Federation of American Scientists Module 1.0: Introduction
Topic: Control Efforts Subtopic: Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC)

Recombinant DNA Advisroy Committee Image

Responding to the same public concerns that were addressed at Asilomar, the NIH established the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) on October 7, 1974. The RAC was first charged by the NIH to develop a set of guidelines for the safe conduct of recombinant DNA research, which were issued in 1976 as the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules. All NIH funded researchers are obliged to follow these guidelines and be subject to RAC review of proposed experiments involving human gene transfer research. The NIH also required the creation of an Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) at each funded research institution as the first tier of review to assure conformance with the guidelines.


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