Responsible Oversight of Human Stem Cell Research: The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's Medical and Ethical Standards

California voters recently approved $3 billion over 10 years for public funding of stem cell research through the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Geoffrey Lomax and colleagues discuss the principles that guided the CIRM regulations

A call for standardized naming and reporting of human ESC and iPSC lines

Human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell lines are being generated at a rapid pace and now number in the thousands. We propose a standard nomenclature and suggest the use of a centralized database for all cell line names and a minimum set of information for reporting new derivations

A Standard Nomenclature for Referencing and Authentication of Pluripotent Stem Cells

Unambiguous cell line authentication is essential to avoid loss of association between data and cells. The risk for loss of references increases with the rapidity that new human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines are generated, exchanged, and implemented. Ideally, a single name should be used as a generally applied reference for each cell line to access and unify cell-related information across publications, cell banks, cell registries, and databases and to ensure scientific reproducibility. We discuss the needs and requirements for such a unique identifier and implement a standard nomenclature for hPSCs, which can be automatically generated and registered by the human pluripotent stem cell registry (hPSCreg). To avoid ambiguities in PSC-line referencing, we strongly urge publishers to demand registration and use of the standard name when publishing research based on hPSC lines

A Standard Nomenclature for Referencing and Authentication of Pluripotent Stem Cells

Unambiguous cell line authentication is essential to avoid loss of association between data and cells. The risk for loss of references increases with the rapidity that new human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines are generated, exchanged, and implemented. Ideally, a single name should be used as a generally applied reference for each cell line to access and unify cell-related information across publications, cell banks, cell registries, and databases and to ensure scientific reproducibility. We discuss the needs and requirements for such a unique identifier and implement a standard nomenclature for hPSCs, which can be automatically generated and registered by the human pluripotent stem cell registry (hPSCreg). To avoid ambiguities in PSC-line referencing, we strongly urge publishers to demand registration and use of the standard name when publishing research based on hPSC lines