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Short abstract:

This interview study explores how leading stem cell scientists define ‘stem cell’ and ‘stemness’, and thus the particularities assigned to cell(s) in this process. We also investigate how meaning-making and perceptions of its utility shapes resulting research practice.

Long abstract:

Stem cells are often enrolled into highly promissory hopes of challenging the ‘degenerative-ity’ or ‘incurability’ of debilitating diseases. However, what a stem cell is has been a particular point of contention amongst scientists themselves (Tajbakhsh 2009; Clevers and Watt 2018), shaping the field and playing a central role in public and commercial engagement with its promises.

This paper explores how 16 leading stem cell scientists articulate the foundational concepts within their field of research – namely ‘stem cells’ and ‘stemness’. In particular, we attend to how each participant orientate these ideas around their conceptual utility, such as whether stem cells are more useful thought of as individuals or populations and what manner of characteristic(s) they should be defined by. Beyond mapping current schools of thoughts on the particularities of ‘stem cells’, we also interrogate how these personal conceptions are consciously negotiated against each other as well as their subsequent effects on research practices. Lastly, we explore the kinds of definitions and consensus that are sought after and/or idealized.

This study benefits from having an interviewer (IT) who is themself a ‘wet lab’ stem cell researcher conducting a multidisciplinary PhD, allowing a nuanced discussion of experimental practices to be held with each scientist-participant. The resulting perspective from our insider/expert “what is a stem cell?” interview study has important implications for the STS field on how utility governs meaning-making processes (Gilbert and Mulkay 1974; Kurzman 2008) in a biomedical context, and thus how practices with and through cells are shaped.