The great hurry to realise promised cures in stem cell research requires regulation to guarantee bioethical research practices. Yet, increasingly similar national guidelines for stem cell research yields a range of diverging research practices. This book shows how the different rationale of regulation affects stem cell research practices in Asia. In low- and medium income countries such as India and China the advancement of science has a different weight on the national agenda, and the evaluation of scientific research is measured with a different yardstick, depending on the political and national research environment. For developing countries the question of research funding into stem cell research, healthcare, and the donation of embryos, foetuses and oocytes entail different considerations compared to in affluent welfare societies. Moreover, research institutions have different cultural and political histories, so that the meaning of formal guidelines, legislation and social rules may differ according to their various institutional settings. This volume discusses the informal cultures, social conventions and traditions that are crucial to the way in which stem cell research takes place in Asia.

1. Stem cell research in Asia: looking beyond regulatory exteriors 2. The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation 3. Recruiter-patients as ambiguous symbols of health: bionetworking and stem cell therapy in India 4. Exploring appropriation of "surplus" ova and embryos in Indian IVF clinics 5. Modalities of value, exchange, solidarity: the social life of stem cells in China 6. Scientific institutions and effective governance: a case study of Chinese stem cell research 7. "Your problem is that your face reveals everything when you are lying": making and remaking of conduct in South Korean life sciences 8. Regulating cell lives in Japan: avoiding scandal and sticking to nature 9. Reconsidering ethical issues about "voluntary egg donors" in Hwang's case in global context 10. Biological scarcity: looking beyond regulatory exteriors in Taiwan 11. Overcoming embryonic exceptionalism? Lessons from analyzing human stem cell research regulation in Israel 12. Looking beyond the regulatory exteriors of stem cell research in Asia - discussion