title: Power-laws and the use of pluripotent stem cell lines.
abstract: It is widely accepted that the (now reversed) Bush administration's decision to restrict federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research to a few "eligible" hESC lines is responsible for the sustained preferential use of a small subset of hESC lines (principally the H1 and H9 lines) in basic and preclinical research. Yet, international hESC usage patterns, in both permissive and restrictive political environments, do not correlate with a specific type of stem cell policy. Here we conducted a descriptive analysis of hESC line usage and compared the ability of policy-driven processes and collaborative processes inherent to biomedical research to recapitulate global hESC usage patterns. We find that current global hESC usage can be modelled as a cumulative advantage process, independent of restrictive or permissive policy influence, suggesting a primarily innovation-driven (rather than policy-driven) mechanism underlying human pluripotent stem cell usage in preclinical research.
authors.affiliation: Graduiertenschule Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernhard M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Schuldt
authors.forename: Anke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guhr
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lenz
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kobold
authors.forename: Ben D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: MacArthur
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schuppert
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Löser
authors.forename: Franz-Josef
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Müller
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000639:trends; D002460:Cell Line; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003198:Computer Simulation; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D039904:Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D011640:Public Policy; D044968:Regenerative Medicine / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends; D057905:Stem Cell Research / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014481:United States