Our DNA is everywhere, but why is that a problem?
Water, sand, air. We’re leaving our DNA behind wherever we go, and it’s a growing concern. This is what a research team at the University of Florida has found after analysing genetic samples collected from the environment in the United States and Ireland.
Shedding DNA
The researchers took samples from oceans and rivers in urban and rural areas, sand from secluded beaches, as well as from sites near and far from human habitation. Results showed that signs of human life were everywhere, except for isolated islands and remote mountaintops. They also gathered air samples from a veterinary hospital. The DNA matched the personnel, animal patients and common animal viruses. The findings were published in the journal ‘Nature Ecology & Evolution’(opens in new window). “All this very personal, ancestral and health related data is freely available in the environment and is simply floating around in the air right now,” zoologist David Duffy, a professor of wildlife disease genomics at the University of Florida who led the research, told ‘CNN’(opens in new window). “We’ve been consistently surprised throughout this project at how much human DNA we find and the quality of that DNA,” Prof. Duffy commented in a University of Florida news item(opens in new window). “In most cases the quality is almost equivalent to if you took a sample from a person.”
Dilemmas and implications
Sampling this environmental DNA, or eDNA, has many benefits, from tracing cancer mutations in wastewater to assisting criminal forensics. However, the researchers indicated that there are potential ethical and privacy concerns in capturing eDNA, as well as unintended consequences. They are calling for regulations to be established for eDNA research. “It’s standard in science to make these sequences publicly available. But that also means if you don’t screen out human information, anyone can come along and harvest this information,” Prof. Duffy explained. “That raises issues around consent. Do you need to get consent to take those samples? Or institute some controls to remove human information?” He further elaborated: “Any time we make a technological advance, there are beneficial things that the technology can be used for and concerning things that the technology can be used for. It’s no different here. These are issues we are trying to raise early so policy makers and society have time to develop regulations.” “We need a political discussion of expectations of privacy in the public space, in particular for DNA. We cannot avoid shedding DNA in the public space,” Prof. Yves Moreau from the University of Leuven, Belgium, who studies AI and genetics, told ‘CNN’. “We should however not panic, and I am always afraid of precautions that would make research grind to a halt. It is a delicate balance to find.”