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Journalism of Courage
Guidelines finalised by the Indian Council of Medical Research-Department of Biotechnology ICMR-DBT on stem cell research and therapy in the country, after almost two years of nationwide deliberations, suggest a seperate mechanism for review and monitoring of the research at the Central level and a ban on research where germ cells ova and sperms can be created by genetic engineering and reproductive cloning.
The guidelines, printed for the first time, will be sent to the government for adoption, following which all private and public institutions in the country would be obliged to abide by them. 8220;We are technical experts but we are not the government. If the government adopts these guidelines, then they will be the law,8221; said Dr N K Ganguly, Director General, ICMR. If adopted by the Centre, this would be the first of its kind law to govern stem cell research in the country and institutions not following the guidelines would be penalised. The adoption is likely to be completed by early 2007.
A committee, the National Apex Committee for Stem Cell Research and Therapy, has been proposed that would function as the nodal body where all institutions and researchers, working on human stem cells, would be required to register. The researchers will then have to take prior approval of the committee on their projects.
The guidelines also propose that all established cell lines should be registered with the committee. The committee should also know the source of these cell lines 8212; whether they are imported or created in India. ICMR-DBT has also proposed setting up of committees at the institutional level which would forward all approval requests for projects.
