ABSTRACT
Since the late 90’s stem cells have become a salient topic in the public sphere. They have raised revolutionary medical promises and propelled the coalescence of a diverse and still expanding set of disciplines into the unifying fi eld of regenerative biomedicine with its attending bioeconomy. All the while, they have igniting some of the fi ercest controversies in the history of science and societal relationships. From the moral legitimacy of fundamental research with human embryonic stem cells to the applications of stem cell-based products, from the scope of intellectual property to the governance of biobanks, the rise of stem cell science has intersected all major lines of bioethical and legal friction typical of contemporary, knowledge-intensive society. Along the way, these controversies and the settlements they ushered into have engendered a wide range of biopolitical
Head, Laboratory of Stem Cell Epigenetics, Deputy Director, Research Unit on Biomedical Humanities, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy. *Corresponding author: giuseppe.testa@ieo.eu
List of abbreviations after the text.
