Crowd-sourcing my reading list

I am finalizing a new course for this upcoming semester that is focused on personal genomics. The class aims to simultaneously address two questions:

What can personal genomic data tell us?
What do we do with that information?

The course is an upper-level seminar, and I am hoping to incorporate personal genotype testing as a pedagogical element in the course using 23andme (which is why weeks 12-14 are blank in the syllabus). What I am interested in right now, though, is feedback on my reading list, pasted below. I have limited the course to just two books–Misha Angrist’s “Here lies a human being,” and Thomas Goetz’s “The Decision Tree”–but I am going pretty heavy on additional reading ranging from news reports, blogs, anthropological and medical texts. What am I missing? What should I change?

SYLLABUS (subject to change)

Week 1: (Jan. 28-Feb. 1) Introduction
Tuesday – How does genetic knowledge alter what it means to be human?
Friday – Your genes are not your own: genetics, kinship and family history

Readings:
• Goetz, chapters 1-2 (1-49)
• Angrist, chapter 1 (1-9)
• Ashley, et al. (2010), “Clinical assessment incorporating a personal genome, ” The Lancet 375:1525-1535
• Guttmacher, et al. (2004), “The family history—more important than ever,” The New England Journal of Medicine 351(22):2333-2336

Week 2: (Feb. 4-8): Background Genetics
Tuesday – Genetics 101 and 201: How do genes shape phenotypic variability?
Friday – Genetics 301: Genes, environment and determinism

Readings:
• Goetz, chapters 3-5 (50-115)
• Buchanan, “Why does genetic determinism persist, in spite of the evidence?” – http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-does-genetic-determinism-persist-in.html

Week 3: (Feb. 11-15): Genomics and Consent
Tuesday – The scope of genomic information
Friday – What constitutes consent?

Readings:
• Goetz, chapters 6-7 (116-168)
• Angrist, chapters 2-3 (10-53)
• Harmon, “Indian Tribe wins fight to limit research of its DNA, “NY Times 4/21/10 – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22dna.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&_r=0
• Vorhaus, “The Havasupai Indians and the Challenge of Informed Consent for Genomic Research” – Genomics Law Report – http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2010/04/21/the-havasupai-indians-and-the-challenge-of-informed-consent-for-genomic-research/#more-3201
• 23andMe consent document – https://www.23andme.com/about/consent/

Week 4: (Feb. 18-22): Legal genetics
Tuesday – (NO CLASS, MONDAY SCHEDULE)
Friday – Legal issues surrounding the use and control of genetic data

Readings:
• Angrist, chapter 4 (54-77)
• Feero, et al. (2011), “Genomics, health care, and society,” The New England Journal of Medicine 365(11):1033-1041
• Wright, “Responsible and effective use of personal genomes” – Genomes Unzipped http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2011/06/responsible-and-effective-use-of-personal-genomes.php#more-3620
• Conley & Vorhaus, “Supreme court to rule on patentability of human genes” – Genomics Law Report – http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2012/11/30/supreme-court-to-rule-on-patentability-of-human-genes/#more-6923 (click through to earlier links!)

Week 5: (Feb. 25-March 1): Prediction, risk and uncertainty
Tuesday – Probability theory and hazard ratios
Friday – Pleiotropy, penetrance, polygenic traits and effect size

Readings:
• Angrist, chapters 5-8 (99-168)
• Wiszmeg, et al. (2012), “Difficult questions and ambivalent answers on genetic testing, “ Culture Unbound-Journal of Current Cultural Research 4:463-480
• Cooper & Shendure (2011), “Needles in stacks of needles: Finding disease-causal variants in a wealth of genomic data” Nature Reviews Genetics 12:628-640

Week 6: (March 4-8): Human genomics, case study #1 – Genetic ancestry
Tuesday – Who are your ancestors? Single-system ancestry estimates
Friday – Whole genome ancestry estimation and challenges

Readings:
• Angrist, chapter 9-10 (169-221)
• Plagnol, “Exaggerations and errors in the promotion of genetic ancestry testing,” Genomes Unzipped – http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2012/12/exaggerations-and-errors-in-the-promotion-of-genetic-ancestry-testing.php
• Bolnick, et al. (2007), “The science and business of genetic ancestry testing,” Science 318(5849):399-400

Week 7 (March 11-15): Human genomics, case study #2 – Huntington’s Disease
Tuesday – Genetic epidemiology of Huntington Disease
Friday – Certain diagnosis, uncertain future

Readings:
• Goetz, chapters 9-10 (191-242)
• Block & Hayden (1990), “Predictive testing for Huntington’s Disease in childhood: challenges and implications” American journal of human genetics 46(1):1-4
• Cox & McKellin (1999), “There’s this thing in our family: predictive testing and the construction of risk for Huntington Disease” Sociology of Health & Illness 21(5):622-646.

Week 8 (March 18-22): SPRING BREAK – No Class

Week 9 (March 25-29): Human genomics, case study #3 – BRCA1, BRCA2 and breast cancer
Tuesday – The functional and epidemiological role of BRCA1 and BRCA2
Friday – Preventative medical intervention

Readings:
• Ellisen, et al. (1998), “Hereditary breast cancer” Annual review of medicine 49(1):425-436
• Finkler (2004), “Illusions of controlling the future: risk and genetic inheritance,” Anthropology & Medicine 10(1):51-70.
• Schwartz, et al. (2011) “Long-term outcomes of BRCA1/BRCA2 testing: risk reduction and surveillance” Cancer 118(2):510-517
• Werner-Lin, et al. (2012) “My funky genetics: BRCA1/2 mutation carriers’ understanding of genetic inheritance and reproductive merger in the context of new reprogenetic technologies” Families, Systems & Health 30(2):166-180

Week 10 (April 1-5): Human genomics, case study #4 –ApoE, heart disease and Alzheimer’s
Tuesday, April 2 – The ApoE gene cluster and variants
Friday, April 5 – ApoE and Alzheimer’s

Readings:
• Angrist, chapters 12-13, epilogue (239-284)
• Chilibeck, et al. (2011), “Postgenomics, uncertain futures, and the familiarization of susceptibility genes,” Social Science & Medicine 72(11)1768-1775
• Lock (2006), “Living with uncertainty: The genetics of late onset Alzheimer’s Disease” General Anthropology 13(2):1-9

Week 11 (April 8-12): Personal Genomics, week 1
Tuesday – An introduction to the discussion of personal genomic data
Friday – Personal genomic project work day (no class – AAPA conference)

Readings:
• Callier (2012) “Swabbing students: should universities be allowed to facilitate educational DNA testing?” American Journal of Bioethics 12(4):32-40.
• Hughes, “It’s Time To Stop Obsessing About the Dangers of Genetic Information” Slate (1/7/2013) – http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/01/ethics_of_genetic_information_whole_genome_sequencing_is_here_and_we_need.single.html
• Dunsworth (2012), “Your genome is showing” (video) – http://fora.tv/2012/11/29/Your_Genome_is_Showing_Human_Origins_Gets_Personal (California Academy of Sciences)

Week 12 (April 15-19): Personal Genomics, week 2
Tuesday – Topic, TBD
Friday – Topic, TBD

Readings:
• TBD

Week 13 (April 22-26): Personal Genomics, week 3
Tuesday – Topic, TBD
Friday – Topic, TBD

Readings:
• TBD

Week 14 (April 29-May3): Personal Genomics, week 4
Tuesday – Topic, TBD
Friday – Topic, TBD

Readings:
• TBD

Week 15 (May 6-10): Conclusions
Tuesday – The ethics and practice of personal genomics

Readings:
• Kolor, et al. (2012) “Public awareness and use of direct-to-consumer personal genomic tests from four state population-based surveys, and implications for clinical and public health practice.” Genetics in Medicine 14:860-867

About Adam Van Arsdale

I am biological anthropologist with a specialization in paleoanthropology. My research focuses on the pattern of evolutionary change in humans over the past two million years, with an emphasis on the early evolution and dispersal of our genus, Homo. My work spans a number of areas including comparative anatomy, genetics and demography.
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One Response to Crowd-sourcing my reading list

  1. Looks like a great class!

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