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Stem Cell Research in Asia

Author : Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 165 pages

File Size : 29,45 MB

Release : 2016-03-22

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1317571886

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Book Description

The great hurry to realise promised cures in stem cell research requires regulation to guarantee bioethical research practices. Yet, increasingly similar national guidelines for stem cell research yields a range of diverging research practices. This book shows how the different rationale of regulation affects stem cell research practices in Asia. In low- and medium income countries such as India and China the advancement of science has a different weight on the national agenda, and the evaluation of scientific research is measured with a different yardstick, depending on the political and national research environment. For developing countries the question of research funding into stem cell research, healthcare, and the donation of embryos, foetuses and oocytes entail different considerations compared to in affluent welfare societies. Moreover, research institutions have different cultural and political histories, so that the meaning of formal guidelines, legislation and social rules may differ according to their various institutional settings. This volume discusses the informal cultures, social conventions and traditions that are crucial to the way in which stem cell research takes place in Asia. This book was originally published as a special issue of New Genetics and Society.



Human Stem Cell Manual

Author : Suzanne Peterson

Publisher : Academic Press

Page : 652 pages

File Size : 13,35 MB

Release : 2012-10-22

Category : Science

ISBN : 0123854741

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Book Description

This manual is a comprehensive compilation of "methods that work" for deriving, characterizing, and differentiating hPSCs, written by the researchers who developed and tested the methods and use them every day in their laboratories. The manual is much more than a collection of recipes; it is intended to spark the interest of scientists in areas of stem cell biology that they may not have considered to be important to their work. The second edition of the Human Stem Cell Manual is an extraordinary laboratory guide for both experienced stem cell researchers and those just beginning to use stem cells in their work. - Offers a comprehensive guide for medical and biology researchers who want to use stem cells for basic research, disease modeling, drug development, and cell therapy applications - Provides a cohesive global view of the current state of stem cell research, with chapters written by pioneering stem cell researchers in Asia, Europe, and North America - Includes new chapters devoted to recently developed methods, such as iPSC technology, written by the scientists who made these breakthroughs



Stem Cell Therapies

Author : Adam C. Berger

Publisher : National Academy Press

Page : 108 pages

File Size : 38,62 MB

Release : 2014-06-18

Category : Medical

ISBN : 9780309303002

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Book Description

Stem cells offer tremendous promise for advancing health and medicine. Whether being used to replace damaged cells and organs or else by supporting the body's intrinsic repair mechanisms, stem cells hold the potential to treat such debilitating conditions as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and spinal cord injury. Clinical trials of stem cell treatments are under way in countries around the world, but the evidence base to support the medical use of stem cells remains limited. Despite this paucity of clinical evidence, consumer demand for treatments using stem cells has risen, driven in part by a lack of available treatment options for debilitating diseases as well as direct-to-consumer advertising and public portrayals of stem cell-based treatments. Clinics that offer stem cell therapies for a wide range of diseases and conditions have been established throughout the world, both in newly industrialized countries such as China, India, and Mexico and in developed countries such as the United States and various European nations. Though these therapies are often promoted as being established and effective, they generally have not received stringent regulatory oversight and have not been tested with rigorous trials designed to determine their safety and likely benefits. In the absence of substantiated claims, the potential for harm to patients - as well as to the field of stem cell research in general - may outweigh the potential benefits. To explore these issues, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the International Society for Stem Cell Research held a workshop in November 2013. "Stem Cell Therapies" summarizes the workshop. Researchers, clinicians, patients, policy makers, and others from North America, Europe, and Asia met to examine the global pattern of treatments and products being offered, the range of patient experiences, and options to maximize the well-being of patients, either by protecting them from treatments that are dangerous or ineffective or by steering them toward treatments that are effective. This report discusses the current environment in which patients are receiving unregulated stem cell offerings, focusing on the treatments being offered and their risks and benefits. The report considers the evidence base for clinical application of stem cell technologies and ways to assure the quality of stem cell offerings.



Good Science

Author : Charis Thompson

Publisher : MIT Press

Page : 354 pages

File Size : 38,53 MB

Release : 2013-12-20

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 0262319047

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Book Description

An examination of a decade and a half of political controversy, ethical debate, and scientific progress in stem cell research. After a decade and a half, human pluripotent stem cell research has been normalized. There may be no consensus on the status of the embryo—only a tacit agreement to disagree—but the debate now takes place in a context in which human stem cell research and related technologies already exist. In this book, Charis Thompson investigates the evolution of the controversy over human pluripotent stem cell research in the United States and proposes a new ethical approach for “good science.” Thompson traces political, ethical, and scientific developments that came together in what she characterizes as a “procurial” framing of innovation, based on concern with procurement of pluripotent cells and cell lines, a pro-cures mandate, and a proliferation of bio-curatorial practices. Thompson describes what she calls the “ethical choreography” that allowed research to go on as the controversy continued. The intense ethical attention led to some important discoveries as scientists attempted to “invent around” ethical roadblocks. Some ethical concerns were highly legible; but others were hard to raise in the dominant procurial framing that allowed government funding for the practice of stem cell research to proceed despite controversy. Thompson broadens the debate to include such related topics as animal and human research subjecthood and altruism. Looking at fifteen years of stem cell debate and discoveries, Thompson argues that good science and good ethics are mutually reinforcing, rather than antithetical, in contemporary biomedicine.



Local Cells, Global Science

Author : Aditya Bharadwaj

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 149 pages

File Size : 40,2 MB

Release : 2009

Category : Embryonic stem cells

ISBN : 0415396093

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Book Description

One of the first studies of an exciting new development in global biotechnology, this cutting edge text examines the extent of the transnational movements of tissues, stem cells, and expertise, in the developing governance framework of India. Documenting the impact of local and global governance frames on the everyday conduct of research, this groundbreaking book traces the journey of ‘spare’ human embryos in IVF clinics to public and private laboratories engaged in isolating stem cells for potential therapeutic application. The discussion also examines the gender dimension as a potential site for exploitation in the sourcing of embryonic and other biogenic materials, and suggests that a moral economy has developed in which the ethical values of the global 'North' support and encourage the donation of abundant and ethically ‘neutral’ embryos by the 'South'. This unique exploration is grounded in an empirical, multi-sited ethnographic study that takes a thoroughly comparative analysis of the ethical, religious and social issues in Europe, the United States, and organ donations already prevalent in India. In this theoretically-sensitive analysis, the authors use the resources of social anthropology and the social sciences in an innovative text which will appeal to postgraduates and professionals in the areas of STS studies, genetics, bioethics, and anthropology.



Asian Biotech

Author : Aihwa Ong

Publisher : Duke University Press

Page : 345 pages

File Size : 10,61 MB

Release : 2010-11-05

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0822393204

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Book Description

Providing the first overview of Asia’s emerging biosciences landscape, this timely and important collection brings together ethnographic case studies on biotech endeavors such as genetically modified foods in China, clinical trials in India, blood collection in Singapore and China, and stem-cell research in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. While biotech policies and projects vary by country, the contributors identify a significant trend toward state entrepreneurialism in biotechnology, and they highlight the ways that political thinking and ethical reasoning are converging around the biosciences. As ascendant nations in a region of postcolonial emergence, with an “uncanny surplus” in population and pandemics, Asian countries treat their populations as sources of opportunity and risk. Biotech enterprises are allied to efforts to overcome past humiliations and restore national identity and political ambition, and they are legitimized as solutions to national anxieties about food supplies, diseases, epidemics, and unknown biological crises in the future. Biotechnological responses to perceived risks stir deep feelings about shared fate, and they crystallize new ethical configurations, often re-inscribing traditional beliefs about ethnicity, nation, and race. As many of the essays in this collection illustrate, state involvement in biotech initiatives is driving the emergence of “biosovereignty,” an increasing pressure for state control over biological resources, commercial health products, corporate behavior, and genetic based-identities. Asian Biotech offers much-needed analysis of the interplay among biotechnologies, economic growth, biosecurity, and ethical practices in Asia. Contributors Vincanne Adams Nancy N. Chen Stefan Ecks Kathleen Erwin Phuoc V. Le Jennifer Liu Aihwa Ong Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner Kaushik Sunder Rajan Wen-Ching Sung Charis Thompson Ara Wilson



Fungible Life

Author : Aihwa Ong

Publisher : Duke University Press

Page : 294 pages

File Size : 33,71 MB

Release : 2016-10-13

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0822373645

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Book Description

In Fungible Life Aihwa Ong explores the dynamic world of cutting-edge bioscience research, offering critical insights into the complex ways Asian bioscientific worlds and cosmopolitan sciences are entangled in a tropical environment brimming with the threat of emergent diseases. At biomedical centers in Singapore and China scientists map genetic variants, disease risks, and biomarkers, mobilizing ethnicized "Asian" bodies and health data for genomic research. Their differentiation between Chinese, Indian, and Malay DNA makes fungible Singapore's ethnic-stratified databases that come to "represent" majority populations in Asia. By deploying genomic science as a public good, researchers reconfigure the relationships between objects, peoples, and spaces, thus rendering "Asia" itself as a shifting entity. In Ong's analysis, Asia emerges as a richly layered mode of entanglements, where the population's genetic pasts, anxieties and hopes, shared genetic weaknesses, and embattled genetic futures intersect. Furthermore, her illustration of the contrasting methods and goals of the Biopolis biomedical center in Singapore and BGI Genomics in China raises questions about the future direction of cosmopolitan science in Asia and beyond.



Stem Cell Engineering

Author : Robert M. Nerem

Publisher : Springer

Page : 336 pages

File Size : 46,58 MB

Release : 2014-06-12

Category : Technology & Engineering

ISBN : 3319050745

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Book Description

This book describes a global assessment of stem cell engineering research, achieved through site visits by a panel of experts to leading institutes, followed by dedicated workshops. The assessment made clear that engineers and the engineering approach with its quantitative, system-based thinking can contribute much to the progress of stem cell research and development. The increased need for complex computational models and new, innovative technologies, such as high-throughput screening techniques, organ-on-a-chip models and in vitro tumor models require an increasing involvement of engineers and physical scientists. Additionally, this book will show that although the US is still in a leadership position in stem cell engineering, Asian countries such as Japan, China and Korea, as well as European countries like the UK, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands are rapidly expanding their investments in the field. Strategic partnerships between countries could lead to major advances of the field and scalable expansion and differentiation of stem cells. This study was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).



Cancer Stem Cells

Author : Lucie Laplane

Publisher : Harvard University Press

Page : 265 pages

File Size : 43,60 MB

Release : 2016-06-06

Category : Medical

ISBN : 0674088743

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Book Description

Part IV: The Identity of Stemness and Its Consequences for Cancer Therapies -- Chapter 7. If Stemness Is a Categorical or a Dispositional Property, How Can We Cure Cancers? -- Chapter 8. If Stemness Is a Relational or a Systemic Property, How Can We Cure Cancers? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Acknowledgments -- Index



The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Author : Katrien Devolder

Publisher : OUP Oxford

Page : 211 pages

File Size : 28,80 MB

Release : 2015-01-22

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0191036234

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Book Description

Embryonic stem cell research holds unique promise for developing therapies for currently incurable diseases and conditions, and for important biomedical research. However, the process through which embryonic stem cells are obtained involves the destruction of early human embryos. Katrien Devolder focuses on the tension between the popular view that an embryo should never be deliberately harmed or destroyed, and the view that embryonic stem cell research, because of its enormous promise, must go forward. She provides an in-depth ethical analysis of the major philosophical and political attempts to resolve this tension. One such attempt involves the development of a middle ground position, which accepts only types or aspects of embryonic stem cell research deemed compatible with the view that the embryo has a significant moral status. An example is the position that it can be permissible to derive stem cells from embryos left over from in vitro fertilisation but not from embryos created for research. Others have advocated a technical solution. Several techniques have been proposed for deriving embryonic stem cells, or their functional equivalents, without harming embryos. An example is the induced pluripotent stem cell technique. Through highlighting inconsistencies in the arguments for these positions, Devolder argues that the central tension in the embryonic stem cell debate remains unresolved. This conclusion has important implications for the stem cell debate, as well as for policies inspired by this debate.