ABSTRACT
The United Kingdom has recently set up the world’s first Stem Cell Bank. Only stem lines adhering to the Bank’s stringent ethical guidelines and provenance protocols validating the human embryonic materials are admissible for donation. This development poses hitherto unexplored questions concerning the standardization of ethical and regulatory practices in a culturally diverse world. This chapter explores the way in which embryonic stem lines currently under development in India are responding to growing moves towards ethical, legal and regulatory standardization around the globe, and the way in which this process is seldom unidirectional. In so arguing, this chapter also shows how the bioethical framing of biotechnologies is shaped by local/global cultural processes and in turn shapes that cultural context. India has formulated draft Guidelines, based on the regulatory models of the UK and the USA, as part of the need to meet the growing regulatory concerns of countries that have invested heavily in stem cell research. This allows India to produce high quality laboratories staffed by well-qualified scientists and technicians, ensuring that the resultant embryonic cell lines meet the stringent provenance protocols in the UK and the USA. However, these Guidelines have yet to become legally binding, and working conditions for Indian scientists remain flexible enough to allow a small number of unregulated therapeutic interventions using stem cell technology. This chapter begins with a discussion of the growing international cult of
the ‘maverick scientist’, looking particularly at the rise and fall of Professor Hwang of South Korea. It suggests that the well-documented trade in human organs in India, and that it is used as a site for trialling new drug therapies, make it an ideal location for stem cell work. This is further contextualized by reference to the continuing biotechnology boom based on developing cheap generic drugs for Third World markets. This chapter continues by outlining public sector regulation of stem cell research in the United Kingdom and the United States, before discussing the process of adopting the draft Guidelines in India. The key area of informed consent is then analysed in an attempt, following Jasanoff (2005), to develop a deeper
and more nuanced understanding of the ways in which normative discourses about biotechnology are embedded in wider culture and practice. The chapter concludes that India is able to foster leading edge research in therapeutic interventions by providing a liminal space within which to develop stem cell technology, whether by ‘maverick’ or by ‘orthodox’ scientists.
