Introduction.

• Author: Caulfield, Timothy

It has been almost a decade since the first embryonic stem cells were isolated. Since that time, stem cell research has remained an extremely high profile scientific endeavour. It has been the focus of ongoing media scrutiny, regulatory oversight and intense ethical debate. In the midst of this controversy, the Canadian scientific community has continued to work. Incremental advances have materialized and the possibility of future clinical applications remains real.

Given this research activity, the public investment and the persistence of ethical concern, our Stem Cell Network research team felt it essential to explore the most pressing research ethics challenges and provide practical recommendations on how best to move forward. To this end, topics of inquiry were selected after interviewing a broad range of relevant Canadian stakeholders. (1) We then commissioned a paper on each of the selected topics, with the goal of informing our policy deliberations. These papers were presented at a February 2007 interdisciplinary workshop in Montreal, an event that led to the recent publication of a paper entitled "Stem Cell Research...