ISSCR to Launch an International Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines Task Force

The recent announcements by Professor Woo Suk Hwang of Korea have drawn considerable attention to the ethical challenges of practicing somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce customized, patient-specific embryonic stem cells.

This is an important avenue of stem cell research, but it is critical that this work proceed only under the most scrupulous ethical standards, and with diligent, transparent oversight procedures. The United States National Academy of Sciences has released a set of Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (http://www.nap.edu/books/0309096537/html).

This includes the recommendation that each research institution establish an Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee to engage members of the public, scientific, legal, and ethical communities in the supervision of stem cell research. The ISSCR believes that these guidelines provide a strong set of principles that can aid institutional oversight committees throughout the international scientific community.

To provide members of the global stem cell community with standards that can be endorsed internationally, the ISSCR will launch an International Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines Task Force to consider a set of such guidelines. We anticipate that the deliberations of this task force will be completed and the international guidelines presented at the next ISSCR annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in June 2006.

Posted: November 30, 2005