January 21, 2026 ~ Donrich Thaldar

South Africa’s Pragmatic Turn: Pseudonymized Data and the Future of Health Research

Who would own the HeLa cell line in South Africa?

June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 ~ Donrich Thaldar

The HeLa cell line was created in 1951 from a biopsy sample removed from a cancer patient, Henrietta Lacks, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States. Over the past 70 years, the HeLa cell line was used in countless health-related innovations, ranging from the polio vaccine in the 1950s to studying the human genome, and more recently the COVID-19 vaccines. The problem, however, is that Henrietta Lacks’ consent was never obtained to use the biopsy sample for research purposes. Although the actions that took place were accepted practice 70 years ago, society’s values have since changed. As such, the HeLa cell line has become controversial. In 2021, the descendants of Henrietta Lacks sued a well-known biotechnology company for the profits it made from the HeLa cell line. Who owns the HeLa cell line? What would be the legal position if this happened in South Africa? In this article in the Journal of the Law and Biosciences, I answer this question.

The legal status of human biological material used for research

December 8, 2021December 29, 2021 ~ Donrich Thaldar

Whether human biological material (‘HBM’) in the research context is susceptible of ownership in South African law is contested, yet under-investigated. Previous literature on the subject barely touches the surface, and fails to provide in-depth, comprehensive legal analyses. This situation leads to legal uncertainty for local scientists, their international collaborators, and research ethics committees. In our latest article, published in South Africa’s most prestigious peer-reviewed law journal, Dr Bonginkosi Shozi and I dive deep into this topic — analysing both common law and statutory law — and conclude that HBM in the research context is indeed susceptible of ownership. We also consider the question of who owns HBM in various practical research-related scenarios. Importantly, we conclude that in all legally compliant scenarios HBM is owned by a research institution. There is no legally compliant scenario in which research participants can retain ownership of the HBM that they provide for research. We trust that our thorough analysis in this article will provide much-needed legal certainty to all involved in using HBM for research in South Africa.