Innogen PhD student at Royal Society's 350th Anniversary Exhibiton
Date Released: 30 July 2010Emma King spent three days asking members of the public about their reactions to an exhibit entitled 'Stem Cells for Blood Transfusion?' at the Royal Society 350th Anniversary Summer Science Exhibition in London in July 2010.
The exhibit was one of 26 picked from 160 applicants and will also feature at the Edinburgh and Glasgow Science Festivals in spring 2011.
The exhibit was based on a collaborative Wellcome Trust funded project and describes the possibility of developing red blood cells from stem
cells. Emma discussed both the use of stem cell therapies and the potential for cultured red blood cells to replace human blood donors.
"Nearly everybody that I spoke to reacted extremely positively and most said they would prefer to receive laboratory cultured blood than blood from human donation.” said Emma.
“It is always difficult to explain that a concept seen in the laboratory may still be a decade away from patient use, but this is a good example of the strict regulations in place in the UK. Stem cell research has had some bad publicity but it was clear that the vast majority of people who visited the exhibit were still hopeful that more therapies would be developed”
This project forms a case study for Emma's PhD on how stem cell research is regulated and the impact this regulation has on the production of viable therapies. Understanding public reactions to potential stem cell products also provides insights into some of the barriers to research commercialisation.
Emma is based at the ESRC Innogen Centre at the University of Edinburgh is jointly supervised by Innogen, the Scottish Stem Cell Network and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. For more information about the 'Stem Cells for Blood Transfusion?' exhibit, please visit www.stemcellsforblood.org
For information about Emma's PhD project, please visit her research page.
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