REGENERATIVE MEDICINE AND THE GOVERNANCE OF STEM CELL INNOVATION

The aim of this dissertation is to reconstruct analytically and to assess normatively the emerging governance of stem cell clinical translation. I show that the therapeutic promise of stem cell medicine is potentially revolutionary, and that its fulfilment depends on variables that are at the same time scientific and political. The establishment of the governance of stem cell translational research is however taking intricate routes. It is being contested and challenged in many ways by different actors and, most importantly, its development is yet in the making and, hence, uncertain. In this dissertation I show that democracy is called into question by emerging disagreements about the appropriate framing of stem cell innovation. Such disagreements, that are indeed the hallmarks of our pluralistic societies, are relative to the very role of politics with respect to science, citizens’ interests, and patients’ rights. I therefore suggest that a democratic polity incurs in risks of democratic erosion due to the current political configuration of stem cell translation. I thus articulate some normative proposals as to the political stakes of innovative medicine and I propose technology assessment mechanisms for stakeholders inclusion and public participation to cope with them.