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| Workshop PagesPage contents > BIONET Workshops | Workshop 1 | Workshop 2 | Workshop 3 | Workshop 4 BIONET WorkshopsBIONET workshops have a number of objectives, the most important of which is to foster mutual understanding of cultural particularities and differences not just between Europe and China but also within these two vast regions. The workshops have been designed to feed into two BIONET conferences. The particular aims of workshops are: • To provide a platform for scholars with different cultural and academic backgrounds to improve understanding Participation in workshops is by invitation only. Please contact Dr. Ole Döring for more information.
Workshop 1"Informed consent in reproductive genetics and stem cell technology and the role of Ethical Review Boards" There are currently more than 88 assisted reproductive technology (ART) centres and 10 sperm banks in China (as of December 2006). Compared to other biomedical technologies, ART is relatively mature in China, although its increasing use in recent years has raised a number of issues, not only as concerns informed consent, but also issues of informed choice and the role of ethical review committees. Currently, the key priority of ethical review committees has been training for consultants who are to become representatives on hospital ethics committees. ART comprise a range of biomedical technologies that have been extensively developed and widely applied in China, as well as in Europe. By their very nature they relate to the happiness, hopes and aspirations of humans, but are also surrounded by socio-economic factors and cultural understandings of fertility/infertility. They rely on the procurement, manipulation and assessment of gametes and embryos from human subjects in ART centres. In the long run, a key element for ART and other biomedical technologies is good governance of these technologies. Good governance centrally concerns questions of ethics. Family, kinship and “blood relations” are very significant in China, which raises numerous ethical, social, legal and regulatory questions, especially when many infertile couples are eager to use ART to have offspring. As such, these technologies have implications for professional conduct, the rights of patients, and individual and population welfare. Addressing these issues from different cultural perspectives of China and Europe in a workshop setting will be mutually helpful to practitioners and regulatory bodies from both regions. BIONET partners met in April 2007 to discuss and examine cultural differences and similarities around the topics of informed consent and the role of ethical review committees in ART. Workshop 2"Ethical governance of stem cell research and stem cell banks" In the last decade, stem cell research has become emblematic of both the hopes and fears that are associated with advanced bioscience. On the one hand, it is hoped that some of the most debilitating diseases and disorders – e.g. neurodegenerative disorders, spinal cord damage, diabetes, eye diseases, multiple sclerosis, immune disorders and blood diseases – can finally be treated if not cured. These are diseases where suffering can be long and drawn out. On the other hand, the development of effective regenerative treatment relies on stem cell research which requires the ethically controversial sourcing and manipulation of human cells to generate stem cell lines which can then be transplanted into sufferers of degenerative diseases. Such self-renewing stem cell lines can be sourced from six-day old in vitro fertilised human blastocysts, aborted human foetal tissues, umbilical cord blood, bone marrow, brain and other somatic sources as well. The challenge for stem cell researchers is how to generate and perpetuate these stem cell lines into the large stem cell populations that are necessary for regenerative therapy in an ethically acceptable and accountable way.
Workshop 3"Clinical Research and Clinical Research Organisations in EU-CN research – ethics and governance issues" Since the mid 20th century, clinical trials (especially randomized controlled trials) have emerged as the gold standard for evaluating the efficacy of a drug or treatment. So much so that there are an estimated 50,000 clinical trials being run worldwide today. In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have increasingly contracted clinical research organisations (CROs), which specialise in carrying out clinical trials, to carry out the bulk of their clinical trials. These CROs, which are often based in America or Europe, have in turn begun ‘offshoring’ their trials to countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The reasons for such offshoring, it has been suggested, can range from: an economic drive to rationalise and save costs, the growing difficulty of finding ‘treatment naïve’ populations in western countries, to a perception that ethical standards are lower in some countries. It is the goal of the third BIONET workshop to address some of the key ethical governance challenges that arise in international clinical research collaborations. The goal of stem cell research and pharmacogenomic research is ultimately for it to be translated into clinical applications, a process that will most often rely on clinical trials. For this reason, the growing globalisation of clinical trials research is a crucial issue to examine when it comes to the ethical governance of Chinese-European biological or biomedical research collaborations.
Workshop 4"Biobanking & Personal Genomics: Challenges and Futures for EU-China Collaborations" Ever since the completion of the first working draft of the human genome was announced in June 2000 by the international Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corporation, expectations have been high that novel ways to prevent, diagnose, treat and cure disease would emerge out of 21st century genomic research. While this achievement was a milestone in itself, with China contributing 1% of the total sequencing work as the only developing country involved, a number of developments have since led to a ‘step change’ in genetic research: ^ Back to top
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