Stem Cells CBAR Initiative

There were a variety of outcomes from the SCI which will have long-term legacy effects as additional papers are published, new grants secured, and doctoral students move on to develop their academic careers. In terms of scientific excellence and impact on policy the following three examples are provided for each.

Outstanding science

1. Research by Clare Williams’ et al. provided an examination and analysis of practical ethics on the ground through which scientists approach and justify their scientific work. They showed in detail what individual scientists and clinicians themselves view as ethical sources of human embryos and stem cells; their perceptions of human embryos and stem cells; and how scientists perceive regulatory frameworks in stem cell research arguing that these are all examples of ‘ethical boundary-work’. Their judgments shape the relations between the lab and the clinic and reveal why some scientists and clinicians are hesitant in the use of embryonic material, a perspective that has clear implications for policy and practice in the field. Williams’ project received an ‘outstanding’ grade for the insights it provided and the extensive range of scientific publications that the team produced.


2. Kent and Pfeffer’s research on the use of fetal tissue to produce cell cultures for stem cells lines broke new ground in providing the first detailed exploration of the hidden world of ‘waste’ aborted tissue that regains new life as a stem cell line. Two key findings were that current regulations covering how the aborted fetus should be treated are contradictory and ambiguous, and that the use of fetal tissue in stem cell science lacks transparency and public accountability. Secondly, many of the women they interviewed had misgivings when realising that an aborted fetus might somehow continue to exist, albeit in a different form, in the laboratory, for example, if it were used to produce ‘immortalised’ stem cell lines.



3. Sleeboom-Faulkner’s Fellowship involved extensive fieldwork in China and Japan (c. 32 weeks in total), and her fluency in both languages enabled her to secure not only novel and detailed data on the sourcing and use of human embryonic stem cells, but also a much deeper understanding of the place, meaning and role of bioethics in the two countries. She reported that the ‘lack of public discussion on hESR and ineffective bioethics institutions and the adoption of foreign derived guidelines in China led to bioethical dislocation: a large discrepancy between guidelines and the normative behaviour particular to a local research environment’. This is a much more nuanced understanding of the Chinese situation than the often heard criticisms of the ethical failings of Chinese science. And as she concludes in her report, ‘In both China and Japan friction exists between national ambitions in hESR, its bioethical embedding, and issues of safety, which are intimately intertwined.’ The arrival of induced pluripotent cells in Japan via Yamanaka’s lab in 2008 gave these developments yet another layer of complexity, and are now (in 2013) being explored more fully by Sleeboom-Faulkner via further fieldwork in Asia and new funding from the ESRC


Impact on policy and practice

1. Research by Salter et al. explored what were seen as four dimensions of the global politics of human embryonic stem cell science: the global competition for advantage, the governance of uncertainty, the global politics of bioethics and public trust, and the play of sub-political processes within different countries. The project had a very strong policy focus during data collection, analysis and dissemination. Salter developed strong links with the Cambridge/East of England bioscience network and was invited to collaborate with two senior stem cell scientists (Pedersen and Polak) to prepare a report on the government’s Pattison recommendations, which was submitted to the MRC and BBSRC who have been charged with developing new policy beyond Pattison. Salter was subsequently appointed a member of the UK National Stem Cell Network’s Steering Committee and was joined by Webster at the first meeting of a revised Committee with much stronger social science presence. Three key issues that were discussed requiring strong social science input: international governance, commercialisation of stem cell research and public dialogue. These issues have been taken up further in new projects by Salter (the 'Rising Powers Initiative) and Webster in his REMEDiE project funding by the EU FP7 programme.


2. Work by Parry et al. on public engagement has not only been important within the Scottish context through developing and disseminating their ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ as a guide to presenting stem cell research in the public domain (and discussed with MSPs in Edinburgh). One of the team (Sarah Cunningham-Burley) was contracted to do a consultancy on how people engage with science ‘Across the Lifecourse’, for the Scottish Government, Office of the Chief Researcher. The team has also developed a more capacity-building activity in the shape of a freely available online role-play for teachers to use (now uploaded to their project website, The MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and the EuroStemCell website).



3. Hauskeller et al. have undertaken a UK/Germany comparison of stem cell science with an ethnographic approach to understand how regulation and ethics shapes practice in the clinic and the lab. Their work attracted strong interest in Germany itself such that they were invited topresent expert statements that were heard by the Deutsche Zentrale Ethik-Kommission Stammzellenforschung in January 2009 and commissioned in 2008 to prepare a Report on stem cell research and regulation in Europe for the Austrian Bundeskanzleramt.

4. Franklin’s Fellowship on the ‘IVF-Stem Cell interface’ produced a series of important outputs and outcomes that have been widely disseminated and picked up by policy and practitioner communities. During the Fellowship she was directly involved as co-author of new UK guidelines on informed consent for embryo donation to stem cell research, prepared by the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Coordinators’ group, and approved by the HFEA (Franklin et al 2008). These guidelines and accompanying research on IVF and PGD patients’ perceptions of embryo donation to stem cell research were the basis for a specialist chapter published in a medical textbook (Franklin and Kaufman 2008) on tissue donation in the reproductive setting. A broader sociological account of the IVF-Stem Cell Interface in the UK was prepared for publication in the United States by the Brookings Institute (Franklin, 2009), and for a collection on gender and biotechnology (Franklin 2008). Together this body of work represents a significant contribution to the ethical governance of embryo donation for stem cell research in the UK and abroad.