Canada's Science: An Ethnography of Ethics and Expertise in Stem Cell Biology

Abstract

In a series of experiments performed at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto in

1961, Drs. James Till and Ernest McCulloch, a physicist and a hematologist, first

demonstrated the existence of stem cells. The advent of human embryonic stem cell

research in 1998 spurred Canadian scientists and the Canadian government to build on

the country’s research capacity in the field. At the same time, the government put in place

a policy framework which criminalizes certain human embryonic stem cell experiments.

Canadian stem cell science is currently a vibrant research field involving different types

of cells and many different lines of research and it remains a funding priority, despite this

relatively strict policy on human embryonic stem cell research. Drawing on two years of

fieldwork, this dissertation traces the experiences and practices of stem cell scientists,

policy researchers and institutional experts in research review and in commercialization

as they make and remake the meaning and legitimacy of stem cell science. I explore their

morally inflected experiences and modes of analysis as they work to turn stem cell

science to medical benefit. To understand how Canadian stem cell science has maintained

government and public support, I investigate the conditions in which stem cell research is

conducted and shaped in four domains of meaning and practice: that of scientists engaged

in research who are concerned with the scientific validity of their results and the

credibility of their visions, that of the institutional ethics bureaucracy which certifies

research as conforming to Canadian values, that of policy experts trying to steer stem cell

science away from potential controversies and, lastly, that of commercialization experts

working to move research out of the academy to the benefit of patients without activating

public concerns over commercial agendas and profits.