It is noteworthy, then, that an impressive number of papers and panels in the Congress focused on aspects of a powerful shift that seems to be accompanying the genomic revolution and concomitant attempts to move research toward personalized medicine as quickly as possible. The issue of providing to research participants individual “results” related to the aims of a study, or even findings that were uncovered “incidentally,” has become increasingly controversial, generating heated debates regarding the norms and the justifications for relaxing the strict boundary between research and treatment.10 Far from receding as an issue largely settled by better conceptual clarity about the goals of clinical research, the work presented at the Congress demonstrated that the blurriness of the boundary between research and treatment has only been increased by the advent of genomic tools and methods, in several respects.
