10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17091
In many countries, stem cell research is embroiled in heated ethical and political debates because the most valued stem cell types are human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) taken from a few-days old human embryo which is destroyed during the harvesting procedure. ‘Ethical stem cells’ is the label commonly used to denote an array of cellular reprogramming techniques, biological artifacts, and somatic stem cells which make it possible to obtain pluripotent stem cells while avoiding the use of human embryos. This paper, by focusing on the Italian case, analyzes the cultural meaning and the political uses of these bio-objects which incorporate in their ontology the social and ethical quandaries raised by stem cell research in order to sidestep them. The debate on ethical stem cells shows a new way to deal with ethical commitments in biosciences and throws light on the process of regulatory ordering and normativity production in regard to biotechnological innovations.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17091
1
en
Lorenzo Beltrame
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Italy
“Sidestepping the Embryo”. The Cultural Meaning and Political Uses of Ethical Stem Cells
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
4
Essays
2013-07-12
2023-06-01
2013-07-12
2023-07-17
111-131
TS
Lorenzo Beltrame
2013/07/12
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17091
111
University of Trento
2038-3460
1
Italy
en
131
“Sidestepping the Embryo”. The Cultural Meaning and Political Uses of Ethical Stem Cells
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17091/16028
4
                                                                              Essay

‘Sidestepping the Embryo’
The Cultural Meaning and Political Uses of Ethical
Stem Cells
!
Lorenzo Beltrame
University of Trento
!
    Abstract In many countries, stem cell research is embroiled in heated ethi-
    cal and political debates because the most valued stem cell types are human
    embryonic stem cells (hESCs) taken from a few-days old human embryo
    which is destroyed during the harvesting procedure. ‘Ethical stem cells’ is the
    label commonly used to denote an array of cellular reprogramming tech-
    niques, biological artifacts, and somatic stem cells which make it possible to
    obtain pluripotent stem cells while avoiding the use of human embryos. This
    paper, by focusing on the Italian case, analyzes the cultural meaning and the
    political uses of these bio-objects which incorporate in their ontology the
    social and ethical quandaries raised by stem cell research in order to sidestep
    them. The debate on ethical stem cells shows a new way to deal with ethical
    commitments in biosciences and throws light on the process of regulatory
    ordering and normativity production in regard to biotechnological innova-
    tions.

    Keywords: ethical stem cells, human embryo, bioethics, biotechnologies,
    Italy.

    Corresponding author: Lorenzo Beltrame, Department of Sociology and
    Social Research, Science Technology and Society Programme (STSTN), Via
    Verdi, 26 - 38122 Trento (Italy) - Email: beltramelorenzo@fastwebnet.it.



1. Introduction
    In many countries, stem cell research is embroiled in heated ethical
and political debates because the most valued stem cell types are human
embryonic stem cells (hESCs) taken from a few-days old human embryo
which is destroyed during the harvesting procedure. The ethical dilemma
springs from the fact that hESCs are highly valued because they are plu-
ripotent (i.e. able to develop into almost any cell type) and thus regarded
as able to yield a renewable supply of organs and tissue for the treatment
of degenerative diseases (Hauskeller and Weber 2011), while the destruc-
!
TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
4 (1) pp. 111-131 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                              2013
112                                                          Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

tion of the human embryo is morally condemned by those who grant it
the status of a human being. The political debate revolves around the
management of these two opposing values: that of the ‘therapeutic prom-
ise’ of hESCs, and the so-called ‘embryo question’ (Rubin 2008).
    One of the political means most widely adopted to deal with the moral
dilemmas raised by stem cell research has been the development of bio-
ethics committees (Gottweis et al. 2009). Bioethics has emerged as the
main way to fulfill ‘the political need to reconcile the promise of new
health technologies with the cultural costs of scientific advance’ (Salter
and Salter 2007, 555) and as ‘a new language of deliberation, geared to
the analysis of human values’ (Jasanoff 2005, 172). In its interplay be-
tween institutional mechanisms and expert discourse, bioethics seemed to
provide a solution to both the ‘moral problematization’ and the ‘more
general problematization of scientific governance in terms of public trust’
(Moore 2010, 202). Another way to cope with ethical issues related to bi-
oscientific innovations is what Wainwright and colleges (2006) call ‘ethi-
cal boundary-work’, a process of social demarcation between more or less
ethical ways of conducting scientific research which involves a set of per-
spectives, processes and practices referring to a ‘practical ethics’ which
‘takes the form of a number of choices over how to conduct oneself in a
complicated political, moral and epistemic context’ (Wainwright et al.
2006, 745).
    In this paper I shall explore a third way to deal with ethical issues in
stem cell research; one in which, instead of delegating the moral evalua-
tion to expert bodies or to the direct commitment of scientists in their
practices, the moral problematization is incorporated in the biological ob-
jects themselves, whose ontology would be constructed precisely in order
to solve ethical quandaries through an epistemic discourse, thereby chal-
lenging or reinforcing an existing regulatory regime on stem cell research.
I refer to so-called ‘ethical stem cells’, which is the label introduced both
in scientific literature and in mass media discourses to denote an array of
cellular reprogramming techniques, biological artifacts, and somatic stem
cells which would make it possible to obtain pluripotent stem cells while
avoiding the use of human embryos. Indeed, the embryo question has
dominated the public debate, overshadowing other ethical and social
concerns (Prainsack et al. 2008). Especially (but not only) in countries
such as Italy, where the human embryo has been legally defined as pos-
sessing the status of a fully human subject, the embryo question has mo-
nopolized the ethical debate, becoming the ethical issue in stem cell re-
search. Therefore, ethics has come to coincide with avoiding the use of
human embryos, and pluripotent stem cells harvested from non-
embryonic sources have been publicly defined as ‘ethical’. Both in the
scientific literature and mass media discourses, it has been hoped that
ethical stem cells would defuse political and moral conflicts. Italy pro-
vides a paradigmatic example to study of the cultural significance of ethi-
cal stem cells and their political use in challenging or reinforcing the cur-
Beltrame                                                                     113
rent Italian stem cell regulation. By focusing on the Italian case, I shall
explore what can be learned from the debate on ethical stem cells in re-
gard to the making of regulatory orders in biotechnologies in general.
     In this paper I critically develop some insights of Sarah Franklin, in
particular her claim that in our biotechnological era ‘the social is literally
being reinstalled within the biological’ (Franklin 2001, 342), and also that
ethics ‘can be “built in” to new life-forms’ because one way to allay public
anxiety ‘is to re-engineer an ethically sensitive biotechnology’ (Franklin
2001, 342). I shall similarly consider the work of Giuseppe Testa, who has
defined ethical stem cells as attempts ‘to solve ethical quandaries through
technological means’, since they ‘must be constructed, genetically and
conceptually in such a way that [they are] visibly, self-evidently … biolog-
ical artefacts’ (Testa 2008, 441). In this regard, I consider ethical stem
cells and their sources to be what Webster terms ‘bio-objects’, that is,
technoscientifically created life forms and ‘technologically enacted vital
materiality’ emerging from the process of bio-objectification in which the
boundaries of life ‘are questioned and destabilized, though sometimes can
be re-established or re-confirmed’ (Webster 2012, 1-2). Ethical stem cells
sources as bio-objects have ‘considerable fluidity and mobility across dif-
ferent socio-technical domains … or even contrasting cultural meanings’
(Webster 2012, 3), and they leave many questions open, rather than simp-
ly solving problems. This paper aims to address some of these questions.
In particular: have ethical stem cells been successful in defusing political
and ethical quandaries in Italy? Or has their ontology (i.e. as non-
embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells similar to embryonic ones)
been called into question? Have they allowed a research trajectory conju-
gating the therapeutic promise of pluripotent stem cells with the safe-
guarding of the human embryo? Or have they instead simply changed the
terms of the debate, by inaugurating a new language and moving ethical
and political quandaries to a different terrain? In other words, what have
been their cultural meanings and political effects in the Italian stem cell
debate and regulation?
     In order to answer these questions I shall trace the trajectories of the
different kinds of ethical stem cells from scientific journals to the Italian
public sphere. Indeed, even if ethical commitment is at the core of scien-
tific work, it is not circumscribed to the social space of laboratory prac-
tices, since the discussion on ethical stem cells is also pursued in the pub-
lic sphere and is involved in attempts to modify or reinforce existing regu-
lations. The mass media are considered an important arena for the con-
struction of policymaking in biotechnologies (Nisbet and Lewenstein
2002; Kitzinger and Williams 2005). Here, however, I shall follow the
network of interconnections from the laboratory to the public discourses
and regulations (Horst 2005). My purpose will be to trace the evolution
and transformation of definitional work on the ontology of ethical stem
cells in different social spaces: from its construction in the scientific litera-
ture, through its discussion in the public sphere, to its implementation in
114                                                          Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

regulatory and normative devices. In this sense the paper also follows a
second trajectory: from the framing of scientific and ethical issues in the
worldwide scientific literature, to their translation in the public debate
and the regulatory process in Italy. The Italian debate it is used as a para-
digmatic example of the problems arising from the development of novel
stem cell technologies. The discussion will then return to the more gen-
eral meaning of ethical stem cells, and to the questions left open in the
debate on stem cell research regulation in general. This paper is based on
discourse analysis carried out on articles published by scientific journals,
policy texts and documents produced by bioethical advisory committees,
as well as newspapers articles. I collected articles published by the three
most widely circulating Italian newspapers (Corriere della Sera, La Repub-
blica, Il Fatto Quotidiano), the main fora of hESC opponents (Il Foglio,
L’Osservatore Romano and Avvenire), and other relevant journals (e.g. the
left-wing L’Unità and Tempi, the magazine of the Catholic movement
Communion and Liberation). Using the electronic archives of these news-
papers, I collected all the articles published in their printed version from
16 October 2005 (the publication date of the first scientific articles on
ethical stem cells) to 8 October 2012 (the announcement of the Nobel
Prize awarded to Shinya Yamanaka, the discoverer of the induction of
pluripotency technique), on which I conducted qualitative discourse
analysis.


2. The political meaning of ethical stem cells in the Italian
stem cell debate
    According to Gottweis and colleagues (2009), the ethical reasoning
implemented by bioethics committees has played an important role in the
political management of the regulatory challenges of hESC research. Pub-
lic bioethics is defined as ‘a complex of institutions, practices and dis-
courses, whose purpose is to connect policy making with ethical consid-
erations… in order to improve political decision-making” (Moore 2010,
198). Bioethics, as a neutral and authoritative discourse on ethical con-
flicts concerning biomedical innovations, presupposes that the tensions
among different normative views, values and worldviews may be resolved
through the formulation of a unifying and consensual normative culture.
Moreover, bioethics, with its reference to scientific knowledge, claims to
be a device producing normativity, that is, a typical truth discourse which
legitimates political decisions in modern biopolitics (see Foucault 1976;
Rabinow and Rose 2006). Therefore, bioethics bodies are institutions and
bureaucratic devices – established as state-sanctioned authorities – which
through the deployment of an expert discourse set the decision-making
agenda and legitimize governments’ regulatory decisions (Salter and Salt-
er 2007; Gottweis et al. 2009).
    However, bioethics is not always able to resolve conflicts, and the re-
Beltrame                                                                    115
sulting regulations are contested rather than being consensual. In many
countries, the tension between the therapeutic promise of hESCs and the
embryo question has not been settled through the adoption of a norma-
tive framework harmonizing the competing standpoints. Rather, it has
been resolved through arbitrary decisions whereby hESC research is for-
bidden or seriously hampered, so that the emerging regulations are
strongly challenged. Furthermore, the conflict has not been merely ethi-
cal, regarding the moral and ontological status of the human embryo –
and therefore the underlying normative views of the society deemed de-
sirable – but in most cases also the scientific knowledge on which the
regulation is grounded has been seriously contested as not having suffi-
cient epistemic robustness.
     When the controversy on hESC research has become intractable, ethi-
cal stem cells have been presented in scientific articles as a suitable means
to circumvent the impasse. Indeed, under the umbrella of the label ‘ethi-
cal stem cells’ it is possible to gather a wide array of bio-objects whose
aim is to obtain pluripotent stem cells avoiding the destruction of human
embryos. In the case of ethical stem cells, the commitment to ethics is not
delegated to an institutionalized moral expertise, nor to the practical
choice and the conduct of scientists; it is instead incorporated directly in-
to the biological objects. It would thus be the ontology and biological fea-
tures themselves of these objects that solve the ethical quandaries of stem
cell research by sidestepping the passage through the biological entity
which embodies the moral dilemma: the human embryo. As Testa (2008)
pointed out, these bio-objects offer a technical solution to political prob-
lems and ethical quandaries, since controversies would be resolved not
through the outcome of a confrontation between ethical stances and po-
litical choices, but through the alleged neutrality of a biotechnological
procedure which depoliticizes the ethical quandary through the ‘belief in
the power of objective facts’ (Testa 2008, 441). Moreover, the discussion
on such bio-objects, as will be shown in more detail in the next sections,
does not take the form of an ethical confrontation on the morality of the
biotechnological procedure employed; rather, it is an epistemic evaluation
of the ontology, the scientific reliability and therapeutic effectiveness of
these objects. In other words, these bio-objects avoid the problem of de-
veloping a consensual normative culture – by embedding ethical and po-
litical quandaries into their ontology – and they delegate the question of
normativity to the authority of the truth discourse on stem cell biology.
But, as we shall see, this is not an unproblematic process, since the ontol-
ogy of ethical stem cells is not hic et simpliciter accepted; rather, it entails
complex and contested definitional work on both their biological ontolo-
gy and their ethicality.
     Italy is a suitable case for studying the cultural meaning and the politi-
cal uses of ethical stem cells. Italy, in fact, has enacted one of the most re-
strictive regulations on stem cell research which seriously hampers hESC
research (Metzler 2007; Gottweis et al. 2009). Notwithstanding the re-
116                                                         Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

course to bioethics, the resulting stem cell research regulation has been
strongly contested as the outcome not of a shared consensus, but of mere-
ly political decisions based on scientific knowledge not regarded as au-
thoritative.
    Indeed, at the beginning of the debate in August 2000, the Italian
government delegated the task of formulating policy suggestions for the
regulation of stem cell research to the National Bioethics Committee
(Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica, henceforth CNB) and to an ad hoc
commission appointed by the former Health Minister Umberto Veronesi
and chaired by the Nobel-prize winner Renato Dulbecco (known as the
Dulbecco Commission). The delegation to expert bodies – usually seen as
a way to de-politicize complex issues and to obtain authoritative
knowledge for policy-making – failed to solve the conflicts over stem cell
research. Both committees were accused of ideological partisanship, and
both of them split on the embryo question because the Catholic members
of both committees opposed the use of human embryos for stem cell re-
search (CNB 2000; Dulbecco Report 2000). The policy suggestions con-
tained in the two documents were never discussed by the Italian parlia-
ment.
    The Italian stem cell regulation emerged in the period 2001-2005 dur-
ing government of the centre-right coalition. Firstly, in 2001 the former
health minister Girolamo Sirchia decided to allocate public funding only
to research on non-embryonic stem cells (the so-called adult stem cells,
ASCs henceforth). Secondly, enacted in 2004 was the Italian law on med-
ically assisted fertilization (Law 40/2004), which forbids the use of human
embryos for research purposes, the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)
technique, and the production of hybrid and chimeras mixing human and
animal gametes. Therefore, Italian stem cell scientists cannot derive em-
bryonic stem cell from embryos left over from IVF treatments, nor can
they produce embryos via SCNT for research purposes (Metzler 2007).
Finally, in 2005 the Italian government, together with the ministers of
other European countries opposed to European Union financing of hESC
research, and, if this decision had succeeded, Italian researchers in the
field of the hESCs would have excluded from not only national but also
EC funding. The entire Italian regulatory regime of stem cell science is
grounded on a particular declination of the dilemma between the embryo
question and the therapeutic promise. On the one hand, law 40/2004
considered the human embryo to be not only a human being but also a
public citizen subject (Metzler 2007, 417) protected by the law; on the
other hand, the research funding policies stated that ASCs were the most
credible therapeutic promise in regenerative medicine.
    The ASC/hESC opposition in the competition for the most credible
future source for therapies is common across countries (Parry 2003; Kitz-
inger and Williams 2005; Hauskeller and Weber 2011), but in Italy it has
assumed a distinctive central role (Beltrame 2012; Testa 2012), entering
into the lay/Catholic cleavage – one of the most performative socio-
Beltrame                                                                     117
political oppositions in Italian public life (Rusconi 2000). By prohibiting
the use of human embryos and research on hESCs, Catholic actors used
this debate as a means to affirm the Christian roots of the polity and to
shape the social and political order according to their worldview. But
they also affirmed that ASCs were more effective in clinical applications
and, albeit non-pluripotent, perfectly able to fulfill the therapeutic prom-
ise of regenerative medicine (Beltrame 2012). The biological discourse on
ASCs clinical effectiveness has been the scientific basis for the Italian reg-
ulation, firstly because it conjugates the principle of the defense of human
dignity with the value of protecting and improving the health of the
population, secondly because it provides an epistemic justification for po-
litical choices grounded on ethical orientations.1 As a consequence, the
struggle for hESC research has been framed as a fight to assert the secular
nature of the Italian social order, and the hESC/ASC opposition has over-
lapped with the lay/Catholic cleavage: the struggle between two different
views of the normative culture underpinning the social order has been
embedded in an epistemic discussion on the most credible therapeutic
promise in stem cell research.
     Because the Italian regulation did not emerge from shared consensus
but instead from contingent power relations in the parliament and key in-
stitutions (the centre-right coalition was in power and it was close to
Catholic positions), and because its scientific base was considered not ep-
istemically robust, it was strongly criticized. In 2005 a popular referen-
dum was held to abrogate some articles of the Law 40/2004, including the
ban on the use of human embryos for research purposes. The referendum
failed because the turnout was only 25.9%, very distant from the quorum
required by the Italian Constitution for a referendum to be considered
valid (i.e. 50% plus one of the Italian electorate must have cast votes).
Given the political strength of the actors who opposed the use of human
embryos and supported ASCs, as well as the failed challenge against the
regulation, the advent of ethical stem cells seemed a way to circumvent
the Italian regulatory regime in order to make research on pluripotent
cells possible while avoiding a direct confrontation on the legal status of
the human embryo – whose outcome appeared inevitable amid the power
relations of the time.


3. The advent of quasi-embryos in the Italian public sphere

   In exploring the cultural and political meaning of ethical stem cells in
the Italian public sphere, it is useful to draw an analytical distinction be-
tween two main groups: the first comprises cellular reprogramming tech-
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
 The improvement and protection of health and life itself is the central value in
modern biopolitics, and (scientific) truth is the legitimizing principle of
contemporary (bio)power (Foucault 1976; 1980; Rabinow and Rose 2006).
118                                                            Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

niques involving biological entities with a contested status because they
appear similar to an embryo but are defined as not proper embryos (i.e.
parthenotes, cytoplasmic hybrids, and embryoids produced by altered
nuclear transfer); the second includes non-embryonic stem cells charac-
terized as pluripotent, as well as so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS)
cells. This distinction is necessary because in the Italian public debate the
former group has been proposed and defended by hESC research sup-
porters, while pro-ASC actors have strongly criticized it and promoted
the second group. Therefore, the overlap between hESC/ASC and the
lay/Catholic cleavage reappears in the opposition between these two
groups of ethical stem cells.
    The starting point of the debate on ethical stem cells can be dated to
16 October 2005 when Nature published on-line two papers reporting
two famous experiments: one concerning the Altered Nuclear Transfer
(ANT) technique – a procedure of somatic cell nuclear transfer which si-
lenced the Cdx2 gene to produce an embryo unable to implant in the
uterus (Meissner and Jaenish 2006) – and the other – carried out by a re-
search team led by Robert Lanza at the biotech company Advanced Cell
Technology (ACT) – presenting a single cell embryo biopsy which would
make it possible to establish embryonic cell lines without interference
with the embryo’s development (Chung et al. 2006). Both experiments
were conducted on mouse embryos and both directly addressed the ethi-
cal commitment to avoiding the embryo question and the need to obtain
pluripotent stem cells. Indeed, in Nature the two experiments were pre-
sented in these terms:

           In this issue are two new methods for producing pluripotent
       stem-cell lines — the great future hope of regenerative medicine
       … The protocols each aim to satisfy the religious, ethical and/or
       political objections of groups that are opposed to some of the
       methods used in embryonic stem-cell research. (Weissman 2006,
       145)

    The ANT technique was described as ethically sensitive because,
whilst the conventional nuclear transfer produces a ‘reconstructed human
blastocyst’ which ‘lack[s] the potential to develop into normal human be-
ings’, ANT ‘further cripples an already compromised blastocyst and elimi-
nates the developmental potential to implant into the uterus to establish
the fetal-maternal connection’ (Meissner and Jaenisch 2006, 214, empha-
sis added). Here we can observe careful definitional work in which the
cloned embryo is renamed a ‘reconstructed blastocyst’, and the human
status is identified with ‘embryo development’ and ‘the fetal-maternal
connection’. Since the bio-object produced morphologically fails to fulfill
these two aims, according to its proponents, it cannot be considered an
embryo, so that its deployment appears to be ethical. The ANT paper is
particularly interesting because it was encapsulated in a discursive reper-
Beltrame                                                                 119
toire replete with cultural implications which could be named the ‘dis-
course on quasi-embryos’. Indeed, ANT produces an entity which pro-
hESCs actors define as a quasi-embryo because it lacks the capacity to
develop.
    The discourse on quasi-embryos in Italy was first developed with the
release of the Dulbecco Report (2000). As Testa (2012) noted, the most
important epistemological contribution of the Dulbecco Commission was
its unanimous endorsement of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This
technique was deemed exempt from ethical problems because its product
was defined as ‘an oocyte reconstituted with the nucleus of an adult somatic
cell’, which ‘cannot be considered a zygote in the usual sense in that it
does not derive from the union of two gametes’, and it ‘is proven by the
fact that such a reconstructed oocyte does not develop spontaneously into an
embryo, and this happens only following artificial stimulations that force
it to develop into a blastocyst’ (Dulbecco Report 2000, 8, emphasis ad-
ded).
    Similarly, this discourse was deployed also in the case of an experi-
ment in artificial parthenogenesis – a technique that forces an oocyte to
develop into an embryoid without sperm fertilization – conducted by an
Italian research team led by Fulvio Gandolfi (Paffoni et al. 2007). Parthe-
notes were defined ‘embryo-like structures that develop from eggs without
the need for fertilization’, and since mammalian parthenotes ‘always die
before implanting in the womb, but they survive long enough to be a po-
tential source of stem cells’, they appeared to be ‘an ethically acceptable
source of stem cells’ because they do not involve the human embryo
(Marchant 2006, 1038, emphasis added). Gandolfi’s team defined human
parthenotes as ‘parthenogenetically activated oocytes’ (Paffoni et al. 2007,
81) and the newspaper La Repubblica presented this bio-object as a ‘mock
embryo… entirely formed from stem cells… [and] incapable of growing
in the uterus and generating a new life’, according to the principle that ‘If
it does not initiate a new life, it cannot be defined an embryo in every ef-
fect’ (La Repubblica, 29 June 2006). In 2006 the stem cells obtained by
Meissner and Jaenisch, and by Lanza’s and Gandolfi’s teams, were la-
beled ‘ethical stem cells’ (see Marchant 2006; Abbot 2006), and this defi-
nition entered scientific and public discourse as well.
    Another case of quasi-embryos deployed to circumvent the Italian
regulatory regime has been that of human-animal cytoplasmic hybrid em-
bryos (cybrids). These are biological entities created through SCNT in
which a human cell nucleus is implanted in a previously enucleated ani-
mal oocyte, so that the resulting embryo has a human nuclear DNA and
an animal cytoplasmic DNA (mitochondrial DNA); or, in other words, it
is 99.9% human. The Italian debate was sparked by the corresponding
debate in the UK, where the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Au-
thority (HFEA) and then the British parliament allowed the creation of
transpecies cybrids under license, defining them as prevailingly human in
order to permit their creation under the British law (Brown 2009). In Ita-
120                                                          Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

ly, by contrast, since the Italian law prohibits the use of human embryos
for research purposes, these entities should be characterized as not
properly human. Moreover, because the Italian law 40/2004 also bans
‘the insemination of human gametes by gametes from different species
and the production of hybrids and chimeras’ (Law 40/2004, art. 13 sec.
d), the proposal of cybrid research required more complicated definition-
al work. The proponents had to demonstrate that cybrids are simple bio-
logical artifacts incapable of embryonic development – that is, they are
quasi-embryos. Developmental biologist Carlo Alberto Redi declared that
‘the cybrid is a kind of laboratory in miniature, a fantastic tool’ (Corriere
della Sera, 6 September 2007, emphasis added), and geneticist Giuseppe
Novelli explained that cybrids are simple biological artifacts as ‘the in-
compatibilities between the cell’s nucleus and the surrounding part, the
cytoplasm, are too great: the foetus would never develop’ (La Repubblica,
6 September 2007).
    In general these bio-objects were constructed and defined as artifacts
permitting research on pluripotent stem cells similar to embryonic ones
without involving human embryos. Their ontology was constructed both
materially (in the lab) and discursively (from scientific journals to mass
media and policy documents) to emphasize their non-embryonic nature.
These various objects – SCNT reconstructed oocytes, ANT embryos, par-
thenotes, and cybrids – share a common feature: the lack of a biological
component, which configures them as not proper embryos because it im-
pedes the normal embryo development. According to Testa (2008), these
quasi-embryos could solve the ethical quandaries, by presenting them-
selves as merely technological means, since they are ‘genetically and con-
ceptually’ constructed, as ‘biological artifacts’ (Testa 2008, 441), skipping
the living entity around which the controversy revolves: the human em-
bryo. The focus on embryo development is the centre of the quasi-
embryo discourse and, therefore, the cornerstone of its contestation.
    Indeed, in the Catholic and pro-life discourse the humanness of the
embryo is located in its capacity to develop into a human being: for ex-
ample the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL 2000) defined the human
embryo ‘a human subject with a well defined identity’ which from the un-
ion of the gametes ‘begins its own coordinated, continuous and gradual de-
velopment’. Therefore, sidestepping the embryo question implies avoiding
natural fertilization and embryo development. According to Testa (2008),
in the quasi-embryo discourse, embryo development is decomposed into
the biological components and organized structures which make it possi-
ble. The lack of one of these components implies an entity which cannot
be defined as a living human being because it is incapable of the ‘coordi-
nated, continuous and gradual development’ characterizing the true em-
bryo in the pro-life discourse. These quasi-embryos are intentionally con-
structed in the lab with these features, and they are discursively presented
in the public sphere through a definitional work emphasizing a particular
ontology, that of artifacts created only to allow the establishment of plu-
Beltrame                                                                121
ripotent cell lines sidestepping the embryo. There is an awareness of the
set of social issues, ethical stances, and power relations involved in the
stem cell debate which is reflexively embedded in the construction of the-
se bio-objects. According to Testa (2008, 442), this ‘what component part
question’ is ‘epistemic in nature’ and an ‘attractive route to depoliticize
the conflict over nascent human forms’. With these bio-objects, the stem
cell controversy would not be solved through negotiation on ethical
stances and political choices, but instead through the alleged neutrality of
a biotechnological procedure.
     However, these bio-objects were not undisputed: the debate took the
form of an epistemic evaluation of the ontology, scientific reliability, and
therapeutic effectiveness of these objects. The ANT technique was criti-
cized on the grounds that the silencing of Cdx2 was not sufficient to solve
the ethical problem because, according to molecular biologist (and priest)
Roberto Colombo, ANT produces ‘a human embryo with a deficiency ar-
tificially and intentionally made by the researcher’ (Avvenire, 18 October
2005, emphasis added). In the case of the SCNT technique presented in
the Dulbecco Report, Vatican spokesperson monsignor Elio Sgreccia de-
clared that the fact that SCNT does not produce embryos is ‘a simple hy-
pothesis not yet corroborated by any research published in a scientific
journal’ (L’Osservatore Romano, 10 January 2001). The human-animal
cybridization technique was discussed in 2009 by the CNB and the major-
ity opinion discarded it doing so on the grounds that, since SCNT creates
living entities with ‘developmental defects and anomalies’ when applied
among the same species, inter-species cybridization would increase these
problems. It would generate ‘cells with genetic anomalies’ which would
be ‘useless…. as models for the study of a disease, and they could not
have any therapeutic application’, and ‘owing to their contamination with
animal material… they would have limited or no importance for the study
of diseases … with the risk of interspecies transmission of viral agents’
(CNB 2009, 22).
     Since the proposal of SCNT contained in the Dulbecco Report was
never discussed by the Parliament, the majority opinion of the CNB re-
jected the human-animal cybridization technique, and since Law 40/2004
prohibited ‘cloning procedures through nuclear transfer’ and the ‘crea-
tion of hybrids and chimeras’ (Law 40/2004, art. 13, sect. 3c), we can
conclude that these novel bio-objects failed as means to circumvent and
defuse ethical quandaries, as well as to challenge the existing Italian stem
cell research regulation. Also their ontology as quasi-embryos was called
into question, as well as their ability to produce therapeutically useful
pluripotent stem cells for human clinical settings. Nevertheless, these bio-
objects introduced a new language in which the ethical dimension was in-
corporated into bio-objects, so that the public discussion took the form of
an epistemic discourse.
122                                                         Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

4. Non-embryonic pluripotent stem cells and the
significance of pluripotency

    Whilst the prospect of carrying out research on quasi-embryos was
proposed mainly by supporters of hESCs, the other group of ethical stem
cells seemed to pertain to ASCs proponents. The second group of ethical
stem cells comprises non-embryonic pluripotent stem cells (i.e. discov-
ered in somatic tissues) and cellular reprogramming techniques which,
through genetic manipulations, reverse somatic cells into embryonic-like
pluripotent stem cells. Even if ASC supporters justified the Italian regula-
tion by stating that ASCs were more clinically effective and useful than
hESCs – to the point that during the 2005 referendum campaign hESCs
were defined as therapeutically useless and dangerous (Beltrame 2012,
219) – the discourse on pluripotency remained a critical and contradicto-
ry point in this discursive articulation. To be sure, during the referendum
campaign, while pluripotency was being defined as therapeutically useless
and dangerous, stem cell scientist Angelo Vescovi (one of the most im-
portant spokespersons for the anti-hESC front) favorably cited two tech-
niques of cellular reprogramming developed by Douglas Melton’s and
Yuri Verlinsky’s research teams (Cowan et al. 2005; Strelchenko et al.
2006), which had used hESCs cytoplasm to dedifferentiate somatic cell
nuclei in order to transform somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells. In
other words, the same scientists and commentators who criticized plurip-
otency acclaimed cellular reprogramming techniques aimed at transform-
ing ASC into pluripotent cells similar to hESCs. Hence, pluripotency re-
gained primacy, and hESCs indirectly became the ‘gold standard’ for
evaluating the potency of any kind of stem cell.
    The most discussed and relevant source of non-embryonic pluripotent
stem cells – i.e. opposed to contested quasi-embryos – were the pluripo-
tent stem cells discovered in the amniotic fluid (De Coppi et al. 2007) and
the famous induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells (Takahashi and Yama-
naka 2006). Amniotic Fluid-derived Stem (AFS) cells were defined as
representing ‘an intermediate stage between pluripotent ES cells and lin-
eage-restricted adult stem cells’ (De Coppi et al. 2007, 103); but, in an-
other part of the article, the authors sought to blur the boundary between
multipotency and pluripotency by stating that ‘AFS cells are indeed
broad-spectrum multipotent (that is, pluripotent) stem cells’ (De Coppi et
al. 2007, 101, emphasis added). Nevertheless, AFS cells failed to ‘over-
come the ethical obstacle blocking this strand of research’ (La Repubblica,
9 January 2007). Some contested their ethical status by highlighting the
fact that the amniotic fluid is obtained through amniocentesis, a prenatal
genetic diagnosis criticized as risky for the fetus and as a new form of eu-
genics. But the most interesting controversy concerned the biological sta-
tus of these cells. Whilst Catholic actors and pro-ASC newspapers de-
fined AFS cells as pluripotent, hESC research supporters highlighted the
Beltrame                                                                    123
definition of a ‘intermediate state’ between hESCs and ASCs. Finally, in
March 2008 Nature Biotechnology published an article in which the Ital-
ian research team led by stem cell scientist Elena Cattaneo explained that
the results of Atala and De Coppi’s work (De Coppi et al. 2007) were not
sufficient to demonstrate that AFSc ‘can give rise in vitro to neurons’
(Toselli et al. 2008, 269). The boundary between pluripotency and mul-
tipotency, made porous and flexible by the definitionary work on AFS
cells, was thus re-established, restoring these cells to the rank of multipo-
tent stem cells. As in the case of quasi-embryos, the discussion rotated
around the biological status, and ethical and political implications were
embedded in an epistemic discourse.
    Publicly considered to be ethical stem cells par excellence are iPS cells.
Indeed, the cellular dedifferentiation technique developed by the Japa-
nese team led by Yamanaka consists in reprogramming somatic cells into
pluripotent stem cells similar to hESCs by artificially forcing the expres-
sion of certain genes. In 2012, Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize in
physiology and medicine ‘for the discovery that mature cells can be re-
programmed to become pluripotent’ (Nobelprize.org 2012), and not only
Catholic newspapers and magazines, but also secular newspapers carried
the headline ‘ethical stem cells awarded Nobel Prize’ (e.g. Il Fatto Quo-
tidiano, 8 October 2012). This testifies to how, in the public imagery and
discourse, iPS had come to coincide with ethical stem cells and moved to
the centre of public discussions on this non-embryonic source of pluripo-
tent cells.
    The first breakthrough came on 25 August 2006, when the journal
Cell published a famous article on the induction of pluripotency in mouse
somatic cells (Takahashi and Yamanaka 2006), but the public’s attention
was directed to iPS cells on 20 November 2007 when Cell and Science
published two articles – one by the Yamanaka team (Takahashi et al.
2007) and the other by a team led by James Thomson (Yu et al. 2007),
which in 1998 had derived the first hESC line (Thomson et al. 1998) –
reporting the induction of pluripotency on human cells. The fact that one
of the research teams was led by the person who had given rise to hESC
research was seen as the end of the stem cell war and as the capitulation
of hESC research. Indeed, the newspaper Il Foglio commented: ‘The cul-
tural war on embryos has probably ended’ (Il Foglio, 23 November 2007).
    Nevertheless, another article in Il Foglio highlighted that, in Italy, the
discovery of iPS cells did not defuse the struggle over stem cell research.
Indeed, as Hauskeller and Weber (2011) have noted, iPS cells were sub-
ject to a debate on the legacy of hESC research. While ASC supporters
argued (and continue to do so) that iPS cells belong to the family of
ASCs,2 hESC scientists highlighted that the discoverers of iPS cells had
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2
 For example, when Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize, the Catholic news magazine
Tempi carried the headline: Nobel Prize to adult stem cells (“Tempi”, October 8,
2012).
124                                                         Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

‘longstanding experience with and in-depth knowledge of culturing and
experimenting on hES cells’ that rendered ‘hES cell researchers as a privi-
leged epistemic group in the study of iPS cells and present iPS cells as a
direct follow-on from hES cell research’ (Hauskeller and Weber 2011,
424). Indeed, whilst for Il Foglio the discovery of iPS cells belonged
among ‘results that arrive from the adult stem cells front’ (Il Foglio, 21
November 2007), geneticist Giuseppe Novelli declared that ‘research on
embryo stem cells is still indispensable, for without it these results would
not have been achieved’ (La Repubblica, 21 November 2007). Although Il
Foglio declared that iPS cells rendered the use of embryos obsolete (Il
Foglio, 13 December 2007), Yamanaka stated that ‘the recent advance-
ments in iPS cell research would not be possible if it were not for the
many years of dedicated hES cell research that preceded them’ (Hyun et
al. 2007, 368) and, therefore, ‘it would be a serious mistake to conclude
that recent developments in iPS cell research (or, for that matter, any oth-
er so-called “alternative” source of pluripotent stem cells) avert the need
for ongoing research on hES cells’ (Hyun et al. 2007, 367). HESCs re-
mained the gold standard with which to evaluate the real pluripotency of
any given stem cell, because several studies had shown that the factor-
based reprogramming used in iPS method can leave an epigenetic
memory of the tissue of origin that may influence efforts directed at the
differentiation of the reprogrammed cell (Kim et al. 2010) and there were
doubts about the equivalence between iPS cells and hESCs (see Hanna et
al. 2010). Moreover, on discussing the human-animal cybridization tech-
nique, even though the majority of the CNB stated that iPS cells ‘appear
more promising and effective than SCNT’, it also recognized that ‘these
are not cells identical with embryo stem cells … they raise safety prob-
lems from a therapeutic standpoint because all the significant factors in
the reprogramming are oncogenic’ (CNB 2009, 18).
    Despite the doubts concerning the biological ontology of AFS cells
and the controversy on the legacy of hESC research in iPS technique –
both centered on the significance of pluripotency – these ethical stem
cells were enlisted in political controversies. Indeed, in the summer of
2006, the new University and Research Minister Fabio Mussi (a member
of the centre-left political coalition which won the 2006 national elec-
tions) removed Italy’s signature from the document which excluded re-
search projects involving human embryonic stem cells from financing un-
der the EC Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). This decision pro-
voked a heated parliamentary debate with demands that the so-called
Mussi Act should be withdrawn and that the Italian Government should
impose limits on hESC research under the FP7. However, these demands
were rejected. The discovery of AFS cells was used in this debate. For ex-
ample, the left-wing Catholic politician and activist Luigi Bobba declared:
‘In light of this discovery... Minister Mussi should draw the consequences
from the breakthrough. The EU must not finance the destruction of em-
bryo cells’ (La Repubblica, 8 January 2007). Similarly, on 21 November
Beltrame                                                                   125
2007, in a leading article in Avvenire, Eugenia Rocella (a pro-life activist
and future Deputy Minister in the centre-right government in 2008) used
the announcement of the discovery of human iPS cells to call for a five-
year moratorium on embryo research in Europe. The moratorium was
promptly supported by pro-life advocates, Catholic actors and centre-
right politicians, and it was proposed to the European Parliament by
Deputy Mario Mauro (centre-right), although the response of the Euro-
pean Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik was nega-
tive. For Catholic actors and members of the centre-right political coali-
tion, AFS and iPS cells served both to defend the previous Italian legisla-
tion and to challenge the new policy choices, because they demonstrated
that there existed non-embryonic pluripotent stem cells which rendered
hESC research obsolete. By contrast, for lay activists, such as the bioethi-
cist Maurizio Mori, the fact that ‘Yamanaka developed a method to bring
back adult cells to an embryonic state’ was proof that ‘embryonic cells are
better than adult ones’. Hence the previous Italian Government’s deci-
sion to fund only ASC research was completely wrong (L’Unità, 23 No-
vember 2007).
    Like other ethical stem cells, rather than defusing the stem cell war,
also AFS and iPS cells generated conflicts and were used as weapons in
the political confrontation. In particular, iPS cells entered into the
hESC/ASC opposition, first with demonstration that pluripotency is the
most prominent and promising feature of stem cells (on which depends
the hope of therapies and clinical applications), and second with the con-
troversy on the role of hESC research into the lineage of iPS cells. There-
fore, the struggle between hESCs and ASCs to define the most effective
and promising research trajectory in stem cell research did not end but
continued through iPS cells.


5. Conclusion: the cultural meaning of ethical stem cells
and their political significance
    What, therefore, were the cultural and political effects of ethical stem
cells? Their ability to defuse political, ethical, and social conflict appeared
to be scant; rather, as we have seen, they became the subject of new quar-
rels and controversies. Likewise, if we consider their function of conjugat-
ing the therapeutic promise of pluripotent stem cells with the safeguard-
ing of the human embryo, their general effect was marginal. Especially in
the case of the first group of ethical stem cells, i.e. that of quasi-embryos,
the attempt to circumvent the embryo question failed, because their on-
tology and scientific reliability was called into question. Similarly, also the
other group of ethical stem cells – apparently less controversial – was un-
able to defuse the stem cell war because it created a debate on their plu-
ripotency. In part this was due to the fact that these techniques and arti-
facts were (and still are) in the experimental stage, even if they were pre-
126                                                             Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

sented in the mass media as ‘just around the corner’ technologies. On the
other hand, debates and quandaries both on their biology and their ethi-
cality reveal to the extent to which their ontologies were instable and
open to discussion and contestation.
     Does this mean that the effect of ethical stem cells was pointless? No
it does not. On the contrary, they were victims of their own success. In-
deed, ethical stem cells have incorporated social issues to such an extent
that previous controversies have been translated into the more epistemic
language that they introduced. This has deep cultural significance. It testi-
fies to the capacity of biotechnologies and the life sciences to create new
forms of life which challenge established cultural categories such as life
and death (Franklin and Lock 2003). Indeed, a substantial group of tech-
niques to produce ethical stem cells fabricate entities producing living
things (such as cell lines) without creating living beings. According to Tes-
ta (2008, 444), this means that ‘molecular biology is recruited to reinforce
pre-existing moral commitments’. The debate on ethical stem cells shows
how cultural values and moral commitments can be embedded, camou-
flaged and implicitly evoked in epistemic and technological practices and
in the discussion on them. The fact that the debate takes the form of an
epistemic evaluation of the ontology of these bio-objects – indeed, their
moral evaluation depends on and follows their stabilization as non-
embryos or as functional and effective sources of pluripotent stem cells –
shows how, in modern societies, ‘truth is centered on the form of scien-
tific discourse’, and how the ‘battle for truth’, and for ‘power attached to
the truth’, (Foucault 1980, 131-132) is conducted through the deploy-
ment of scientific discourses. Moreover, this embedding of ethical issues
in epistemic practices, by ‘rebuilding embryonic cell lines without embry-
os’, testifies the reinstallation of ‘the social’ within ‘the biological’, since
ethical stem cells appear as epitomizing the re-engineered ‘ethically sensi-
tive biotechnology’ with which ethics ‘can be “built in” to new life-forms’
(Franklin 2001, 342; see also Franklin 2005). In the case of ethical stem
cells, the therapeutic promise of pluripotent hESCs ‘has installed itself so
firmly in the discourse on hESC research that ethics is repositioned as a
discourse guiding the conduct of embryo/hESC research’ (Rubin 2008,
25). In ethical stem cells, the tension between therapeutic promise and
the embryo question is not resolved by a moral trade-off (Salter and Salt-
er 2007) between the two values; rather, both are incorporated into bio-
objects which are constructed and defined to solve the tension by ful-
filling both purposes at the same time. A side effect it is that the moral
status of the human embryo as a fully human subject is not called into
question. In other words, the attempt to sidestep the embryo question
takes for granted the moral status of the early human embryo, so that the
embryo question remains the cornerstone of the debate. Indeed, what I
have called quasi-embryos are constantly compared to the human em-
bryo, and if their definition fails to denote them as non-embryos they are
also regarded as non-ethical sources of stem cells (i.e. they are not ethical
Beltrame                                                                   127
stem cells providers).
    The Italian case then throws light on the general problem of regulato-
ry ordering in the field of biotechnologies. On the one hand, it shows
how bioethics mediation appears to be insufficient: ethical values and
worldviews may be so irreconcilable that they cannot be included in a
common and more general normative framework. On the other hand, it
suggests that the foundation of such a framework on an alleged natural
normativity is equally problematic. The attempt to incorporate ethical
quandaries into bio-objects which bypass social conflicts generates new
conflicts, because these objects are hybrids (Latour 1991) which constant-
ly switch between nature and culture (Brown et al. 2006) and display how
the normativity of the natural, the meaning and the boundaries of life are
called into question and are open to intervention and manipulation
(Nowotny and Testa 2010; Webster 2012). Contrasting definitions and
discussions on the ontology of ethical stem cells reveal how Agamben’s
(1995) problem of the demarcation between zoé and bios – that is, the in-
clusion of bare life in the realm of politically qualified existence – it is at
stake for these bio-objects as well: are they simple artifacts and living
things or are they living beings which have to be included in the bios?
This is a problem that cannot be solved simply by invoking the alleged
neutrality and authority of epistemic practices. Indeed, according to
Nowotny and Testa, in the biotechnological era, nature can no longer be
seen as a source of authority – so that ‘what is natural is from then on
subject to the contingency’ of biotechnological intervention, to the point
that it ‘is becoming a substantially political issue’ (Nowotny and Testa
2010, 6). Therefore, how can a biological ontology defuse conflict and
underpin a social order only by the objectivity of scientific knowledge
about ‘the natural’, if the natural has lost its moral authority?
    Contrary to the idea of the possible emergence of a unifying and con-
sensual normative framework grounded on common values (e.g. the pro-
tection of life) and on cognitive categorizations of the natural world (Par-
sons 1961), this debate supports the Weberian contention that the gen-
eral ideals of life and the universe which rule human conduct can never
be the products of empirical knowledge, but are always and only formed
in the struggle with other ideals (Weber 1949). The process of regulatory
ordering thus consists in what Jasanoff (2004) terms ‘co-production’: that
is, the mutual process by which knowledge of the (natural and social)
world and social formations come symmetrically into being, influencing
and reinforcing each other. In particular, we witness the emergence of
novel objects whose stabilization in the epistemic domain is strictly con-
nected with the ordering of society because they embed ethical, cultural,
and political issues: in this sense, ‘solutions to the problem of knowledge
are solutions to the problem of social order’ (Shapin and Shaffer 1985,
332). Hence, insofar as the scientific (truth) discourse remains the (epis-
temic) source of legitimacy of any political ordering, the natural order
and the normativity of ‘the biological’ are only evoked as the bedrock un-
128                                                                 Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

derpinning the regulatory order of ‘the social’; instead, polities fabricate
political-epistemic normativities that simultaneously order ‘the social’ as
well as ‘the natural’. The Italian debate on ethical stem cells has tried to
shift itself to the terrain of a merely epistemic discussion, but its outcome
displays how the regulatory order in biotechnology is nothing but a tem-
porary and local arrangement of tightly intertwined ethical values,
worldviews, power relations, epistemic practices, and bio-objects.


References
Abbot, A. (2006) ‘Ethical’ Stem-cell Paper under Attack, in “Nature”, 443 (7107),
   p. 12.
Agamben, G. (1995) Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Torino, Einaudi;
   Eng. transl. Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, Stanford
   University Press, 1998.
Beltrame, L. (2012) Embedding Society in Cells: Science, Ethics and Politics in the
    Italian Public Debate on Stem Cell Research, in R.G. Mazzolini and H.-J.
    Rheinberger (eds.), Differing Routes to Stem Cell Research: Germany and Italy,
    Bologna and Berlin, Il Mulino / Ducker & Humblot, pp. 191-223.
Brown, N. (2009) Beasting the Embryo: The Metrics of Humanness in the Transpe-
   cies Embryo Debate, in “BioSocieties”, 4 (2-3), pp. 147-163.
Brown, N., Faulkner, A., Kent, J. and Michael, M. (2006) Regulating Hybrids:
   ‘Making a Mess’ and ‘Cleaning Up’ in Tissue Engineering and Transpecies
   Transplantation, in “Social Theory & Health”, 4 (1), pp. 1-24.
Chung, Y., Klimanskaya, I., Becker, S., Marh, J., Lu, S.J., Johnson, J., et al. (2006)
   Embryonic and Extraembryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Single Mouse
   Blastomeres, in “Nature”, 439 (7073), pp. 216-219.
Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, CNB (2000) Parere del Comitato Nazionale
  per la Bioetica sull'impiego terapeutico delle cellule staminali in
  http://www.governo.it/bioetica/pdf/43.pdf (retrieved September 2012)
Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, CNB (2009) Chimere e ibridi. Con una rifles-
  sione particolare sugli ibridi citoplasmatici, in http://www.governo.it
  /bioetica/pareri_abstract/chimere_ibridi_20090626.pdf (retrieved September
  2012)
Cowan, C.A., Atienza, J., Melton D.A. and Eggan K. (2005) Nuclear Reprogram-
   ming of Somatic Cells After Fusion with Human Embryonic Stem Cells, in
   “Science”, 309 (5739), pp. 1369-1373.
De Coppi, P., Bartsch, G., Siddiqui, M., Xu, T., Santos, C., Perin, L., et al. (2007)
   Isolation of Amniotic Stem Cell Lines with Potential for Therapy, in “Nature
   Biotechnology”, 25 (1), pp. 100-106.
Dulbecco Report (2000), Relazione della commissione di studio sull’utilizzo di cel-
   lule staminali per finalità terapeutiche, in http://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/-
Beltrame                                                                        129
    C_17_bacheca_10_listaelencodocumenti_elenco1_listadocumenti_documento
    0_listafile_file0_linkfile.pdf (retrieved September 2012)
Foucault, M. (1976) La volonté du savoir, Paris, Gallimard.
Foucault, M. (1980) Truth and Power, in ID, Power/Knowledge. Selected Inter-
   views and Other Writings 1972-1977, New York, Pantheon Books, pp. 109-
   133.
Franklin, S. (2001) Culturing Biology: Cell Lines for the Second Millennium, in
   “Health”, 5 (3), pp. 335-354.
Franklin, S. (2005 ) Stem Cells R Us: emergent life forms and the global biological,
   in A. Ong and S. J. Collier (eds.), Global Assemblages: Technology, politics and
   ethics as anthropological problems, New York and London, Blackwell, pp. 59-
   78.
Franklin, S. and Lock, M. (2003) Animation and Cessation: The Remaking of Life
   and Death, in S. Franklin and M. Lock (eds.), Remaking Life & Death. Toward
   an Anthropology of the Biosciences, Santa Fe, SAR Press, pp. 3-22.
Gottweis, H., Salter, B. and Waldby, C. (2009) The Global Politics of Human Em-
   bryonic Stem Cell Science. Regenerative Medicine in Transition, London, Pal-
   grave Macmillan.
Hanna, J., Saha, K. and Jaenisch, R. (2010) Pluripotency and Cellular Reprogram-
   ming: Facts, Hypotheses, Unresolved Issues, in “Cell”, 143, pp. 508-525.
Hauskeller, C. and Weber, S. (2011) Framing Pluripotency: iPS Cells and the Shap-
   ing of Stem Cell Science, in “New Genetics and Society”, 30 (4), pp. 415-431.
Horst, M. (2005) Cloning sensations: mass mediated articulation of social responses
   to controversial biotechnology, in “Public Understanding of Science”, 14 (2),
   pp. 185-200.
Hyun, I., Hochedlinger, K., Jaenisch, R. and Yamanaka, S. (2007) New Advances
   in iPS Cell Research Do Not Obviate the Need for Human Embryonic Stem
   Cells, in “Cell Stem Cell”, 1 (4), pp. 367-368.
Jasanoff, S. (2004) The Idiom of Co-production, in S. Jasanoff (ed.), States of
    Knowledge. The Co-production of Science and Social Order, London-New
    York, Routledge, pp. 1-12.
Jasanoff, S. (2005) Designs on Nature. Science and Democracy in Europe and the
    United States, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Kim, K., Doi, A., Wen, B., Ng, K., Zhao, R., Cahan, P., et al. (2010) Epigenetic
   Memory in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, in “Nature”, 467 (7313), pp. 285-
   290.
Kitzinger, J. and Williams, C. (2005) Forecasting Science Futures: Legitimising
    Hope and Calming Fears in the Embryo Stem Cell Debate, in “Social Science &
    Medicine”, 61 (3), pp. 731-740.
Latour, B. (1991) Nous n'avons jamais été modernes, Paris, La Découverte; Eng.
   transl. We Have Never Been Modern, Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
130                                                                  Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

      1993.
Marchant, J. (2006) Human Eggs Supply ‘Ethical’ Stem Cells, in “Nature”, 441
   (7097), pp. 1038-1038.
Meissner, A. and Jaenisch, R. (2006) Generation of Nuclear Transfer-derived Plu-
   ripotent ES Cells from Cloned Cdx2-deficient Blastocysts, in “Nature”, 439
   (7073), pp. 212-215.
Metzler, I. (2007) ‘Nationalizing Embryos’: The Politics of Human Embryonic Stem
   Cell Research in Italy, in “BioSocieties”, 2 (4), pp. 413-427.
Moore, A. (2010) Public Bioethics and Public Engagement: the Politics of “Proper
  talk”, in “Public Understanding of Science”, 19 (2), pp. 197-211.
Nisbet, M.C., and Lewenstein, B.V. (2002) Biotechnology and the American Me-
   dia. The Policy Process and the Elite Press, 1970 to 1999, in “Science Commu-
   nication”, 23 (4), pp. 359-391.
Nobelprize.org (2012), The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012, in
  http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2012/ (retrieved
  4 March 2013)
Nowotny, H. and Testa G. (2010) Naked Genes. Reinventing Human in the Mo-
  lecular Age, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press.
Paffoni, A., Brevini, T., Somigliana, E., Restelli, L., Gandolfi, F., and Ragni, G.
    (2007) In Vitro Development of Human Oocytes after Parthenogenetic Activa-
    tion or Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, in “Fertility and Sterility”, 87 (1), pp.
    77-82.
Parry, S. (2003) The Politics of Cloning: Mapping the Rhetorical Convergence of
   Embryos and Stem Cells in Parliamentary Debates, in “New Genetics and So-
   ciety”, 22 (2), pp. 177-200.
Parsons, T. (1961) An Outline of the Social System, in T. Parsons, E. Shils, K. D.
   Naegele and J. R. Pitts (eds.), Theories of Society, New York, Free Press. pp.
   30-79.
Pontifical Academy for Life, PAL (2000) Declaration on the production and the
   scientific and therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cell, in:
   http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents
   /rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html (retrieved 12 Sep-
   tember 2012)
Prainsack, B., Geesink, I. and Franklin, S. (2008) Stem Cell Technologies 1998-
    2008: Controversies and Silences, in “Science as Culture”, 17 (4), pp. 351-362.
Rabinow, P. and Rose, N. (2006) Biopower Today, in “BioSocieties”, 1 (1), pp.
   195-217.
Rubin, B. (2008) Therapeutic Promise in the Discourse of Human Embryonic Stem
   Cell Research, in “Science as Culture”, 17 (1), pp. 13-27.
Rusconi, G.E. (2000) Come se Dio non ci fosse. I laici, i cattolici e la democrazia,
   Torino, Einaudi.
Beltrame                                                                      131
Salter, B. and Salter, C. (2007) Bioethics and the Global Moral Economy: The Cul-
    tural Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science, in “Science, Technology
    & Human Values”, 32 (5), pp. 554-581.
Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S. (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and
   Experimental Life, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Strelchenko, N., Kukharenko, V., Shkumatov, A., Verlinsky, O., Kuliev, A., and
    Verlinsky, Y. (2005) Reprogramming of Human Somatic Cells by Embryonic
    Stem Cell Cytoplast, in “Reproductive BioMedicine Online”, 12 (1), pp. 107-
    111.
Takahashi, K., Tanabe, K., Ohnuki, M., Narita, M., Ichisaka, T., Tomoda, K., et
   al. (2007) Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts
   by Defined Factors, in “Cell”, 131 (5), pp. 861-872.
Takahashi, K. and Yamanaka, S. (2006) Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from
   Mouse Embryonic and Adult Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors, in “Cell”,
   126 (4), pp. 663-676.
Testa, G. (2008) Stem Cells through Stem Beliefs: The Co-production of Biotechno-
   logical Pluralism, in “Science as Culture”, 17 (4), pp. 435 - 448.
Testa, G. (2012) Stem Cells and the Structuring of the Italian Biopolity, in R.G.
   Mazzolini and H.J. Rheinberger (eds.), Differing Routes to Stem Cell Research:
   Germany and Italy, Bologna and Berlin, Il Mulino/ Ducker & Humblot, pp.
   225-249.
Thomson, J.A., Itskovitz-Eldor, J., Shapiro, S.S., Waknitz, M.A., Swiergiel, J.J.,
   Marshall, V.S., et al. (1998) Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human
   Blastocysts, in “Science”, 282 (5391), pp. 1145-1147.
Toselli, M., Cerbai, E., Rossi, F., and Cattaneo, E. (2008) Do Amniotic Fluid-
   derived Stem Cells Differentiate into Neurons in Vitro?, in “Nature Biotech-
   nology”, 26 (3), pp. 269-270.
Wainwright, S. P., Williams, C., Michael, M., Farsides, B. and Cribb, A. (2006)
   Ethical Boundary-work in the Embryonic Stem Cell Laboratory, in “Sociology
   of Health & Illness”, 28 (6), pp. 732-748.
Weber, M. (1949) Objectivity in social science and social policy, in ID, The Meth-
  odology of Social Sciences, Glencoe, Free Press, pp. 49-112.
Webster, A. (2012) Introduction: Bio-Objects: Exploring the Boundaries of Life, in
  N. Vermeulen, S. Tamminen and A. Webster (eds.), Bio-Objects. Life in the
  21st Century, Farnham, Ashgate, pp. 1-10.
Weissman, I. (2006) Medicine: Politic Stem Cells, in “Nature”, 439 (7073), pp.
   145-147.
Yu, J., Vodyanik, M.A., Smuga-Otto, K., Antosiewicz-Bourget, J., Frane, J.L.,
   Tian, S., et al. (2007). Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Hu-
   man Somatic Cells, in “Science”, 318 (5858), pp. 1917-1920.
