In this special two-part episode, Zoe Weaver, a Psychology student at the University of the West of England and our 2020 Summer intern, unravels some of the privacy concerns raised by the Blackstone group’s recent acquisition of genealogy provider, Ancestry.com. 

Zoe’s guests are Phil Booth, co-ordinator of MedConfidential, and Dr Laura Sobola, Senior Consultant at Unai and one of the Health Tech stream leads at the 2020 conference. 

In this first episode, Zoe focuses on the privacy concerns raised by genetic testing sites, and other ethical issues that they raise, such as the virtual erosion of family secrets. Together with her guests, she explores issues of informed consent in genetic research, and the the flaws of familial DNA matching. 

In the second episode, Zoe will delve more deeply in the laws surrounding genetic data, and the promises and pitfalls of precision medicine.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Music credit: James Thompson.