PET deputy director Sandy Starr was delighted to give a presentation in Hamburg at the Annual Conference of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), where he presented the new Code of Practice for the Generation and Use of Human Stem Cell-Based Embryo Models (the SCBEM Code of Practice), published jointly by PET and Cambridge Reproduction.
Work on the SCBEM Code of Practice began in earnest more than a year ago, in March 2023, since when Sandy has been involved in regular in-depth discussions with the Working Group of experts in science, ethics, regulation and law who were tasked with drafting the text. Members of the Working Group reflect on the significance of the work in this BioNews comment piece.
The SCBEM Code of Practice – the first governance document of its kind dedicated exclusively to stem-cell based embryo models (SCBEMs) – is now helping to shape discussion of SCBEMs not just in UK but also around the world. Sandy was recently quoted in a Nature News article about the Code, as was ISSCR president Professor Amander Clark. Professor Clark co-chairs an ISSCR Working Group which is currently developing its own new guidance on SCBEMs.
In addition to working on the SCBEM Code of Practice, Sandy has also been involved in an accompanying public dialogue project which explored public perspectives on the science and ethics of SCBEMs, and ensured that these perspectives were taken into account in the published Code. Sandy, together with his colleague Christina Rozeik from Cambridge Reproduction, reflects on the public dialogue project in this BioNews comment piece.
Finally, while discussing the SCBEM Code of Practice in Hamburg, Sandy was also delighted to participate a related workshop organised by the Virtual Human Development project. This is an ambitious project to build a computer-based simulator of embryonic development, bringing together data from diverse areas of research – involving SCBEMs, actual human embryos, genomics and computer science – in order to put together a comprehensive picture of how human embryos develop.
