Admixture, ancestry and breast cancer in Brazil: an ethnographic investigation of population genetics, disease risk and identity as the basis for a critical bio-ethics. (360G-Wellcome-084128_Z_07_Z)

The proposed 5 year project examines the ways in which novel scientific efforts to identify and characterise human genetic difference are informing and being influenced by cultural or historical narratives and practices of identity. The Latin American region will be taken as an exemplary case for elucidating the means by which the scientific and social content and context of ancestry and so called genetic admixture are being co-produced . It will focus on admixture mapping initiatives aiming to describe and characterise the variable risk of developing or being a carrier of two different diseases (breast cancer and sickle cell anaemia) in the contrasting regions of Brazil and Argentina. In extending a fledgling body of empirically informed social science research examining the interface between population genetics and different publics the project aims to meet the challenge of using knowledge of human genetic variation for medical interventions in non Euro-American contexts and the urg ent need to more productively align social science and bio-ethics. The study is collaboratively linked to health care institutes in Latin America and long standing expertise in medical/population genetics at UCL, with its strong and growing focus on global health, bio-ethics and issues of distributive justice.