Advances in science and technology give scholars and institutions new means of undertaking research on historical figures and historical artifacts. Techniques of bio-analysis commonly used in medicine and forensics, such as DNA testing or biochemical assays, are now being applied to answer historical questions. Recent proposals for bio-historical investigations of scientist Albert Einstein, explorer Meriwether Lewis, and presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln have generated scientific, historical, ethical, and legal controversies. The Institute for Science, Law, and Technology (ISLAT) at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Chicago Historical Society (CHS) coordinate a collaborative investigation to develop ethical guidelines for the emerging field of bio-historical research. The project fosters interdisciplinary academic partnerships between specialists in bioethics, science, law, social science, history, and museology. The researchers investigate the reasons bio-analysis has been used, and might be used in the historical context, and the scientific, legal, ethical and social concerns raised by bio-analysis. The project examines pplicable existing guidelines for professional organizations of historians, anthropologists, museum curators, survey researchers, epidemiologists, pathologists, geneticists, forensic scientists, archeologists, and sociologists. They also analyze ethical and legal precedents such as those governing informed consent, privacy, respect for the dead, duties of museum curators, access to information about historical figures, contracts between donors and museums, and access to body tissue. Building on this research, ethical guidelines for bio-historical analysis will be developed for use on tissue samples (such as hair, blood, or bones) from figures of historical interest. Such guidelines are useful to geneticists, chemists, forensic scientists, and others who are requested to test such artifacts; and to foundations, government agencies, and others asked to fund such analyses. The draft guidelines will be posted on the Chicago Historical Society's Internet site, submitted to professional organizations for written comments, and presented at selected conferences for discussion. The principal investigators will incorporate this comprehensive feedback in the final draft of the guidelines that will be published in various academic and professional journals.
