Jason Lott is a former Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and a current Gamble Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His research interests include clinical ethics, health policy-making, and health economics. He has most recently worked as an intern researcher in the Evidence and Information for Policy Unit of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. John Harris, Ph.D. is Sir David Alliance Professor of Bioethics Institute of Medicine, Law and Bioethics School of Law at the University of Manchester and Julian Savuleascu, Ph.D. is the Director of Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Presentation: Towards a Global Human Embryonic Stem Cell Bank
Authors: Jason Lott, John Harris and Julian Savulescu

There is a significant, increasing, unbridgeable gap between the demand and supply of transplantable organs. Embryonic stem cell technology offers one alternative to address this problem, but such technology faces immunocompatibility constraints in delivering cell lines to a large population. National stem cell banks may be one solution to this problem; however, we argue that global justice requires the establishment of a global stem cell banking system. National stem cell banks cannot address the specific problems of immunological incompatibility between dominant national populations and poor or minority subgroups, nor address broader concerns of international justice. A global stem cell bank would benefit poorer countries, technology-scarce countries, and minority groups. In this way, high tech science can provide global health benefits. Given the requirements for global distributive justice, the question of whether embryos yielding highly valuable stem cell lines must be contributed to global stem cell banks needs to be addressed.