Legislation governing pluripotent stem cells in South Africa

dc.contributor.authorPepper, Michael Sean
dc.contributor.authorGouveia, C.
dc.contributor.authorNothling-Slabbert, Melodie
dc.contributor.emailmichael.pepper@up.ac.zaen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-03T11:32:49Z
dc.date.available2015-12-03T11:32:49Z
dc.date.issued2015-04
dc.description.abstractOne of the most exciting areas of medical research involves the use of stem cells for the treatment of patients with a variety of diseases and for tissue repair. Although stem cell research is accelerating rapidly in many countries, it has in the past been limited in South Africa (SA); very little has been done in this country to explore the great potential offered by stem cells to address the high disease burden. Stem cell therapy has however been practised for many years, in SA and worldwide, in the form of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, mainly for haematological malignancies. From a therapeutic perspective, two types of stem cells can be defined: pluripotent stem cells and adult stem cells. Pluripotent cells derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts (either from in vitro fertilisation or following somatic cell nuclear transfer) are called embryonic stem (ES) cells, while those derived by reprogramming adult cells are called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Adult stem cells include haematopoietic, mesenchymal and neural stem cells. The purpose of this article is to critically examine the SA legislation with regard to elements that impact on pluripotent stem cell research and the use of pluripotent stem cells for therapeutic purposes. This includes (but is not limited to) legislation from the National Health Act (Chapter 8 in particular) and its regulations, and deals with matters related to research on embryos in the stem cell context, somatic cell nuclear transfer, reproductive and therapeutic cloning and the generation and therapeutic use of iPS and ES cells.en_ZA
dc.description.librarianam2015en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipThe Medical Research Council of South Africa in terms of the MRC’s Flagships Awards Project SAMRC-RFA-UFSP-01-2013/STEM CELLSen_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.sajbl.org.zaen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationPepper, MS, Gouveia, C & Nothling-Slabbert, M 2015, 'Legislation governing pluripotent stem cells in South Africa', South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, vol. 8, no. 2, sp. 1, pp. 23-31.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn1999-7639
dc.identifier.other10.7196/SAJBL.8402
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/51049
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherHealth and Medical Publishing Groupen_ZA
dc.rights© 2015 Health and Medical Publishing Group. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license.en_ZA
dc.subjectMedical researchen_ZA
dc.subjectStem cellsen_ZA
dc.subjectPatientsen_ZA
dc.subjectTreatmenten_ZA
dc.subjectSouth Africa (SA)en_ZA
dc.titleLegislation governing pluripotent stem cells in South Africaen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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