The UK Stem Cell Bank: Securing the Past, Validating the Present, Protecting the Future1

1. A version of this paper was presented at the ‘Future Matters: Futures Known, Created and Minded’ conference, Cardiff University, 4th-6th September 2006 (Stephen, Atkinson & Glasner 2006a). The paper reports the work of two wider projects, both funded by the ESRC - ‘Curating and Husbandry in the UK Stem Cell Bank’ (Project No. Res-00022-1136; 1/3/05-28/2/06) and ‘The UK Stem Cell Bank - An Institutional Ecology’ (Project No. Res-349-25-0001; 1/4/06-31/3/08). We thank the ESRC for their support.

Abstract

In 2004 the United Kingdom opened the world's first stem cell bank. The UK Stem Cell Bank takes donations of ethically approved stem cell lines, tests them, grows larger stocks, and re-distributes the material internationally. As such the Bank has an important guardianship role in the international movement of human embryonic stem cell lines. It also enacts a particular future vision of stem cell science. Its strategies involve a complex temporal interplay: securing accounts of the past (both technical and social), while validating the regulatory legitimacy of the present. We analyse the centrality of trust, social networks, and wider public legitimacy in the Bank's work. It is important to recognize the ways in which the Bank makes these social relationships visible, and in some cases durable, through their embodiment in documentary form. These practices are essential to the Bank's particular vision of the future of stem cell science.

Notes

1. A version of this paper was presented at the ‘Future Matters: Futures Known, Created and Minded’ conference, Cardiff University, 4th-6th September 2006 (Stephen, Atkinson & Glasner 2006a). The paper reports the work of two wider projects, both funded by the ESRC - ‘Curating and Husbandry in the UK Stem Cell Bank’ (Project No. Res-00022-1136; 1/3/05-28/2/06) and ‘The UK Stem Cell Bank - An Institutional Ecology’ (Project No. Res-349-25-0001; 1/4/06-31/3/08). We thank the ESRC for their support.

2. Other potential sources of stem cells include cord blood (Brown & Kraft, 2006) and foetuses (Kent & Pfeffer, 2006).

3. See Holland et al. (2001) for a discussion of a range of these issues.

4. Stephens has been working at the Bank as an embedded researcher since July 2005, conducting in-depth interviews and observations with the Bank staff and representatives of wider related agencies.

5. The interviewee labelling system used in this paper applies only to the work presented here and is not consistent across publications based upon this research.

6. There has subsequently been a successful attempt to devise a standardized donor consent form for use in UK IVF clinics by the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Coordinators Network (hESSCO).