Jennifer Fairman, CMI, FAMI and Associate Professor, was an invited panelist at the National Institutes of Health during the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Gene-Environment Interaction Research Workshop held January 11 and 12, 2022. She shared advice on best practices for visually communicating science and report-back data for GxE.
This jointly supported NIEHS/NHGRI virtual workshop was meant to explore ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) in research endeavors related to gene-environment interaction (GxE) and genetic susceptibility to environmental exposures. For the purposes of this workshop, GxE research refers broadly to studies exploring the varying effect of an environmental exposure (s) depending on genetic background of an individual or the stimulation of a gene variant (s) to cause disease or dysfunction only under certain environmental conditions. As funding for more biomedical and behavioral research to explore those interactions increases, potentially novel ELSI issues are rapidly emerging.
The panel discussed the complexities of communication and reporting back of environmental, genetic & omic data – including the use of visualization, making decisions, and biomarker interpretation.
