Stem Cells Have a Public Image Problem

“Stem cells are illegal in Canada, right?” Despite my relatively short time as a science communicator in the stem cell field, I have heard that question and variations of it many times. Often, the questions come from a place of good intention. Nearly always, the questions are due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what stem cells are or where the field currently is.

In reality, stem cells are one of the most promising tools helping to usher in the biotech revolution. There’s a palpable intellectual frenzy among researchers about new stem cell-related advancements. But this hasn’t carried over to many members of the public.

A 2010 study of undergraduate students pursuing non-science majors at a public U.S. university found that, after participating in an introductory biotechnology course, many students continued to misunderstand what stem cells are or how they work. Unfortunately, apart from this study, few others have been conducted that explore public knowledge of the stem cell field. Those that have been done were mostly published in the 2000s, before or soon after induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were discovered.