Wellcome Trust promotes ethical research in developing world

The Wellcome Trust this week committed £4m ($6.2m; €6.3m) to fund initiatives to promote ethically sound biomedical research in the developing world.

Anthony Tomei, director of the Nuffield Foundation and chairman of the trust's biomedical ethics panel, said in a statement: “The Nuffield Council report published earlier this year highlighted the complex issues surrounding research ethics in developing countries. We welcome the trust's initiative in launching a scheme to address these issues and encourage those who want to make a difference to apply.”

The Nuffield Council's report specifically identified the need for sponsors to help developing countries strengthen expertise in designing and conducting relevant research. It also identified the difficulties in carrying out studies in developing countries—particularly when research is being funded by more affluent countries—where basic health care is often not available and research and ethics committees are underdeveloped or absent.

Dr Sassy Molyneau, from the trust's Kenya unit, was due to launch the new scheme at the sixth world congress of the International Association of Bioethics in Brazil this week. He had previously highlighted the diverse ethical issues that have been raised in Kenyan research, including the conceptual and linguistic barriers to communicating effectively with study participants about research and the enormous diversity of views on appropriateness of consent procedures. “These themes… would benefit from experiences and insights of researchers working elsewhere,” he said.

The Wellcome Trust's initiative aims to address such ethical issues by supporting research into social, ethical, legal, and public policy issues of biomedical science in the developing world and by building expertise in these settings. It also aims to disseminate the findings appropriately for the benefit of all researchers.

“Ethical issues are now part and parcel of translating scientific research into medical benefits,” said Mike Dexter, director of the Wellcome Trust. “We want to attract the best minds from diverse disciplines to this new ethics funding scheme.”

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WELLCOME TRUST

Ethical or unethical? Scottish physician Patrick Manson, working in China in the 1870s, persuaded his gardener, Hinlo, who was infected with a parasitic worm, to be bitten by mosquitoes. By dissecting the mosquitoes, Manson discovered the embryonic form of Wuchereria bancrofti, proving the involvement of the mosquito in the life cycle of a parasite. Manson became popularly known as “Mosquito Manson.”