The RAC Retires after a Job Well Done

摘要

In the August 15, 2018, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the director of the NIH, Francis S. Collins, and the commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, outlined a plan to eliminate involvement from the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) in human gene therapy experiments. This marks the end of an era of federal oversight that was essential in helping human gene therapy research evolve to where it is today.I was fortunate to have attended countless RAC meetings since the review of the first human gene transfer experiment in the late 1980s. In this commentary, I will provide my perspective on why the RAC was important to human gene therapy research and whythis is the right moment for it to step down.