Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Nagoya text does refer to human pathogens and provides a way for some
human genetic resources eventually to be included in the CBD. The protocol has
added the following text in Annex 1:
Mindful of the International Health Regulations (2005) of the World Health Organization
and the importance of ensuring access to human pathogens for public health preparedness
and response purposes… (CBD
2010
).
The key question appears to be how biological (genetic) resources are defined.
Is it possible to continue the customary approach of separating ABS regimes for
plants and traditional plant-based community knowledge from leads based on
human genetics research? It is currently unclear how benefits would be distrib-
uted in cases where products are derived from a combination of human genetics
research and community-based knowledge of plants, despite the increasing fre-
quency of such combinations.
The decision by the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the
CBD in 1995 (CBD
1995a
) not to include human genetic resources under the
purview of ABS appears to have been made with the understanding that, unlike
plant-based resources, human genetic resources would always remain removed
from the sphere of commercial gain (Nijar
2009
). Subsequent trends in the pat-
ent regime, however, increasingly reveal a pattern of commercial gain becoming
inextricably involved with human genetics research (Hopkins et al.
2007
). This
is a major departure from the premise on which the Human Genome Project was
launched. Since the establishment of the Human Genome Project and the identifi-
cation of genes in human DNA which play a role in human diseases and disorders,
a long moral and political battle has been fought over the extension of intellectual
property rights to information contained in human genetic material (Papaioannou
2008
) (see also Caulfield
2006
; WHO
2009a
).
The estimated total of 26,000 to 30,000 genes in the human genome includes
approximately 3,000 to 5,000 targets that are potentially amenable to pharmaco-
logical interventions. Within the
in vitro
diagnostic industry, molecular diagnostics
is the fastest-growing segment. The market for molecular diagnostic products has
surged from US$50 million to over US$1 billion in the United States in little more
than a decade and, it is anticipated, will reach US$35 billion globally by 2015.
The US demand for
in vitro
diagnostic products is growing by an estimated 6.1%
annually (Visiongain
2009
).
This raises the question: does the continued exclusion of human genetic
resources from the CBD remain a viable proposition? Is it not possible to have an
international ABS understanding regarding human genetic resources, as we now
have for plant genetic resources? Are human genetic resources not part of genetic
resources? These are some of the issues we attempt to address in this chapter.
Section 7.2
examines the concept of genetic diversity and the evolution of the idea
in the context of the CBD, and
Sect. 7.3
gives a detailed account of the impact of
new technologies on the use of human genetic resources.
Section 7.4
looks into
instances of ABS in human genetic resources, and the final section suggests pos-
sible ways forward.
