Vatican to host Stem Cell conference

The Pontifical Council for Culture has teamed up with a U.S. biopharmaceutical company to host a conference in the Vatican November 9-11^th on cutting edge stem cell research.
Dr. Robin Smith, chief executive officer of the U.S. biopharmaceutical company NeoStem, spoke to Vatican Radio on a recent visit to the Vatican where she came to give details about her company’s new partnership with the Pontifical Council for Culture which has made a big investment in NeoStem’s research into the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells.

Dr. Smith describes her company’s research on adult stem cells as coming “without the ethical dilemmas posed by the use of embryonic stem cells.”

“No embryos are destroyed to collect adult stem cells,” she explains, so no human life is destroyed in an effort to improve life for “those who are struggling with debilitating diseases.”

With this week’s interdisciplinary congress in the Vatican, NeoStem and the Pontifical Council for Culture hope to raise awareness about therapeutic advances in adult stem cell research. Experts in the fields of medicine, health and ethics will focus on the theme “Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture” in an easy to follow, down-to-earth way that even the layman can understand. And that’s important, because political and legislative leaders – those who determine health policy – have also been invited to attend.

In this program, Tracey McClure talks to Dr. Robin Smith and to Fr. Tomasz Trafny from the Pontifical Council for Culture about the upcoming Vatican congress, the ethical debate, and this promising research…