Present situation and trend of ethical governance in life sciences

3 Problems and challenges of ethical governance of life sciences in our country

1. The life science ethics legislation is relatively backward and difficult to play a restrictive role in a timely manner

Laws and regulations are mandatory tools for the government to govern the ethics of science and technology, and have the function of rigid constraints. After nearly 30 years of development, China has successively issued departmental rules on ethical governance in the field of life sciences, such as the Guiding Principles for Ethical Research on Human Embryonic Stem Cells, the Measures for Ethical Review of Biomedical Research Involving Humans, and the Measures for Ethical Review of Life Sciences and Medical Research Involving Humans (draft for Comment). Relevant ethical norms have gradually been written into the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Biosafety, the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and other upper laws, but the interdisciplinary nature of life science frontier determines that relevant new technologies and new problems are emerging in an endless way. For example, the ethical issues involved in emerging fields such as synthetic biology and artificial intelligence are complex, while China's existing ethical governance laws and regulations are relatively backward, unable to resolve risks and contradictions in a timely manner, and are mostly in the "post-loss" stage, showing weak enforcement, laws and regulations are not applicable and other practical problems.

2. The regulatory role of the institutional ethics committee is not in place, and there is a lack of manpower and funds

Under the background of China's construction of the "National Science and Technology Ethics Committee", at present, key universities have established their own science and technology ethics committees, and carried out targeted supervision in the fields of human science and technology ethics and experimental animal ethics. However, compared with the United States and some European countries, the importance of ethical review in the establishment and development of science and technology projects in the field of life science in our country has not been fully recognized, there is a lack of specialized personnel and fund allocation, and there are part-time personnel and review is only a formality.