FORIPS

BAVARIAN RESEARCH NETWORK INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

Bioethics at the Interface of Research, Therapy and Commercialisation

Field of work:

The bioethical subproject pursues the objective to analyse the current ethical, social and legal problems concerning research with human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) and will finally develop governance guidelines for the further implementation and establishment of hiPSC-technologies and biobanks as their usage contexts. For this purpose the subproject provides an ongoing ethical monitoring of the (bio)ethical questions within ForIPS, which is conducted by a threefold step by step approach. Therefore (1) the subproject interlinks the questions arising in the field of hiPSC-technologies retrospectively with the classical ethical debates on the research with human embryonic stem cells (hESC), (2) analyses the impact of economic factors on the interface between science and society with special regard to commercialisation and biopatenting in the field of hiPSC-technologies and biobanks as their usage contexts and (3) gives proactive ethical support and advice on the implementation and establishment of the biobank for hiPSC and derived neural cells within the ForIPS consortium, for example by contributing to the development of suitable patient consent forms with respect to ethical and legal aspects.

Project partners: