Stanford University: CIRGE Symposium May 9, 2008

Capturing Complexity: the Scientific, Societal and Ethical Meanings of “Environment” in Genetics Research

While we have been approaching broad consensus across the academy about accepting the complexity of gene-environment interaction and its influence on human behavior, the actual characterization of that complexity and interaction is still where much work is needed. To foster thought on this
overarching issue, this five-hour symposium was divided into five presentation panels, each followed by a brief discussion; the panels then were summed up in a deliberative discussion to end the event. Topics covered included considerations in measuring the environment, how to tease out the interplay between genes and environments, and ethical and policy implications of gene-environment research. Some specific questions contemplated were:

• What sort of causal relationship exists between genotype, environment and phenotype?
• How can we develop measurements to probe the influence of the environment in specific, meaningful ways?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the current state of genome-wide association studies, and how can environment be incorporated into these studies?
• What implications do gene-environment interaction studies hold for policy?

For more information, please see the symposium website at http://cirge.stanford.edu/environment_genes_2008/