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THE Health Ministry is drafting new regulations on research which combines human cells with animals,
after a high-level bioethics panel recommended that such research be monitored.
It plans to set up what it calls a “robust regulatory framework to ensure that such research operates within boundaries acceptable to society”, it said in a statement yesterday.
Mixing human and animal parts seems like the stuff of science fiction, and there will not be any animal-human hybrids here any time soon.
The top-level Bioethics Advisory Committee in fact supported only two types of human-animal combinations in its report last week.
One is cytoplasmic hybrids, where material from a human stem cell is put into an animal egg to create an embryo for research; and the other involves injecting human stem cells into animals.
Adult stem cells can grow into specialised cell types and act as the body’s repair system, while embryonic
stem cells can be coaxed into becoming a variety of cell types, from bone cells to pancreas ones.
The field has growing implications for the treatment of many diseases, such as diabetes, but there are currently no national regulations which govern it.
In its report, the committee also recommended that a national body be set up to monitor such work, that hybrid embryos not be allowed to develop beyond 14 days, and that animals with human pluripotent
stem cells, which can develop into multiple cell types, be barred from breeding.
The ministry agreed with the committee’s recommendations. It said it would study best practices from overseas and consult the public once the details of its Bill are worked out, likely by next year.
In a blog entry last week, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan had said: “The easiest thing, as a regulator,
is to say “No” to all such pursuits. But we will be missing out on opportunities that can benefit us all.
“In any case, sweeping things under the carpet does not prevent rogue scientists from pushing the
boundary in perverse ways.”
Researchers such as Dr Lim Sai Kiang of the Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) welcomed the Health
Ministry’s move.
Dr Lim, who studies stem cells at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research institute, said regulations
should be in place well before such research happens here, to avoid a “knee-jerk reaction”.
She said that to the best of her knowledge, no IMB researcher is doing such research. And the National University of Singapore (NUS) has not approved any such research, a spokesman said.
Dr Lim added: “The priority here is not a specific type of research, but that whatever research is being
undertaken in Singapore with ESCs (embryonic stem cells) has to be monitored because of ethical
and religious sensitivities they might evoke.
“But at the same time, it’s also important to make sure that it doesn’t cause any unnecessary impediments
to research.”
NUS stem-cell researcher Lee Eng Hin said the proposal to draft a Bill was “timely and meaningful”.
He said that with these very specialised areas of research, hospital institutional review boards cannot
be expected to have the expertise to review such research proposals.
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