Conscious of the rapid advances in cloning research and the need for worldwide legislation on human aspects of this technique, in a new report, an advisory committee to the Australian government has backed the international call for a ban on cloning to produce a human being. And in line with Europe (Nature Med., 5 6; 1999), the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) supports human DNA and cell cloning and embryo research within strict limits.

In a surprising twist, the report calls for the establishment of a new, non–human primate center, which will apparently substitute for human research and serve as a means of boosting Australia's capacity for 'therapeutic cloning' research—the development of replacement organs and tissue. Some antipodean scientists are unconvinced of the value of such a facility and believe its inclusion in the report is the result of action by the country's powerful lobby of reproductive biology scientists that have traditionally favored primate research.

It is proposed that the primate center be used to test the feasibility of cloning techniques involving embryonic stem (ES) cell and cell lineage research. The report expresses concern that existing primate resources in Australia are insufficient for such work and small by international comparison. The new center may also be of value, says the report, to associated disciplines such as reproductive biology, gamete biology and endocrinology.

Director of Melbourne's Murdoch Institute, geneticist Bob Williamson, who was consulted by AHEC, argues that the primate option is outdated. He believes that Australia should be spending money on ethical ways of experimenting with ES cells in culture. "My personal view is that the days when primates should be sacrificed for biomedical research are probably for the most part over," says Williamson.

Australian National University's John Hearn, former director of the Wisconsin primate center, estimates that $AUS 5 million ($US 3 million) in capital and an annual maintenance budget of $AUS 3 million would be needed to improve on the handful of breeding colonies of marmosets, macaques and baboons scattered across the country. But others are divided on the desirability of such spending, and say the cost of a new center has been underestimated. "Some scientists were concerned it may deplete NHMRC resources, just as the Wills report has called for a doubling of the budget [Nature Med., 5, 9; 1999], and one of them called it `irresponsible' to make such a suggestion," conceded AHEC chairman and lawyer Don Chalmers. Even some of Australia's most senior IVF researchers—a group that has supported primate research for many years—think it would be more cost–effective to fund grants to enable Australian scientists to travel to established centers such as those in neighboring southeast Asia. This suggestion is included in the report as an alternative strategy to enhancing primate research.

Destined for the lab.

Under its terms of reference, AHEC was unable to make the primate center a formal recommendation. "We didn't feel it was our role to be recommending research infrastructure like that, and the proposal would have to come forward as an application to the NHMRC research committee," explains University of Queensland's John Mattick, who is on both committees. "Furthermore, a decision on its merits should be based, not on the cloning debate, but on whether or not it was a useful piece of infrastructure to have scientifically or medically," he adds. A copy of the report is available at http://www.health.gov.au/nhmrc/ ethics/clone.pdf