ROBERT, Jason S.; Dalhousie University: Stem cells, model systems, and scientific inference

Philosophical, ethical, and scientific attention to the character of stem cells has tended to focus on a somewhat limited set of questions about the developmental stage (embryonic, foetal, `adult�) of stem cells. I think that we should take a broader approach. This poster documents a set of fundamental questions about the nature of stem cells, their common characteristics (`stemness�), their non-negligible differences, and their possible developmental species-specificity. Answers to these basic questions are essential to the project of justly inferring anything about human stem cell biology from studies in non-human model systems � and so to assessing the prospects of eventually developing and testing human stem cell therapies. Morevoer, theoretical and experimental treatment of these questions, necessarily from multiple perspectives, promotes novel philosophical, ethical, and sociolegal analyses of stem cell biology.