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Lola Nayar in New Delhi
India would soon have an ethics policy for all genomic research, even as most developed nations are still debating on the controversial issue, a senior official said on Friday.
The National Ethics Committee, which has been has been working for over one year, is in the final stages of formulating an ethical policy for all genomic studies, said V K Vinayak, advisor to department of biotechnology.
"This would include cloning, stem cell research and gene therapy," he said.
Scientists believe that embryonic stem cell research and other studies on the genome could lead to effective therapies to treat diseases such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart ailments and even cancer.
Embryonic stem cells, they added, could also be used to understand basic biology and evaluate the safety and efficacy of new medicines.
India is among a dozen countries, including the US, Australia, Israel and Sweden, which are undertaking embryonic stem cell research.
The decision to spell out an ethics policy comes close on the heels of US President George W Bush permitting limited embryonic stem cell research with federal funding.
According to Vinayak, only basic work has been initiated in India in this area and no clinical applications have been undertaken thus far.
He explained that for embryonic stem cell research, scientists need foetuses -- which posed no problem because abortion is legal in India.
"Aborted foetuses are available here in plenty but no research is being done as there are ethics involved, including taking permission of parents," he said.
"As such India has been using only adult stem cells for research," he added.
Among the major programmes that have already been initiated in India is stem cell research on mice by the National Brain Research Centre at Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi.
At the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, tissues taken from the eye are being grown for research. The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, also in the same city, would be undertaking stem cell research in collaboration with a corporate body, tipped to be Reliance Industries, which has set up the Reliance Biotechnology Group.
While Reliance is still guarded about its plans on the biotechnology front, industry sources said, "stem cell research could well be one of the initiatives, which would be taken up."
According to official sources, three other projects were in the pipeline and awaiting clearance by the biotechnology department.
Even though India has ruled out human cloning, a lot of research work is, nevertheless, on in the area of genomic research.
Officials said while India faces a shortage of trained manpower to undertake such research, the US faces lack of right material for such projects, as also an unending debate over ethics of abortions.
Indo-Asian News Service
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