Thanks to the London-based consultancy The Liminal Space, Professor Emily Jackson from the London School of Economics and Political Science and Dr Naomi Moris from the Francis Crick Institute, London, the complex future of stem cell research has been brought down to earth.
Cell Yourself is a fictional product, inhabiting an imagined future where stem cell research has developed and become commercialised. An accessible and simple DIY skin-cell collection kit, which would put the science of the future into the hands of the average person.
As the kit details, the technology would give people the ability to create their own supply of egg and sperm cells and develop embryos that combine three or more parents' DNA, or even grow their own organs and tissue, just from the collection of skin cells.
It's futuristic, but not so far removed from existing organisations, like 23andMe and MyHeritage, which increases its plausibility. With clean execution and creative marketing, I could see future products like Cell Yourself becoming widely used, prompting the question: how far is too far for stem cell research?
The execution of the product itself was excellent, and upon receiving the Cell Yourself kit, I was originally convinced it was a real product. The androgynous colour scheme of green and red gives the box an authentic, polished feel, enhanced by the simplistic illustrations that are both informative and decorative. The style of the kit makes the process seem both medically legitimate and recreational.
In the kit, you receive individual boxes labelled one to four, each detailing a step in the skin cell collection process. The way they are labelled and presented makes Cell Yourself seem almost like an advent calendar, and the packaging gives the process a luxurious, self-care feel. It makes a complex exercise accessible for the average person, while seemingly making the process enjoyable. The kit links to the Cell Yourself webpage and several videos in their social media campaign, which had a wide reach of almost 80,000 people.
Cell Yourself's debut sparked public engagement and gave insight into a wide range of public opinions, highlighting a lack of consensus from person to person, and the potential for conflict to arise. The idea behind this product raises several questions: What would be the impact on couples and individuals who are unable to conceive naturally? Could the accessibility of the product make it dangerous? Would it have to be regulated? Would it be dangerous to offer this high-tech science to the free market? And most importantly, how far should this technology be allowed to go? The public debate showed there isn't one clear answer or belief, and the whole concept is a grey area.
It raised many questions and ideas that I had never considered before. For one, this technology could be a cheaper, more accessible way for individuals and couples with fertility problems to have a child. It could also be a way for same-sex couples to have a child that is genetically their own.
However, there are so many issues with making it widely accessible. For one, the free market would likely exploit and oversimplify it to sell more of these kits without considering the consequences. The marketing is targeting younger people who might be irresponsible, unprepared and ill-informed about what it means to start a family using this technology. Finally, the public debate showed that many believe that creating embryos using stem cells is taking the technology too far, deeming embryos too fragile for this type of scientific intervention.
Though the technology that this product imagines is based on theory, stem cell research is a rapidly developing field, and what might be unimaginable today could be plausible in a few years. Thus, it's important to think about this fictional product as becoming a genuine possibility in the future.
By designing such a realistic product, Cell Yourself has been a success in igniting genuine public debate over the future of stem cell research and questioning where its limits should lie. Personally, the prototype was thought-provoking and confronted me with dilemmas I hadn't previously thought about. Overall, Cell Yourself is a brilliant, speculative project that has inspired thought, discussion, and reflection.