Section on heritable human genome editing withdrawn from the National Health Research Ethics Council Guidelines

Authors

  • S Mahomed Department of Jurisprudence, School of Law, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
  • M Ramsay Department of Jurisprudence, School of Law, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
  • M Pepper SAMRC Extramural Unit on Stem Cell Research and Therapy, and Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa
  • J de Vries The EthicsLab, University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • E Flack-Davison Research Legal, Compliance and Integrity, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7196/SAMJ.2025.v115i7.3967

Keywords:

NHREC Guidelines; heritable human genome editing,

Abstract

-

References

1. Ramsay M, Pepper MS, de Vries J, Mahomed S, Flack-Davison E. Heritable human genome editing in South Africa – time for a reality check. S Afr Med J 2025;115(1):e2872. https://doi.org/10.7196/ SAMJ.2025.v115i1.2872

2. Ramsay M, Pepper MS, de Vries J, Mahomed S, Flack-Davison E. Response to: In defence of South Africa’s National Health Research Ethics Council guidelines on heritable human genome editing. S Afr Med J 2025;115(2):e3083. https://doi.org/10.7196/SAMJ.2025.v115i1.2942

3. National Health Research Ethics Council. South African Ethics in Health Research Guidelines – Principles, Processes and Structures. (V3.1). Pretoria: National Department of Health, 2024. SA- Ethics-in-Health-Research-2024.pdf (accessed 25 July 2025).

4. Barrett D, Cannon P, Forte M, Hunt T, Jang Q, Smith D. International call for a 10-year moratorium on heritable human genome editing: A multi-stakeholder initiative to ensure safe and responsible use of genetic technologies May 2025. Cytotherapy 2025;22(8):885-887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jcyt.2025.05.007

5. Caelers D. Scientists call for revision of South Africa’s guidelines on genome engineering. Nature Africa, 14 January 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-025-00006-7 (accessed 25 July 2025).

Downloads

Published

2025-08-01

Issue

Vol. 115 No. 7 (2025)

Section

Correspondence

License

Copyright (c) 2025 S Mahomed, M Ramsay, M Pepper, J de Vries, E Flack-Davison

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Licensing Information

The SAMJ is published under an Attribution-Non Commercial International Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License. Under this license, authors agree to make articles available to users, without permission or fees, for any lawful, non-commercial purpose. Users may read, copy, or re-use published content as long as the author and original place of publication are properly cited. 

Exceptions to this license model is allowed for UKRI and research funded by organisations requiring that research be published open-access without embargo, under a CC-BY licence. As per the journals archiving policy, authors are permitted to self-archive the author-accepted manuscript (AAM) in a repository. 

Publishing Rights

Authors grant the Publisher the exclusive right to publish, display, reproduce and/or distribute the Work in print and electronic format and in any medium known or hereafter developed, including for commercial use. The Author also agrees that the Publisher may retain in print or electronic format more than one copy of the Work for the purpose of preservation, security and back-up.

 

How to Cite

1.
Mahomed S, Ramsay M, Pepper M, de Vries J, Flack-Davison E. Section on heritable human genome editing withdrawn from the National Health Research Ethics Council Guidelines. S Afr Med J [Internet]. 2025 Aug. 1 [cited 2025 Oct. 29];115(7):e3967. Available from: https://www.samajournals.co.za/index.php/samj/article/view/3967