title: A code of ethics for evidence-based research with ancient human remains.
abstract: As clinical research constantly advances and the concept of evolution becomes a strong and influential part of basic medical research, the absence of a discourse that deals with the use of ancient human remains in evidence-based research is becoming unbearable. While topics such as exhibition and excavation of human remains are established ethical fields of discourse, when faced with instrumentalization of ancient human remains for research (i.e., ancient DNA extractions for disease marker analyses) the answers from traditional ethics or even more practical fields of bio-ethics or more specific biomedical ethics are rare to non-existent. The Centre for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich solved their needs for discursive action through the writing of a self-given code of ethics which was written in dialogue with the researchers at the Institute and was published online in Sept. 2011: http://evolutionäremedizin.ch/coe/. The philosophico-ethical basis for this a code of conduct and ethics and the methods are published in this article.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, Zürich, 8057, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bettina M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Kreissl Lonfat
authors.affiliation: Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, Zürich, 8057, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ina Maria
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Kaufmann
authors.affiliation: Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, Zürich, 8057, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rühli
mesh_terms: D032781:Codes of Ethics; D032984:Ethics, Research; D006801:Humans; D009106:Mummies
keywords: human remains; medical ethics; personal rights; research ethics