title: Access to stem cells and data: persons, property rights, and scientific progress.
abstract: Many fields have struggled to develop strategies, policies, or structures to optimally manage data, materials, and intellectual property rights (IPRs). There is growing recognition that the field of stem cell science, in part because of its complex IPRs landscape and the importance of cell line collections, may require collective action to facilitate basic and translational research. Access to pluripotent stem cell lines and the information associated with them is critical to the progress of stem cell science, but simple notions of access are substantially complicated by shifting boundaries between what is considered information versus material, person versus artifact, and private property versus the public domain.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Deering Hall, 208, 1809 Ashland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. dmathews@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Debra J H
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Mathews
authors.forename: Gregory D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Graff
authors.forename: Krishanu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saha
authors.forename: David E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Winickoff
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D003219:Confidentiality; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D018973:Intellectual Property; D010067:Ownership; D017150:Public Sector; D057905:Stem Cell Research; D013234:Stem Cells; D014019:Tissue Donors