Developing the project
Europe's stem cell hub: information, education, conversation
We're here to help European citizens make sense of stem cells. We provide reliable, independent information and road-tested educational resources on stem cells and their impact on society.
We're a partnership of scientists, clinicians, ethicists, social scientists and science communicators. We also work closely with teachers and patient representatives.
We believe in making research on stem cells and regenerative medicine accessible to all. We welcome your comments, ideas and contributions.
EuroStemCell: the story so far
The EuroStemCell project's been running for just over a year now, building Europe's stem cell hub: a web platform for information, education and conversation about stem cell research and regenerative medicine in Europe. We've got lots of plans and new work underway, but here's a summary of what we've done in our first year:
Our website is the main outlet for our activities. With the support of 49 scientists, science communicators and other experts in their fields who have written, reviewed and translated content so far, we have:
- Published nine non-technical fact sheets on different aspects of stem cell research and regenerative medicine, from embryonic stem cell ethics to GMP manufacturing, cancer stem cell and reprogramming. All fact sheets are reviewed by specialists in the relevant field.
- Launched our stem cell toolkit and first six tools - a set of extensively tested, downloadable resources and activities. All come with full instructions and optional extra components, and are customizable to suit a variety of educational settings.
- Developed a directory of stem cell resources and opened it up so you can submit your own favourite resources. So far we have catalogued 38 stem cell resources, including several in Italian and German and one resource in 22 European languages. The directory is fully searchable and contains a range of videos, websites, lesson plans, presentations and more for a variety of audiences.
- Published 7 new commentaries on aspects of stem cell research, including iPS cellsi vs transdifferentiation and stem cell patents.
- Collaborated with The Node to produce a monthly version of Erin Campbell's image blog, bringing the beauty and detail of stem cell images to a general (non-scientific) audience.
- Begun updating you on what your taxes are paying for in European research by publishing updates from large stem cell projects funded by the European Community
In the past year, 89,000 visitors from 178 countries looked at 255,000 pages on this site, and 63 people left comments. 14 stem cell videos are now freely available via our YouTube channel. We've posted 125 tweets and have 453 followers on our Twitter account, @eurostemcell. We have also set up a fledgling Facebook page and added Facebook buttons to this site. Go on, like us!
We've responded to 57 direct enquiries from patients, their families and caregivers, on clinical trials, unproven treatments, umbilical cord blood banking and prospects for therapy in a variety of diseases, and many more from event organizers, recruiters, media, students and job seekers.
We've also been involved in lots of direct public engagement:
- Through Debating science issues, we facilitated stem cell science & ethics workshops at 18 secondary schools in the west of Ireland and 14 stem cell debates throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland.
- A group of international teachers attended EMBL's Monterotondo campus for 'Stem Cells at the Forefront' - three days of lectures, laboratory experience and hands-on practical experience. EuroStemCell's toolkit and resources were presented and teachers used Introducing stem cells, Stem cell stories and All about stem cells to prepare for a poster presentation.
- Four Italian universities combined film and lectures to introduce high school students to key concepts in stem cell science during Unistem's coordinated activity in March this year. A huge 2,200 school students and 100 teachers from 55 high schools attended. EuroStemCell's All about stem cells educational resource formed the basis of a workshop as a key component of the activities in Milan.
- We're working with the Bergamo Scienza festival to run Stem cell dream on October 8th 2011.
- Seven scientists and science communicators have taken our Discover Stem Cells tool to 11 classes of 12-14 year olds. More school visits are lined up for the Autumn and translation of the materials into Spanish is underway.
What's Next?
Right now, we're working (with many translators) on making this website fully multilingual. We're producing a new film on gene networks and regulation, and planning a new tool to help engage patients with the science of stem cells and neurological diseases. We're developing map-based resources to provide current, accessible and visual information on the European stem cell landscape, and a whole suite of new fact sheets, commentaries and other text-based resources for the website. We're also updating and extending our library of 30 FAQ on stem cells regenerative medicine and disease, creating resources on clinical research and trials and developing our image galleries.
We'd love to hear your feedback and ideas, or to help you use our tools for your own stem cell engagement activities.
Keep up to date with our latest tools and activities: sign up to our e-newsletter now! (Sign up at the bottom of the main page.)
The contact for this project is Dr Penny Fidler in the first instance