For many years, the UK has utilised a National DNA database. This is a powerful tool in crime-fighting but is ethically controversial. The recent US Supreme Court decision (Maryland v King) rehearses some of these issues in an American context (see various posts on the Stanford Law and Biosciences blog for further reflection on the ramifications of the Supreme Court case).
The following video, which included an interview with DNA fingerprinting pioneer Sir Alec Jeffreys, was produced by second year students at the University of Leicester.
Users of Bioethicsbytes interested in teaching about the ethics of DNA databases might also be interested the following posts:
- Forensic Use of Bioinformation (Reflections on Nuffield Council of Bioethics resources on the topic)
- A second student-authored video on Forensic Uses of DNA
- Our extended commentary on Give us your DNA (TV documentary)
BioethicsBytes 