Ethics in Expanding Precision Medicine to Population Health

Dear Colleagues,

The promise of precision medicine has its origins in population health science, founded on inferences made possible by risk stratification. Thirty years after the Human Genome Project, advances in genomics are creating new opportunities to enhance the health of populations around the world, ranging from primary care screening to infection control and prevention. These applications of genomics to public health also raise a number of attendant social and ethical challenges. For example, the expansion of newborn screening has the ability to provide families with years of improved quality of life, but raises concerns about the adequacy of an already strained public health infrastructure; gene-editing holds the possibility of precision disease eradication, but cannot escape the shadow of eugenics; and while response to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the power of genomics to improve infectious disease monitoring, inequities in the distribution of healthcare resources across nations may limit the potential benefit of these emerging technologies.

This Special Issue will examine ethical, social and legal implications of the population-level translation of genetics and genomics. The Guest Editors welcome contributions from any discipline relevant to genomics or public health, and encourage submissions that examine issues of justice in the application of genomic tools to public health. Of particular interest are articles that advance the ELSI field to address neglected issues at the population level. Authors from LMIC and/or scholars working outside academic medical centers are encouraged to contact the Guest Editors regarding the possibility of a waiver of standard publication fees.

Prof. Dr. Richard Sharp
Dr. Karen Meagher
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Personalized Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.