and Stephan Schiffels and Jakob Sedig and Svetlana Shnaider and Kendra Sirak and Pontus Skoglund and Viviane Slon and Meradeth Snow and Marie Soressi and Matthew Spriggs and Stockhammer, \{Philipp W.\} and Anna Sz{\'e}cs{\'e}nyi-Nagy and Kumarasamy Thangaraj and Vera Tiesler and Ray Tobler and Wang, \{Chuan Chao\} and Christina Warinner and Surangi Yasawardene and Muhammad Zahir",

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Alpaslan-Roodenberg, S, Anthony, D, Babiker, H, Bánffy, E, Booth, T, Capone, P, Deshpande-Mukherjee, A, Eisenmann, S, Fehren-Schmitz, L, Frachetti, M, Fujita, R, Frieman, CJ, Fu, Q, Gibbon, V, Haak, W, Hajdinjak, M, Hofmann, KP, Holguin, B, Inomata, T, Kanzawa-Kiriyama, H, Keegan, W, Kelso, J, Krause, J, Kumaresan, G, Kusimba, C, Kusimba, S, Lalueza-Fox, C, Llamas, B, MacEachern, S, Mallick, S, Matsumura, H, Morales-Arce, AY, Matuzeviciute, GM, Mushrif-Tripathy, V, Nakatsuka, N, Nores, R, Ogola, C, Okumura, M, Patterson, N, Pinhasi, R, Prasad, SPR, Prendergast, ME, Punzo, JL, Reich, D, Sawafuji, R, Sawchuk, E, Schiffels, S, Sedig, J, Shnaider, S, Sirak, K, Skoglund, P, Slon, V, Snow, M, Soressi, M, Spriggs, M, Stockhammer, PW, Szécsényi-Nagy, A, Thangaraj, K, Tiesler, V, Tobler, R, Wang, CC, Warinner, C, Yasawardene, S & Zahir, M 2021, 'Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines', Nature, vol. 599, no. 7883, pp. 41-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethics of DNA research on human remains

T2 - five globally applicable guidelines

AU - Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül

AU - Anthony, David

AU - Babiker, Hiba

AU - Bánffy, Eszter

AU - Booth, Thomas

AU - Capone, Patricia

AU - Deshpande-Mukherjee, Arati

AU - Eisenmann, Stefanie

AU - Fehren-Schmitz, Lars

AU - Frachetti, Michael

AU - Fujita, Ricardo

AU - Frieman, Catherine J.

AU - Fu, Qiaomei

AU - Gibbon, Victoria

AU - Haak, Wolfgang

AU - Hajdinjak, Mateja

AU - Hofmann, Kerstin P.

AU - Holguin, Brian

AU - Inomata, Takeshi

AU - Kanzawa-Kiriyama, Hideaki

AU - Keegan, William

AU - Kelso, Janet

AU - Krause, Johannes

AU - Kumaresan, Ganesan

AU - Kusimba, Chapurukha

AU - Kusimba, Sibel

AU - Lalueza-Fox, Carles

AU - Llamas, Bastien

AU - MacEachern, Scott

AU - Mallick, Swapan

AU - Matsumura, Hirofumi

AU - Morales-Arce, Ana Y.

AU - Matuzeviciute, Giedre Motuzaite

AU - Mushrif-Tripathy, Veena

AU - Nakatsuka, Nathan

AU - Nores, Rodrigo

AU - Ogola, Christine

AU - Okumura, Mercedes

AU - Patterson, Nick

AU - Pinhasi, Ron

AU - Prasad, Samayamantri P.R.

AU - Prendergast, Mary E.

AU - Punzo, Jose Luis

AU - Reich, David

AU - Sawafuji, Rikai

AU - Sawchuk, Elizabeth

AU - Schiffels, Stephan

AU - Sedig, Jakob

AU - Shnaider, Svetlana

AU - Sirak, Kendra

AU - Skoglund, Pontus

AU - Slon, Viviane

AU - Snow, Meradeth

AU - Soressi, Marie

AU - Spriggs, Matthew

AU - Stockhammer, Philipp W.

AU - Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna

AU - Thangaraj, Kumarasamy

AU - Tiesler, Vera

AU - Tobler, Ray

AU - Wang, Chuan Chao

AU - Warinner, Christina

AU - Yasawardene, Surangi

AU - Zahir, Muhammad

PY - 2021/11/4

Y1 - 2021/11/4

N2 - We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward.

AB - We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward.

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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

M3 - Review article

C2 - 34671160

AN - SCOPUS:85117503496

SN - 0028-0836

VL - 599

SP - 41

EP - 46

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

IS - 7883

ER -

Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

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