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This paper aims to contribute to the study of practical pursuit-worthiness in science by engaging with a case in therapeutic stem cell biology. Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research emerged from research in developmental biology and the molecular biology of cell fate conversion. It took on practical significance when proposed as an alternative to therapeutic stem cell research that used human embryonic stem cells. The supposed ability of iPSC research to tackle ethical and regulatory constraints on research at the beginning of the twentieth century was a central part of the heuristic assessment of iPSC. However, the development and transfer of knowledge from experimental and theoretical biology to preclinical pursuit conflicted with the framing of biomedical innovation in public policy. The framing of innovation operated as part of the heuristic assessment of the pursuit-worthiness of iPSCs in the United States and was characterized by attempts to underdetermine conflicting ethical and socio-economic values – to seek innovations that are "incompletely theorized" in the sense that they purportedly allow stakeholders to refrain from engagement with the divisive values that created impediments to research in stem cell biology. When conflict arose with the epistemic standards in preclinical pursuit required to ensure the safety and efficacy of biomedical innovations, it resulted in the critical appraisal of the values used to rationalize policies for the distribution of federal resources for biomedical research. The case demonstrates how non-epistemic values impinge on standards of assessment in translational science, how background assumptions about innovation can drive practical pursuit, and how conflicting values and goals in research creates an important context for the appraisal of emerging science, technology and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical frame for analysing social movements in/and biomedicine. Drawing from work in social movement theory and science and technology studies, the paper describes the field of biotechnology as the material/imagined space of contemporary biopolitics in the contemporary United States. Interviews with activists from four social movements, websites and written material are examined, and two processes of knowledge construction were found to be central in constituting the field of biotechnology. These processes open up multiple sites for citizen participation in the construction of scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent study published in this journal it was claimed that the rate of publications from US-based authors in the human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research field was slowing or even declining from 2008 to 2010. It was assumed that this is the result of long-term effects of the Bush administration's funding policy for hESC research and the uncertain policy environment of recent years. In the present study, we analyzed a pool of more than 1,700 original hESC research papers published world-wide from 2007 to 2011. In contrast to the previous study, our results do not support the hypothesis of a decline in the productivity of US-based research but rather confirm a nearly unchanged leading position of US research in the hESC field with respect to both publication numbers and impact of research. Moreover, we analyzed about 500 papers reporting original research involving human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) published through 2011 and found a dominant position of US research in this research field as well.

More nations are joining the human embryonic stem cell (hESC) "race" by aggressively publishing in the peer-reviewed journals. Here we present data on the international use and distribution of hESC using a dataset taken from the primary research literature. We extracted these papers from a comprehensive dataset of articles using hESC and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC). We find that the rate of publication by US-based authors is slowing in comparison to international labs, and then declines over the final year of the period 2008-2010. Non-US authors published more frequently and at a significantly higher rate, significantly increasing the number of their papers. In addition, international labs use a more diverse set of hESC lines and Obama-era additions are used more in non-US locations. Even considering the flood of new lines in the US and abroad, we see that researchers continue to rely on a few lines derived before the turn of the century. These data suggest "embargo" effects from restrictive policies on the US stem cell field. Over time, non-US labs have freely used lines on the US registries, while federally funded US scientists have been limited to using those lines approved by the NIH.

Embryonic stem cell (ES) technology has advanced considerably within the past three decades and has gained prominent distinction within the emerging field of regenerative medicine. As it now enters the nascent stages of clinical application, many hopes and expectations arise along with questions as to where the technology will go. This paper evaluates the technical and practical obstacles that must be overcome before it can fully translate into the clinical context, the existence of strong opposition to the technology, political and legal barriers that have impeded its progression, and the role of healthcare reform in creating new social and economic priorities. In contrast to the technological imperative, a driving force seeking to implement the most recent scientific advances into medical practice, we refer to such translational obstacles as "technological impedance." Rather than expending inordinate effort to preserve existing systems that continue to possess major hurdles, we advocate fostering interdisciplinary approaches in the development of new generation platforms and embracing disruptive innovations that create solutions to technological impedance and move us forward in healthcare delivery. Clin Trans Sci 2012; Volume 5: 422-427., (© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

This paper focuses on the issue of what to do if a couple who generates embryos chooses to lawfully, and in their (and my) view, ethnically discard those embryos. Specifically, is it appropriate to use the cells that come from "excess" embryos in medical research instead of discarding them when a couple has ceased trying to have any additional children?

In this paper I will address whether the restriction on the creation of human embryos solely for the purpose of research in which they will be used and destroyed in the creation of human stem cell lines is ethically justified. Of course, a cynical but perhaps accurate reading of the new Obama policy is that leaving this restriction in place was done for political, not ethical, reasons, in light of the apparent public opposition to creating embryos for use in this research. But the issue of whether the restriction is ethically justified remains important, even if only for another day in the policy arena.

This paper examines the influences that congressional staff people viewed as important in shaping legislators' voting decisions on the human embryonic stem (ES) cell research bill in the 109th Congress, the first legislation vetoed by President George W. Bush. The analysis illuminates factors that impact congressional decision making on a salient issue with a strong moral component. Constituent concerns, ideology, and a desire to make good public policy all centrally affected members' choices; however, moral overtones permeated considerations relevant to the human ES cell research question. In addition, at least three influences that directly reflect or relate to members' moral claims - religious convictions, personal connections to potential beneficiaries of human ES cell research, and moral pressure from outside interests - were important also. The analysis draws on data gathered from interviews with congressional aides.

This paper examines the contextual factors shaping legislative debates affecting stem cell research in two states, Kansas and Massachusetts, which both permit therapeutic cloning for stem cell research but markedly vary in their legislative approach to the issue. In Kansas, restrictive legislation was proposed but effectively blocked by research proponents, while in Massachusetts permissive legislation was successfully implemented under the auspices of an act to promote stem cell research. The importance of university and industry involvement is highlighted in each case, as are the roles of enterprising and persistent policy entrepreneurs. Providing a close examination of the policy process attending the cloning debate in these states is intended to contribute to an enhanced understanding of the cloning-policy process as it has played out at the state level, with an eye toward informing legislative debates over related biotechnical advances in the future.

In 2004 and 2005, Woo-Suk Hwang achieved international stardom with publications in Science reporting on successful research involving the creation of stem cells from cloned human embryos. The wonder and success all began to unravel, however, when serious ethical concerns were raised about the source of the eggs for this research. When the egg scandal had completely unfolded, it turned out that many of the women who provided eggs for stem cell research had not provided valid consents and that nearly 75% of the women egg providers had received cash or in-kind payments. Among those who did not receive direct benefits, some cited patriotism as their reason for participating in embryonic stem cell research, hence the question "for love or money?"--namely, patriotism versus payment. This paper summarizes the Hwang debacle with particular attention to the egg scandal and ends with some preliminary thoughts on patriotism as a motive for research participation.

Many who believe that human embryos have moral status are convinced that their use in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research can be morally justified as long as they are discarded embryos left over from fertility treatments. This is one reason why this view about discarded embryos has played such a prominent role in the debate over publicly funding hESC research in the United States and other countries. Many believe that this view offers the best chance of a compromise between the different sides in this debate. This paper focuses on what seems to be the most plausible argument for this view about discarded embryos. It shows that this argument is unsound regardless of how one understands the claim that embryos have moral status. It also discusses the implications of this conclusion for attempts to use this argument as a basis for public policy.

In 2003, Ruth Faden and eighteen other colleagues argued that a "problem of unequal biological access" is likely to arise in access to therapies resulting from human embryonic stem cell research. They showed that unless deliberate steps are taken in the United States to ensure that the human embryonic stem cell lines available to researchers mirrors the genetic diversity of the general population, white Americans will likely receive the benefits of these therapies to the relative exclusion of minority ethnic groups. Over the past five years the problem of unequal biological access has not received much attention from politicians, bioethicists and even many researchers in the United States, in spite of the widely held belief in the country that there is an obligation to prevent and correct ethnic disparities in access to medical care. The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the problem of unequal biological access and of the need to do more than is currently being done to ensure that ethnic disparities in access to human embryonic stem cell-based therapies do not arise. Specifically, this paper explains why the problem of unequal biological access will likely arise in the United States in such a way that white Americans will disproportionately receive most of the benefits of the therapies resulting from human embryonic stem cell research. It also argues for why there is an obligation to prevent these ethnic disparities in access from happening and outlines four steps that need to be taken towards meeting this obligation.

The following paper calls for a shift of views from bioethics to bio-optics, from asking what we should do, to wondering about how things appear and are. It takes as a case study the stem cell controversy and juxtaposes its regulation in Israel and in the United States. As an ethical debate, the embryonic stem cell controversy is often cast as a dispute between liberals and conservatives, scientists and religious fundamentalists. From a bio-optical point of view, however, one may notice a surprising affinity between science and the most extreme religious groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the developments on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research in the U.S. The generation of patient-specific embryonic stem cells would revolutionize the understanding of human disease, as well as the development of compounds to prevent or reverse further progression of the disease. Derivation of human embryos by SCNT remains in its infancy stages, with just a few papers reporting the generation of nuclear transfer human embryos.

The article provides information on the most important advances in biotechnology that were published in the 2005 to 2010 issues of "Nature Biotechnology." It says that the creation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells is one of the most important discoveries, which Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University showed by inserting transcription factors into cultured mouse fibroblasts that could make them act like embryonic stem cells. The author adds that George Church of Harvard University in Massachusetts compared epigenomes and genomes across samples in 2009.

The rise of the Christian Right and the pro-life movement over the last fifty years has transformed US politics in general, and the Republican Party in particular. Its seemingly all-pervasive influence on contemporary US politics has commanded much social scientific attention. However, policy debates over embryonic stem cell research during the Presidency of George W. Bush exposed deep, moral fissures amongst American conservatives. As one of the most recent 'hot button' issues in America's culture wars, embryonic stem cell research appeared to energize the under-studied moderate wing of the 'Grand Old Party' (GOP), which belatedly emerged to challenge what often seems like a homogeneous and monolithic Christian Right. This paper argues that during the 109 United States Congress, moderate Republicans identified in embryonic stem cells a powerful entity around which to mobilise themselves as a set of otherwise diverse interests. This enabled them to imagine a political future for themselves in which they could successfully challenge the hegemony of the Christian Right in grassroots Republican Party politics. In states like Missouri, however, which fought a referendum on embryonic stem cell research in the 2006 midterm elections, it could be argued that emboldened GOP moderates overplayed their hand. Furthermore, a fully-formed GOP moderate counter-movement to the Christian Right failed to materialize as centrists and moderates were amongst the first to lose their seats when the Democrats reclaimed Congress at the 2006 midterms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents data related to biotechnology research papers in the U.S. The US remains the most productive country in terms of biotech-related papers. But numbers of papers from the European Union surpassed the US last year (with Germany and the UK ahead of most EU countries); elsewhere, Korea, China and Japan also publish frequently. Some of the top cited papers, published in different journals, by field are: RNAi--Systematic functional analysis of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome using RNAi; Gene therapy--LMO2-associated clonal T cell proliferation in two patients after gene therapy for SCID-X2 and Nuclear transfer--Derivation of oocytes from mouse embryonic stem cells.

Focuses on the legal and ethical minefield associated with human embryonic stem-cell research. Views of Kevin Eggan on stem cell research; Funding of research that aims to make new stem-cell lines without creating embryos; Politics in embryonic stem cell research in the U.S.

As social scientists have investigated the political and social factors influencing public opinion in science-related policy debates, there has been growing interest in the implications of this research for public communication and outreach. Given the level of political polarization in the United States, much of the focus has been on partisan differences in public opinion, the strategies employed by political leaders and advocates that promote those differences, and the counter-strategies for overcoming them. Yet this focus on partisan differences tends to overlook the processes by which core beliefs about science and society impact public opinion and how these schema are often activated by specific frames of reference embedded in media coverage and popular discourse. In this study, analyzing cross-sectional, nationally representative survey data collected between 2002 and 2010, we investigate the relative influence of political partisanship and science-related schema on Americans' support for embryonic stem cell research. In comparison to the influence of partisan identity, our findings suggest that generalized beliefs about science and society were more chronically accessible, less volatile in relation to media attention and focusing events, and an overall stronger influence on public opinion. Classifying respondents into four unique audience groups based on their beliefs about science and society, we additionally find that individuals within each of these groups split relatively evenly by partisanship but differ on other important dimensions. The implications for public engagement and future research on controversies related to biomedical science are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the delivery of gene protein products into cells for the development of cultured skin cells with embryonic stem cell-like behavior by two teams of researchers in the U.S. Escheria coli bacterium were used by the team led by Sheng Ding in Scripps Research Institute to converted mouse embryonic fibroblasts into embryonic-like stem cells. While reprogramming the human fibroblasts was the approach used by the team led by Robert Lanza and Kwang-Soo Kim.

The article highlights the successful transformation of adult human skin cells into embryonic stem cells (ESCs) made by two research groups in Japan and the U.S. It says that the new cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, were generated by using a retrovirus to activate specific transcription genes in the skin cells. James Thomson, senior author of the U.S. study, claims that their paper shows a method to make cells essentially identical to embryonic stem cells.

This article reports results from a three-year panel study of a nonrandom sample of 76 South Carolina citizens, recruited from a variety of walks of life, and their impressions of emerging nanotechnology. This discussion focuses on material from depth interviews conducted alongside a baseline opinion and awareness inventory at the beginning of the study, the most intensive data-gathering phase. These results are placed in the context of data from three additional surveys conducted at about equal intervals over the three years, plus exit interviews from 21 of the 34 individuals who completed the entire study. The results give insight into popular thinking about technology but little indication of strong emerging concerns, a trajectory of amplification of those concerns, or opinion polarization over time, despite some awareness of risks and potential ethical dimensions. Nanotechnology may stand out more as an example of risk attenuation than of risk amplification, consistent with most results from national surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the contention of John Harris on the permissibility of creating and destroying embryos for research purposes in the U.S. It states that creating and destroying of embryos for research is permissible when implantation of an embryo is not an option. It emphasizes that to promote health, well-being and longevity and when reproductive needs have been met, letting embryos die is permissible.

The article discusses the paper "Embryonic cell patenting," written by Phillip M. Webber which appeared in www.lawtext.com. It offers an overview of the issues affecting the patenting of human embryonic stem cells under the European Patent Convention. It also comments on some patenting issues in other countries such as the US.

The recent approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration of a clinical trial involving a product derived from human embryonic stem cells, along with recent concerns about unproven stem cell therapies being offered to patients, highlight the importance of regulation at the critical stage of beginning human trials of novel therapies. The regulations governing therapeutic products (drugs and related products) are one part of the broader legal framework, but will play an increasingly prominent role as we move into clinical translation. The classification of products as drugs or biologics, on one hand, or minimally manipulated cell and tissue products for homologous use, on the other, will determine the requirements that will apply, including whether use in clinical trials requires approval. Product regulation works alongside other parts of the legal and policy framework, notably research ethics review and legal responsibilities of medical professionals, that play important though limited roles. Three key developments and challenges currently facing product regulation and related areas will affect stem cell research in this phase: regulatory reform, fragmentation, and capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the highlights of a report on the derivation of embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo in the March issue of "Science". Impact of the limitations of federal funding to US researchers; Criticism of the Council on Bioethics and a report "Monitoring Stem Cell Research" published by it.

Discusses ethical issues regarding embryonic stem cell research in the U.S. Bioethical dilemmas associated with stem cell research; Social impact of U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to issue federal research grants for the research; Views of scientific experts on the clinical success of embryonic stem cells.

Deals with the debate surrounding embryonic stem (ES) cell research in the U.S. Opposition facing ES cell research from pro-life groups; Prospect of government funding for the research; Arguments advanced against the research.

The use of human embryonic stem cells to replace damaged cells and tissues promises future hope for the treatment of many diseases. However, many countries now face complex ethical and legal questions as a result of the research needed to develop these cell-replacement therapies. The challenge that must be met is how to permit research on human embryonic tissue to occur while maintaining respect for human life generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the rejection of three of James Thomson's foundational embryonic stem (ES) cell patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It examines the impact of induced pluripotent stem cell discoveries by senior authors James Thomson and Shinya Yamanaka on other research works. It notes that the rejection of their attempts to catch all pluripotent cells may suggest the importance of considering gene signatures when claiming new pluripotent cell lines. It also believes that USPTO's decisions invoke new engagement rules in the campaign for dominance in stem cell intellectual property.

The article reports developments related to the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. The Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the claims of three key patents which cover research using human embryonic cells within the country. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided a case that could allow more lawsuits by generics companies seeking decisions on patent validity and infringement,

Reports on the developments within the biomedical engineering community in the U.S. as of January 2004. Recognition of associate professor Sangeeta Bhatia's research in bionanotechnology and tissue engineering; Demonstration that human embryonic stem cells can grow and differentiate on three-dimensional polymer scaffolds; Bestowal of the Whitaker Foundation's biomedical engineering research grants.

Focuses on the controversy surrounding human cloning and stem cell research. Announcement by Advanced Cell Technology that it had produced cloned human embryos for the purpose of deriving stem cells; Risks associated with the U.S. approach to human embryonic stem cell research; Drawbacks of keeping taxpayers' money out of controversial research areas while allowing research to continue in the private sector.