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Academics in UKZN’s School of Law have once again proven to be some of the leading minds in South Africa. Professor Donrich Thaldar, Mr Bonginkosi Shozi, and Drs Marietjie Botes and Beverley Townsend have published a chapter in South Africa’s premier legal encyclopedia: Law of South Africa (LAWSA) titled Human Biological Material.

Included in the third edition of LAWSA, Volume 26(1), the chapter touches on several key areas such as the ownership of samples used in research, regulation of artificial reproduction, and the law relating to biobanking. In untangling the complex regulatory landscape, it provides simple, concise statements of law, which will be valuable to legal practitioners, scholars, students, medical practitioners and scientists.

Having built a reputation as essential reference material in South African Law, LAWSA has featured contributions from prolific South African legal scholars such as UKZN’s Professors David McQuoid-Mason, Warren Freedman and Michael Kidd. In joining their ranks, Thaldar and his co-authors – all associated with the School of Law’s Health Law and Ethics Research Interest Group – have cemented their status as leading researchers in the legal field.

PhD candidate and Doctoral Fellow Shozi has earned the distinction of being the youngest author in LAWSA’s over its 40-year history.

He commented: ‘LAWSA is an invaluable resource in the South African legal field. It is often the first point of reference when you want to know about the law on a specific subject. I have often made use of it during my time as a student. Being an author for LAWSA is widely regarded as a privilege reserved for the leading experts in their fields, and I am honoured to have been offered this opportunity so early in my career as a researcher.’

The LAWSA chapter can be accessed here.

Words: Lungile Ngubelanga

Photographs: Supplied