The ISSCR Board writes a letter to the stem cell community regarding travel to the ISSCR 2017 meeting, 14-17 June.

The ISSCR issued a statement opposing a U.S. executive order on immigration.

Fetal tissue research has made major contributions to our understanding of biology and the development of new medical technologies, including vaccines for many diseases that have saved millions of lives. The ISSCR is providing a portfolio of examples showing how the use of fetal tissue has led to therapies that have saved lives as well as ways in which fetal tissue research continues to be necessary for medical advances.

In comments to the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the ISSCR supported regulation of autologous products that involve more than minimal manipulation of a patient’s cells and place strict limitations on the direct advertisement of cell-based therapies. The comments were in response to the TGA's call for input from interested parties about the regulation of autologous cell and tissue products.

The ISSCR opposes the REGROW Act, which would allow certain cell and tissue-based therapeutics to be marketed without first providing rigorous evidence of safety and efficacy. If passed, this legislation could negatively impact the development of stem cell therapies, the integrity of the emerging regenerative medicine market, and the health and safety of people using stem cell products approved under this Act.

The ISSCR today underscored the need for careful oversight and regulation of stem cell research at every stage in the process of developing therapeutic products for patient use.

The ISSCR supports the continued assessment of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. We applaud the proposed end to the current moratorium on U.S. federal funding of human-animal chimera research involving the introduction of human pluripotent cells into early stage animal embryos.

The ISSCR is pleased that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering an end to the moratorium on NIH funding of human-animal chimera research (NIH Notice, 8-4-16).

The ISSCR provided comments to the National Academy of Science/National Academy of Medicine Committee on Human Gene Editing regarding scientific, medical, and ethical considerations.

The ISSCR, the world’s largest professional organization of stem cell scientists, today released newly updated guidelines for stem cell research and the development of new clinical therapies. Guidance addresses key scientific, ethical, social, and policy challenges raised by new technologies and emerging areas of stem cell discovery and application.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is the world’s leading professional organization of stem cell scientists, representing more than 4,000 members in 45 U.S. states and 65 countries around the world. The ISSCR is opposed to recent efforts to inappropriately limit or prohibit biomedical research using fetal tissue. These proposals, if enacted, would obstruct critical biomedical research and inhibit efforts to improve human health. If enacted in the past, such limits would have delayed or prevented the development of therapies that have saved millions of lives.

In response to an article published by Chinese scientists describing research that used gene editing technologies in human embryos, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has again called for a moratorium on attempts at human clinical germline genome editing while extensive scientific analysis of the potential risks is conducted, along with broad public discussion of the societal and ethical implications.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research calls for a moratorium on attempts at clinical application of nuclear genome editing of the human germ line to enable more extensive scientific analysis of the potential risks of genome editing and broader public discussion of the societal and ethical implications.

The ISSCR welcomes the recent EU Commission’s response to concerns about how funding from the Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation program is to be used for human embryonic stem cell research. The ISSCR advocates that all forms of stem cell research are crucial for the advancement of our understanding of human health and disease and for the development of novel treatments.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) urges medical licensing bodies, legal authorities, patient advocacy organizations, physicians, and others to exercise their influence to discourage commercial provision of unproven autologous cell-based interventions outside of clinical trials.