Reports from REMEDiE
Final Report
You will be able to access the final published report which has been submitted to the Commission and have access to the Workpackage relating to the global database by clicking here.
Report from REMEDiE Final Conference, Bilbao, Spain.
Over 100 delegates from twelve countries attended the final Conference of the REMEDiE Project, hosted by our partners at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao. The event was a great success, providing an opportunity for the final results of the different workpackages to be disseminated, as well as hearing about the work of many other researchers from across Europe working on regenerative medicine and stem cells, drawing on STS, anthropological, sociological, and bioscience perspectives. Following on from Andrew Webster's Introduction (PDF 
, 256kb)
, the opening Keynote address by Michael Whitaker, bio-clinical scientist and Director of the North East England Stem Cell Institute, argued that the only way ‘to the clinic’ is ‘through the clinic’ – stressing the key role that clinicians are and will play in developing therapies and products over the medium term.
The meeting also explored the commercial and economic dynamics that are shaping the field, as well as exploring regulatory, ethical and legal developments that indicate the unevenness, challenges and likely path that regenerative medicine will take in the long term. Some of the thinking behind this is captured in the Policy brief prepared for the meeting.
The final report on the Project as a whole will be sent to the Commission at the end of June, and made available on the REMEDiE website shortly.
Report on REMEDiE Annual Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The second international meeting of the REMEDiE project was held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The project, coordinated by Andrew Webster, received huge support for the meeting from Linda Hogle based at W-M and colleagues in the STS Holtz Centre, especially Daniel Kleinman, and the local WUN (Worldwide University network) partner. The Conference provided an opportunity to explore and debate the current state of the stem-cells and wider regenerative medicine field and to determine how global shifts will affect both the US and Europe
Some of the main points emerging at the meeting include:
The need for new, RM-specific regulatory models and procedures that provide for optimal regulation and governance; the advent of clinical trials (CT) for treatment, especially through the development of allogeneic-based therapeutics, requires a rethink about the structure and utility of the conventional CT process; the exploitation and commodification of tissue and women (and their labour) as biological resources which raises quite specific political and bioethical issues relating to property rights and usage; and the existence of diverse models that can be seen in regard to science-based innovation/state/market relations and in particular new innovation models found within China and India.
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