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Tuskegee Syphilis Study
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Japanese Unit 731
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Nazi's experiments
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The Nuremberg Code
The first international code of ethics for research on human subjects -
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The Willowbrook State School experiment
Saul Krugman, Joan Giles, and other researchers intentionally infected mentally disabled children with hepatitis to observe its natural progression. It was approved by the New York Department of Health. -
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Animal righs movement impacts scientific research
1963: US Public Health Service publishes its Guide for the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, requiring research institutions to form Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) to review and oversee animal experiments.
1966: Animal Welfare Act, which protects animals used in research, excluding rodents and birds. Various states adopt or revise animal cruelty laws, which also protect animals used in research.
1975: Peter Singer publishes Animal Liberation. -
Declaration of Helsinki
The World Medical Association published Ethical Principles for Research Involving Human Subjects. It has been revised numerous times, most recently in 2013. -
Henry Beeches published Ethics and Clinical Research
It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine alerting scientists and doctors to 22 unethical studies, including the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Willowbrook hepatitis study. -
US National Research Act
The Act authorizes federal agencies (e.g. the NIH and FDA) to develop human research regulations. The regulations require institutions to form Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to review and oversee research with human subjects. -
Asilomar Confernce
Influential Conference on Recombinant DNA and the regulation of biotechnology held at the Asilomar Conference Grounds -
The Belmont Report: Principles of Ethical Research on Human Subjects
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research publishes a report providing the conceptual foundation for a major revision of the U.S. research regulations -
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Human Genome Project,
The U.S. launches a $20 billion project to map and sequence the human genome. 3% of the project budget was initially devoted to ELSI -
Dolly the sheep is born
It was announced one year later, in 1979. -
Oviedo Convention
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine -
Death of Jesse Gelsinger
Jessie Gelsinger dies in a human gene therapy experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. The event triggers heightened scrutiny of conflicts of interest in human subjects research, including institutional conflicts of interest. Penn settles a lawsuit brought by the Gelsinger family for an undisclosed amount of money. -
Spanish Law of Biomedical Research
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Lulu and Nana are born: the first gene edited humans
In October, He Jiankui, a scientist of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, announces the birth of the world’s first gene-edited babies, both girls. He claims that he used CRISPR-Cas 9 technology to modify the CCR5 gene to give the girls immunity to HIV. The announcement generates outrage around the world and many scientists and policymakers call for a ban on human germline, genome editing.
