The rapid development of biotechnology has caused many problems of ethical and legal problems. The Bioethics and Safety Act was enacted to solve this problem. The purpose of this Act is to ensure bioethics and biosafety, thereby contributing to the promotion of citizens’ health and the improvement of their quality of life by preventing the violation of human dignity and values or the infliction of harm on human body in the course of researching on human beings and human materials or of handling embryos, genes, etc.
In this Act, Institutional Review Board(IRB) was established for self-regulation.
An institution specified in any of the following subparagraphs shall establish an institutional bioethics committee (hereinafter referred to as “institutional committee”) so as to ensure bioethics and biosafety. The IRB should be operated efficiently, the research environment should be improved through deliberation of the research plan, investigation of the process of research, education of the Researchers.