Leila Jamal is a genetic counselor and bioethicist with joint appointments to the National Cancer Institute and the NIH Bioethics Department. Her current research focuses on the ethics of genetic counseling at the end of life. She also conducts research about the uses of genomics in oncology settings and the appropriate scope of persuasion and influence in genomic healthcare. She has an overarching interest in the ethical tradeoffs involved in different models of service delivery for genomic medicine. Dr. Jamal has a master's in genetic counseling and a PhD in bioethics and health policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a past member of the Board of Directors for the National Society of Genetic Counselors and is Ethics Section Editor for the Journal of Genetic Counseling.
Selected Publications
Bonini KE, Smith HS, Bonkowski ES, Berkman BE, Jamal L. Modern Family: An Ethical Justification for System-Led Contact of Relatives Eligible for Cascade Screening in the United States. Public Health Genomics. 2025;28(1):19-33. doi: 10.1159/000541301. Epub 2024 Nov 9. PMID: 39522512.
Schopp EM, Okwara L, Tichnell C, Turriff A, Murray B, Barth AS, Calkins H, Jamal L*, James CA. Patient Perceptions of Emerging Gene Therapies for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. Circ Genom Precis Med. 2024 Dec;17(6):e004759. doi: 10.1161/CIRCGEN.124.004759. Epub 2024 Nov 29. PMID: 39611272; PMCID: PMC11651351.
Platt DM, Blout Zawatsky CL, Christensen KD, Green RC, Hajek C, Hickingbotham MR, Hutchinson AM, LeBlanc JL, Zoltick ES, Jamal L. Primary Care Providers' Experiences With an Active Elective Genetic Testing Program. Health Educ Behav. 2024 Jul 30:10901981241266849. doi: 10.1177/10901981241266849. PMID: 39081055.
Jamal L, May M, Setzer MR, Yu M, Berkman B, Similuk M. Research participants' perspectives about the return of uninformative genomic test results in a clinical research setting. J Genet Couns. 2023 Aug 28. PMID: 37641538; PMCID: PMC10899523.
Jamal L, Schupmann W, Berkman BE. An ethical framework for genetic counseling in the genomic era. J Genet Couns. 2020 Oct;29(5):718-727. doi: 10.1002/jgc4.1207. Epub 2019 Dec 19. PMID: 31856388; PMCID: PMC7302959.
Jamal L, Robinson JO, Christensen KD, Blumenthal-Barby J, Slashinski MJ, Perry DL, Vassy JL, Wycliff J, Green RC, McGuire AL. When bins blur: Patient perspectives on categories of results from clinical whole genome sequencing. AJOB Empir Bioeth. 2017 Apr-Jun;8(2):82-88. PMID: 28949844; PMCID: PMC6647021.