1st Edition

Stem Cell Research in Asia Looking Beyond Regulatory Exteriors

Edited By Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner Copyright 2015
    164 Pages
    by Routledge

    164 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    1. Stem cell research in Asia: looking beyond regulatory exteriors Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

    2. The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation Priscilla Song

    3. Recruiter-patients as ambiguous symbols of health: bionetworking and stem cell therapy in India Prasanna Kumar Patra and Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

    4. Exploring appropriation of "surplus" ova and embryos in Indian IVF clinics Jyotsna A. Gupta

    5. Modalities of value, exchange, solidarity: the social life of stem cells in China Achim Rosemann

    6. Scientific institutions and effective governance: a case study of Chinese stem cell research Joy Yueyue Zhang

    7. "Your problem is that your face reveals everything when you are lying": making and remaking of conduct in South Korean life sciences Leo Kim

    8. Regulating cell lives in Japan: avoiding scandal and sticking to nature Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

    9. Reconsidering ethical issues about "voluntary egg donors" in Hwang's case in global context Azumi Tsuge and Hyunsoo Hong

    10. Biological scarcity: looking beyond regulatory exteriors in Taiwan Jennifer A. Liu

    11. Overcoming embryonic exceptionalism? Lessons from analyzing human stem cell research regulation in Israel Barbara Prainsack

    12. Looking beyond the regulatory exteriors of stem cell research in Asia – discussion Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

    Biography

    Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner is Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology at the University of Sussex (Brighton, UK). Her work focuses on processes of nation-state building in China and Japan and on biotechnology and society in Asia. She directs the Centre for Bionetworking and two projects on the life sciences in Asia. See: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/192052/research