Global divisions of health; bioethical principles, practices and regulations on human genome editing and stem cell research in Latin America

Recent genetic technologies have uncovered the urgent need for a global governance of health that can guarantee an ethical consensus on human genome editing and stem cell research. Most gene transfer trials have been in the Americas and Europe, however, the regulation of human somatic/germline editing is generally limited in Latin America. Few jurisdictions in the region, such as Chile, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico and Colombia, have explicitly addressed genome editing. 

We will explore how current regulations, frameworks and discourses in the US and Europe engage with or contradict those in Latin America. We will assemble a multidisciplinary research network that will meet to discuss the implications of a geographical and discursive distance between those places where bioethical frameworks are produced (Global North) and those where the actual practice of human genome editing research and trials could be happening.