Licences issued by the NHMRC Embryo Research Licensing Committee (ERLC) are subject to conditions.

ERLC is required by section 29 of the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002 (RIHE Act) to maintain a public database (Table 1 below) containing the following information in relation to each general licence and each mitochondrial donation licence:

  • the name of the person to whom the licence was issued
  • for a general licence – a short statement about the uses of excess ART embryos or human eggs, creation or uses of other embryos, that are authorised by the licence
  • for a mitochondrial donation licence – a short statement about the nature of the uses of excess ART embryos or human eggs, and creations or uses of other embryos or zygotes, that are authorised by the licence
  • for a general licence – the number of excess ART embryos or human eggs, and the number of other embryos authorised to be created in respect of which use is authorised by the licence
  • for a mitochondrial donation licence – the number of excess ART embryos or human eggs, and the number of other embryos authorised to be created in respect of which use is authorised by the licence
  • any conditions to which the licence is subject
  • the date on which the licence was issued
  • the period throughout which the licence is to remain in force.

Information made public must not be such as to disclose confidential commercial information.

Licence conditions

Licences issued by ERLC are subject to conditions. Licences are also subject to the provisions of the RIHE Act and the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Act 2002. The sections below describe Standard and Special Licence conditions.

Standard conditions

Both general licences and mitochondrial donation licences are subject to standard licence conditions. The relevant standard conditions apply to all licences unless a particular standard condition is specifically excluded by the Special conditions for a licence.

The Standard conditions for both general and mitochondrial donation licences are available in the Downloads section (below).

Special conditions

Special licence conditions relate to a particular licence and include conditions about the number of excess ART embryos or eggs authorised for use, the number of other embryos authorised to be created or used, the people authorised to create and/or use them and the authorised sites, as well as any other special conditions determined by ERLC.

See the tables below for details of the licences and special conditions. If a copy of an expired licence is required, an email request can be sent to embryo.research@nhmrc.gov.au

Table 1: Current licences issued under s.21 of the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002
Licence no. Organisation Licence title Date of issue Status
309718 v28 (PDF 203 KB) Genea Limited Use of excess ART embryos and clinically unusable eggs for validation of an IVF device 8 December 2011 Current to 7 December 2024
309719 v27 (PDF 208 KB) Genea Limited Use of excess ART embryos for the development of improved IVF culture media 28 March 2012 Current to 28 March 2024
309727 v3 (PDF 170 KB) Melbourne IVF Pty Ltd Comprehensive chromosomal analysis of human preimplantation embryos 15 August 2022 Current to 14 August 2025
309729 v3 (PDF 217 KB) Monash University The generation and study of a novel in-vitro model of human blastocysts (‘iBlastoids’) 19 October 2022 Current to 18 October 2025
Table 2: Expired licences
Licence no. Organisation Licence title Date of issue Status
309700 v3 Monash IVF Use of excess ART embryos for training in embryo biopsy 1 March 2005 Expired
309701 v20 Sydney IVF Improvement in laboratory conditions for embryo culture 16 April 2004 Expired
309702A v19 Sydney IVF Effect of an additive on embryo culture: analysis of growth and epigenetic programming 16 April 2004 Expired
309702b v43 Genea Limited Development of Methods for Preimplantation Genetic and Metabolic Evaluation of Human Embryos 16 April 2004 Expired
309703 v47 Genea Limited Development of Human Embryonic Stem (ES) Cells 16 April 2004 Expired
309704 v8 Melbourne IVF Pty Ltd Development of testing procedures for unbalanced chromosome errors in human embryos 16 April 2004 Expired
309707 v5 Monash University Derivation of embryonic stem cell lines from the human embryo 21 December 2004 Expired
309708 v6 IVF Australia Pty Ltd A collaborative project between IVF Australia and the Diabetes Transplant Unit, Prince of Wales Hospital to derive human embryonic stem cell lines for the treatment of diabetes 5 November 2004 Expired
309709 v9 Melbourne IVF Pty Ltd A collaborative project between Melbourne IVF Pty Ltd and Stem Cell Sciences Pty Ltd to derive human embryonic stem cell lines 11 June 2004 Expired
309710 v38 Genea Limited Derivation of human embryonic stem cells from embryos identified through preimplantation genetic diagnosis to be affected by known serious monogenic conditions 7 May 2007 Expired
309712 v15 Genea Limited Reproducible production of human embryonic stem cell lines from somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of nuclei from human cumulus cells into clinically unusable human eggs. 16 September 2008 Expired
309713 v15 Genea Limited Reproducible production of human embryonic stem cell lines from somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of nuclei from adult human fibroblasts into clinically unusable human eggs. 16 September 2008 Expired
309714 v15 Genea Limited Reproducible production of human embryonic stem cell lines from somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of nuclei from previously established human embryonic stem cell lines into clinically unusable human eggs. 16 September 2008 Expired
309716 v5 Fertility Australia Trust trading as Fertility East Assisted Conception Clinic and Monash Institute of Medical Research Production of human embryonic stem cell lines from parthenogenetic activation of matured human eggs obtained from clinically unusable human eggs 29 June 2011 Expired
309720 v3 Fertility Australia Trust trading as Fertility East Assisted Conception Clinic and Division of Biological Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Monash University Production of human embryonic stem cell lines from parthenogenetic activation of human eggs obtained from ovaries removed prophylactically from women at risk for developing cancer 15 July 2013 Expired
309722 v6 Monash IVF Pty Ltd Optimising embryo-endometrial interactions to improve pregnancy success during IVF 11 December 2013 Expired
309723 v13 Melbourne IVF Pty Ltd Use of excess ART embryos for blastocyst-stage biopsy training 19 December 2014 Expired
309724 v4 IVF Australia Pty Ltd Use of excess ART embryos for blastocyst-stage biopsy training 21 April 2017 Expired
309725 v7 TasIVF Pty Ltd Use of excess ART embryos for blastocyst-stage embryo biopsy training 1 September 2017 Expired
309726 v8 Genea Limited Use of excess ART embryos for training in an alternate biopsy method (day five hatch and biopsy) 3 June 2019 Expired

Downloads

File type
Size