Critical considerations for public engagement in stem cell-related research.
Jeremy Sugarman, Amander Clark, James Fishkin, Kazuto Kato, Kevin McCormack, Megan Munsie, Michael J Peluso, Nancy René, Susan L Solomon
Author Information
Jeremy Sugarman: Berman Institute of Bioethics and Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, 1809 Ashland Avenue, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: jsugarman@jhu.edu.
Amander Clark: Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
James Fishkin: Department of Communication and Deliberative Democracy Lab, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Kazuto Kato: Department of Biomedical Ethics and Public Policy, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.
Kevin McCormack: California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, South San Francisco, CA, USA.
Megan Munsie: Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
Michael J Peluso: Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Nancy René: Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Susan L Solomon: New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute, New York, NY, USA.
Public engagement is increasingly recognized as being integral to basic and translational research. Public engagement involves effective communication about research along with the mutual exchange of views and opinions among a wide variety of members in society. As such, public engagement can help to identify issues that must be addressed in order for research to be ethically sound and trustworthy. It is especially critical in research that potentially raises ethical concerns, for example research involving embryos, germline genome editing, stigmatized conditions, and marginalized communities. Therefore, it is not surprising that there have been prominent recent calls for public engagement in the emerging sciences. However, given that there is arguably little agreement about how this should be done and the best ways of doing so, those involved with planning and implementing public engagement can benefit from understanding a broad range of prior experiences on related issues.
