This supplement application is requesting to extend the project period by 12 months to allow for the productive closeout of the Johns Hopkins University Center of Excellence in ELSI Research, Bridging Infectious Diseases, Genomics & Society (BRIDGES). Project Summary Considerable attention needs to be paid to the ethical, legal, social implications (ELSI)?for individuals, groups or the larger society?of using genomic information in the management of infectious disease. Our CEER (Bridging Infectious Disease, Genomics & Society ? BRIDGES1) was designed to examine the ethical, legal, social, historical and policy issues confronting the incorporation of genomics in the prevention, outbreak control, and treatment of a range of infectious diseases. Our transdisciplinary research plan was organized around three discrete but related program areas, each of which included one pilot project. In Program Area 1 (Implications for Research), the pilot project addressed the impact of research on genetic variation in HIV and HCV transmission in cohorts of at-risk urban populations. In Program Area 2, (Implications for Public Health Policy), the pilot project analyzed the role and impact of advances in ?vaccinomics? for informing population-based prevention. In Program Area 3 (Implications for Clinical Practice), the pilot project assessed the application of genomics in the clinical management of acute, high consequence infectious diseases. We also included a robust career development plan. Our research and education plans were designed to inform and influence the future research agenda?even as the science is still developing?so that the benefits of genomic applications to infectious disease are maximized while potential harms to individuals and populations are minimized. One of the observations emerging from our pilot work is that there are a growing number of examples of ?genetic diseases? with an infectious component, and of ?infectious diseases? with a genetic component. Increasingly, genomics informs how we think about infections, and microbes/pathogens influence the phenotypic expression of genetic variation. At the same time that our understanding of the science is evolving, advances in data sciences, molecular epidemiology and gene editing technologies, and more importantly their uses together, require a reassessment of categories of technologies and how the technologies are regulated and used. These shifting boundaries - between infectious disease and genetic disease, and between uses of emerging technologies - are creating an important and, as yet, understudied area of inquiry. In this administrative supplement, we propose to close out the work undertaken during BRIDGES1, leverage the infrastructure and relationships built in BRIDGES1 to address the current pandemic, and generate research ideas for future grant proposals that will ensure the sustainability of the work we began under BRIDGES1. To ensure the sustainability of the work undertaken as part of BRIDGES1, will create a ?Research Collaboratory? to identify emerging issues and craft research and policy agendas that account for the implications of fluid boundaries between areas of science in the development and application of emerging technologies. In addition, we will continue and build on the robust career development plan that we began in BRIDGES1. Trainees will participate in BRIDGES-related education and scholarship. Our research and education plans are designed to more deeply inform and influence the future research and policy agenda at the increasingly critical intersection of ethics, genomics and infectious disease.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed administrative supplement is intended to close out the work undertaken during BRIDGES1 and generate research ideas for future grant proposals that will ensure the sustainability of the work of our CEER. Specifically, this administrative supplement will support the completion and publication of ongoing research and the initiation of 2 pilot activities that take advantage of the infrastructure and relationships built in BRIDGES1 and are intended to develop a future research agenda focused on the ELSI implications of fluid boundaries between infectious and genetic diseases and across emerging technologies.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
Type
Research Project with Complex Structure (RM1)
Project #
3RM1HG009038-04S1
Application #
10134594
Study Section
Program Officer
Boyer, Joy
Project Start
2016-05-16
Project End
2021-04-30
Budget Start
2020-06-08
Budget End
2021-04-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2020
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Johns Hopkins University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Public Health
DUNS #
001910777
City
Baltimore
State
MD
Country
United States
Zip Code
21205