The recent upsurge of interest in the co-articulation of biopolitical and bioethical entanglements underpin both a concern for the putatively temporal thresholds of human life and the very conception of a bounded humanity itself.

There are a number of reasons, in my view, why people should not, as a general principle, be recognised as having proprietary rights in their own body, body parts and tissue. This paper commences with some of the arguments against recognising such rights then examines in more detail the arguments that have been put forward in favour of recognising them. In relation to the latter, counter-arguments are put to each argument. In my view, the counter-arguments outweigh the arguments. This leads to my conclusion that the law should not recognise proprietary rights in bodies, body parts or tissue in favour of the people from whom they came, though proprietary rights may arise in favour of a third person, by principles that I suggest in the paper.

This article examines cases in which courts have recognised a limited exception to the ‘no property in human tissue’ rule. In ‘Jonathan Yearworth and others v North Bristol NHS Trust (Yearworth)’, the Court of Appeal for England and Wales accepted that men who had deposited their semen for freezing before undertaking cancer treatment ‘owned’ the semen for the purposes of a claim in negligence because it was deposited solely for their benefit and that constituted a bailment.

The Neanderthal diet has been much debated, with evidence for a meat-rich diet conflicting with evidence from tooth wear that suggests more varied fare. Laura Weyrich and colleagues sequenced DNA from the dental calculus of five Neanderthal individuals from across Europe to provide a genetic reconstruction of their diet and health. They found that a Neanderthal from Spy in Belgium dined on rhinoceros and mutton, whereas another, from El Sidrón in Spain, ate pine nuts, moss and mushrooms. Their results also suggest that the Spanish Neanderthal had a dental abscess and a stomach bug that they were self-medicating with poplar, a natural painkiller, and the antibiotic-producing Penicillium bacteria. The team also uncovered the oldest microbial genome to date, that of Methanobrevibacter oralis at 48,000 years old.

This article first considers the tenuous base on which the law of property in the body is founded, and then discusses the practical results of this in the light of the recent furose surrounding events at Bristol and Alder Hey. The authors suggest that neither the consent-based model followed by the official inquiries into these events nor a possible policy based on a full-blown property model adequately cover the private rights of an individual's next of kin or the right of the public to an efficient and reliable pathological service within the NHS. Rather, they propose that a combined model in which a 'cascade of possession' for the recognition of various property interests is initiated by assent on the part of the next of kin and terminates in full possession of the body vested in the executor for the purposes of its disposal. The authors recommend further that any reform of the law should apply property rights to body parts taken from both the living and the dead.

The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project dishes up a hearty banquet of data that illuminate the roles of the functional elements of the human genome. Here, six scientists describe the project and discuss how the data are influencing research directions across many fields.

Chemists in Denmark have for the first time imaged chemical reactions on a DNA origami scaffold so that they can precisely attach single molecules

Biomedical research is being transformed through the application of information technologies that allow ever greater amounts of data to be shared on an unprecedented scale. However, the methods for involving participants have not kept pace with changes in research capability. In an era when information is shared digitally at the global level, mechanisms of informed consent remain static, paper-based and organised around national boundaries and legal frameworks.

For more than five decades the blood of thousands of Indigenous Australians was held without consent at a major university. Now, their descendants are reclaiming their DNA.

Bi-directional transplacental trafficking occurs routinely during the course of normal pregnancy, from fetus to mother and from mother to fetus.

Patients have extensive experience of their disease that can enhance the design and execution of research leading to significant innovations and efficiencies in the research process. The research community on the whole have been slow to adopt practices that enable patients to become active partners in research. Digital technologies are providing the means to do this more easily and so are increasingly being used to interact with patients and involve them in the design and execution of research. The RUDY (Rare UK Diseases of bone, joints and blood vessels) study’s pioneering approach applies a custom-developed electronic platform where patients can contribute information over time about their disease experience, lifestyle and clinical history.

Ethnic minorities set to miss out on medical benefits of research, scientist warns

This article invokes the anthropological concept of ‘liminality’ (the quality of in-between-ness) to suggest deeper ways of understanding ongoing challenges in delivering acceptable and effective regulation of research involving human participants. It argues that health research is a liminal process and that we fail to treat it as such. This requires a rethink of corollary regulation also in processual terms. The article calls for a radical reimagining of regulatory space to accommodate and promote ‘liminal regulatory spaces.’

Geneticists have begun using old bones to make sweeping claims about the distant past. But their revisions to the human story are making some scholars of prehistory uneasy.

The main value of genomics is you can integrate data rapidly to look for emerging outbreaks, detect them early, and respond to them.

This case examined whether a British law requiring the consent of both genetic parents to the implantation of embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) is consistent with Articles 2, 8, and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This case specifically determined whether a British woman could, over her former boyfriend's objections, use frozen embryos that she had created with him to impregnate herself after losing her ovaries to cancer.

In the mid-20th century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for conceptions of time and life by drawing on empirical research with scientists associated with a large collection of samples assembled from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s.

When conducting research with Indigenous populations consent should be sought from both individual participants and the local community. We aimed to search and summarise the literature about methods for seeking consent for research with Indigenous populations.

The funeral home is your last chance to preserve DNA.

Kraken is an ultrafast and highly accurate program for assigning taxonomic labels to metagenomic DNA sequences. Previous programs designed for this task have been relatively slow and computationally expensive, forcing researchers to use faster abundance estimation programs, which only classify small subsets of metagenomic data.

Trace evidence such as touch (also known as contact) DNA has probative value as a vital forensic investigative tool that can lead to the identification and apprehension of a criminal. While the volume of touch DNA evidence items submitted to forensic laboratories has significantly increased, recovery and amplification of DNA from these items, especially from metal surfaces, remains challenging.

Liquid-liquid phase separation drives the formation of membrane-less organelles such as P granules and the nucleolus. Brangwynne explains how this process works and its important role in normal cell function and disease.

Liquid-liquid phase separation drives the formation of membrane-less organelles such as P granules and the nucleolus. Brangwynne explains how this process works and its important role in normal cell function and disease.

The importance of commensal microbes for human health is increasingly recognized, yet the impacts of evolutionary changes in human diet and culture on commensal microbiota remain almost unknown.

We can find out about our ancestry or our risk of disease through our unique DNA - but do you know who has a right to access and use that information?

The Genome Aggregation Database is a resource developed by an international coalition of investigators, with the goal of aggregating and harmonising both exome and genome sequencing data from a wide variety of large-scale sequencing projects, and making summary data available for the wider scientific community.

The Claimant alleges that the particular circumstances of her case mean that the Defendants owed her a duty of care. She says it was critical that she should be informed of her father's diagnosis, firstly presumed and subsequently confirmed, in the light of her pregnancy. This was her first and only child. It was all along known that she would be a single mother with sole responsibility for the upbringing of the child. If informed of her father's diagnosis she would have sought to be tested for Huntington's Disease. If her own diagnosis was confirmed, she would have terminated the pregnancy rather than run the risk that her child might in due course be dependent on a seriously ill single parent or become an orphan, and the risk that in due course her child might inherit the disease. Her diagnosis would have precluded any subsequent pregnancy. The claim therefore includes a "wrongful birth" claim in respect of the child. The child has an accepted risk of 50 per cent of contracting the disease, but it is not yet possible to reach a diagnosis in her case, one way or another.

We all share our genetic make up with relatives, and Anneke Lucassen argues that we should also share ownership of the results of DNA analysis. Angus Clarke believes, however, that in most cases the knowledge can be considered private

The population history of Aboriginal Australians remains largely uncharacterized. Here we generate high-coverage genomes for 83 Aboriginal Australians (speakers of Pama–Nyungan languages) and 25 Papuans from the New Guinea Highlands. We find that Papuan and Aboriginal Australian ancestors diversified 25–40 thousand years ago (kya), suggesting pre-Holocene population structure in the ancient continent of Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania). However, all of the studied Aboriginal Australians descend from a single founding population that differentiated ~10–32 kya.

This article explores the possibility of returning raw, uninterpreted DNA sequence data to research participants who donate their DNA for genomic research. The article argues that when direct to consumer genomics services become more widely available (and can be endorsed by independent health professionals and genomic researchers alike), the return of such raw data could become a realistic proposition. Attitudes of over 7000 members of the public, genomic researchers, genetic health professionals and non-genetic health professionals were surveyed to explore what they might do with their own raw genomic data, if given access to it.

Many Aboriginal Australians would say with conviction that they have always been here. Their ancestors and traditional learnings tell them of this history, and their precise place within it. Our review of the scientific evidence, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that for all practical purposes, this is indeed the case.

This Australian Research Council funded and award winning project was established in 2014 in an effort to collaborate with Australian Indigenous communities to reconstruct their genetic history via ground-breaking research.

This report considers the human rights implications of the use of the genetic information of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia, and the adequacy of levels of protection at the time the report was written. The report details the racial biases embedded in human genome research and projects such as the Human Genome Project, and argues that legislation is necessary to provide adequate protection for the genetic information of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Are transgenic humans art creatures? What do engineered mutant human body plans say about flesh technology? Are we techno-evolving to be more efficient, glamorous or enigmatic? What about the aesthetics of corny, crunchy and cheesy? If we speak of Assisted Reproductive Technology as Art (ARTArt) in terms of Inherited Genetic Modification of the Human Genome (IGM), then Bioart can help us choose contemporary pathways for human genome bending. Human germline gene editing is a time-based, new media, live body-performance, art and science production that is explored in this artist's talk.

In “The Nuclear Family” genetic differences between human beings from different groups are represented using DNA microarrays.

In Immortality for two the author and her collaborator (her partner) will immortalise each other immune cells.

The Cactus Project (2002- ) is a collaborative bio-art project resulting in cactis expressing human hair. As a transgenic work, it entails the transfer of genetic material from one specie to another, in this case, the insertion of keratin genes into the cactus genome.

How humans' aesthetic perceptions have shaped other life forms, from racehorses to ornamental plants.

The Art and Genetics Bibliography includes (1) writings that directly explore the area of overlap between art and genetics; (2) catalogs and studies of art with genetic dimensions, for example Dutch flower painting, and ecological art; (3) studies of domestication, and histories of plants and animals kept for aesthetic pleasure, such as pets; (4) writings about aesthetic criteria used in plant and animal selection; (5) explorations of the biophilia hypothesis; and (6) science-fiction accounts of genetic art.

Genetic art, or art that involves DNA, includes a bewildering diversity of works.

This year’s STARTS PRIZE recipients come from Japan and Switzerland. “I’m Humanity” garnered the Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration for Etsuko Yakushimaru; the Grand Prize for Innovative Collaboration goes to Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH–Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT for their “Rock Print” installation.

“The Mirror of Faith” is bio-art project, meant to provoke critical public dialogue about genetic research, exposing some issues this technology and its political and commercial promotion creates.

“Make Do and Mend” (2016-17) is artwork created by Anna Dumitriu as part of The FEAT (Future Emerging Art and Technology) residency programme. The piece references the 75th anniversary of the first use of penicillin in a human patient in 1941 and takes the form of an altered antique wartime women’s suit marked with the British Board of Trade’s utility logo CC41, which stands for ‘Controlled Commodity 1941’ meaning that the use of materials has been deemed meet the government’s austerity regulations.

'Drosophila titanus' was a longterm project which through a process of experimentation and artificial selection aimed to develop a species of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster that would be theoretically capable of living on Saturn's largest moon Titan.

Adam Zaretsky is an American Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. In his last contribution of his summer series of speculative texts, he proposes a letter to Lulu and Nana, the controversial “CRISPR babies” born in November 2018.

Adam Zaretsky is an American Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. Makery invites him for a summer series of speculative texts based on his own artistic practice and the ethical and philosophical questions he raises regarding contemporary biotechnological research.

USF’s Institute for Research in Art (Contemporary Art Museum and Graphicstudio), and the Office of Research, held an open competition for art and design to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA.

DNA has revolutionised criminal investigations with many cases now solved through DNA evidence linking perpetrators to crimes. But how reliable is DNA evidence and do those in the justice system understand it enough? Insight also looks at the public genealogy websites Police could soon be accessing to help solve crimes. Producer: Jodie Noyce Associate Producer: Louise Malik, Lisa Ryan

Paul Vanouse is an artist working in emerging media forms. Radical interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his practice.

Paraspeckles are ribonucleoprotein bodies found in the interchromatin space of mammalian cell nuclei. These structures play a role in regulating the expression of certain genes in differentiated cells by nuclear retention of RNA.

Established in 1989, NHGRI collaborates with the scientific and medical communities to catalyze genomic breakthroughs and supports the robust study and treatment of specific diseases with our colleagues at NIH. In this uniquely collaborative organization, everyone is focused on contributing to high-impact research and helping to apply new discoveries to the study of human health.

Transgenic works and other living pieces

Callum Siegmund is an emerging biotechnological artist who dedicated the past 4 years studying neuroscience and skeletal muscle tissue engineering, learning the language of science with the end goal to produce biotechnological artworks.

Touch DNA, also known as Trace DNA, is a forensic method for analysing DNA left at the scene of a crime.

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite.

Long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs) (also known as long interspersed nucleotide elements or long interspersed elements) are a group of non-LTR (long terminal repeat) retrotransposons that are widespread in the genome of many eukaryotes. They make up around 21.1% of the human genome.

Police can take samples from people charged with, or suspected of, committing a serious offence that carries a statutory penalty of 12 months or more, regardless of the actual sentence imposed.

Misleading rhetoric has fuelled the belief that our genetic code is an ‘instruction book’ – but it’s far more interesting than that

Genetic selection for intelligence has hit the market – and proper regulation has become more critical than ever.

The creation of two monkeys brings the science of human cloning closer to reality. But that doesn’t mean it will happen.

Kathy Niakan’s application to use a new gene-editing technique on embryos is controversial because we lack a clear moral framework for such science.

Fingerprints… is the first volume of the Ernst Schering Foundation’s Publication Series dedicated to selected projects at the interface of art and science. The biomedia installations of Paul Vanouse challenge the codes and images of contemporary molecular biology. In four theoretical essays, criminologist Simon A. Cole, science historian Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, curator Jens Hauser and the artist himself reflect upon the criticism of genomics inherent in the installations of “Fingerprints…” from an aesthetic, political and techno-philosophical angle.

The Relative Velocity Inscription Device (RVID) is a live scientific experiment using the DNA of a multi-racial family of Jamaican descent.

Fifty years ago, as scientists attempted the first experiments in genetic engineering, other researchers sounded the alarm. Matthew Cobb talks to the founders of the GM age.

UK scientist says gene-drive study rendering female insects infertile may lead to ‘self destruct mosquito’ field tests within 10 years.

Five years after his daughter's disappearance, Danish police officer Rolf discovers a fatal flaw in the DNA database and might finally be able to find her.

In the age of global biotechnology, DNA can exist as biological material in a test tube, as a sequence in a computer database, and as economically valuable information in a patent. In The Global Genome, Eugene Thacker asks us to consider the relationship of these three entities and argues that—by their existence and their interrelationships—they are fundamentally redefining the notion of biological life itself.

WEHI.TV explains discoveries at the frontier of medical research through accurate and entertaining 3D animation. Explore our library of animations, images and GIFs or filter your search by topic.

DNA Zoo is a watershed initiative, leading the world in rapid generation and release of high-quality genomic resources. DNA Zoo Australia at The University of Western Australia is the Australian node of the global project.

Photograph 51 is a play by Anna Ziegler. Photograph 51 opened in the West End of London in September 2015. The play focuses on the often-overlooked role of X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA while working at King's College London.