In Brief
Nature Reports Stem Cells
Published online: 21 June 2007 | doi:10.1038/stemcells.2007.41
Scientists propose Asian-Pacific stem cell network
Monya Baker1
At a meeting in Tokyo on June 6, stem cell researchers from Japan, Australia, China, South Korea, and other Asia-Pacific countries discussed the formation of a regional stem cell research organization.
Collaborations between scientists in Asia-Pacific countries and North America or Europe demand costly transportation and inconvenient scheduling, but these are the very relationships Asia-Pacific researchers have traditionally sought. Fostering connections closer to home would make better use of the region's assets, said participants, who described these assets as generally permissive legislation, access to research materials, enthusiasm for clinical applications, and generous funding.
One low-cost, straightforward task of a regional stem cell network could be helping to set meeting schedules, suggested panelist D. Balasubramanian, Director of Research at the L. V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India. Currently, multiple conferences related to stem cell research are planned in different countries within a short, noncontiguous time. If organizers communicated plans early, they could synchronize locations and schedules to minimize "meeting fatigue." Such coordination could also help attract researchers beyond the region.
Another role of a formal Asia-Pacific stem cell network would be to tailor training opportunities to the needs of that region, said Duanqing Pei, deputy director general of China's Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, who advocated setting up "summer schools" for young researchers in his country. "It's not feasible to have researchers travel across the border. So it's much easier to have professors to come across to China," he said.
A third task of a regional network could be to establish banks of biological materials for research. These are already being collected in some countries, but standardizing collections and making them exchangeable could enable powerful cross-country studies. Although attendees said that such projects could be useful, they doubted they would be initiated.
"A lot of this depends on having finances," said Alan Trounson, professor at Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories in Clayton, Australia, who said that one function of a stem cell network would be to identify politicians and other leaders who could serve as "champions" of stem cell science in the region.
He urged participants to meet again at the upcoming meeting for the International Society for Stem Cell Research, scheduled for June 17-21 in Cairns, Australia.
(Disclosure: The stem cell workshop was hosted by the Nature Publishing Group, and co-chaired by this reporter. However, any resulting organization would not be affiliated with NPG.)
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Author affiliation
- News Editor, Nature Reports Stem Cells