Does South Africa allow heritable human genome editing?

The research ethics guidelines were updated in May, but the news became more widely known last month. Currently, no country explicitly allows heritable human genome editing in clinical settings. It is not clear to what extent South Africa’s scientific community was consulted on the changes.

Who funded stem cell research in South Africa?

This work was funded by the South African Medical Research Council (Extramural Unit for Stem Cell Research and Therapy) and the University of Pretoria through the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine. CLH, MA and MSP all contributed equally to the concept, preparation and editing of the paper. Correspondence to Michael Sean Pepper.

Is cell therapy a viable treatment option in South Africa?

Cell therapy in South Africa is presently limited to HSCT; however, even this treatment modality has significant challenges, one of the most important being lack of suitable donors, particularly for patients of African and mixed-race ancestry .

Are CAR T-cells a problem in South Africa?

This problem is of course not unique to South Africa. Two Indian biotech companies are developing CAR T-cells at a goal price reduction of nearly tenfold compared to current prices. The intended model is to decentralise the service and make use of local manufacturing and engineering expertise .