Director, Stanford Program on Stem Cells in Society;
Senior Research Scholar, Center for Biomedical Ethics

Stem Cells in the Flattening World: Not Yet a Level Playing Field

Christopher Thomas Scott is Director of the Stanford University Program on Stem Cells in Society, a senior research scholar in the Center for Biomedical Ethics, and an associate fellow at King’s College, London. He directs courses on stem cell biology, teaching tracks on biology, policy and ethics. His research interests focus on the social, economic, political and ethical dimensions of regenerative medicine. His recent book, Stem Cell Now: An Introduction to the Coming Medical Revolution (2007 Plume/Penguin) has been translated into four languages.

Professor Scott was the former Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At UCSF he led an array of units, including technology transfer, legal affairs, clinical research, and business development. While there, he founded the Program in Bioentrepreneurship, a training program and incubator for life sciences graduates and fellows. Scott was the co-founder of Acumen Sciences, a research and consulting company based in San Francisco and the founding executive editor of the award-winning Acumen Journal of Sciences, a magazine focused on the business, economics and policy of life sciences.

For nearly a decade Scott was a senior administrator at Stanford. As Associate Director of the Center for Molecular Medicine, he worked with Nobel laureate Paul Berg to develop one of the nation’s first translational medicine programs. He was the co-founder of Spectrum, a research unit devoted to clinical trials. During his tenure he led corporate development and directed research management for the medical center. He is one of only a handful of senior executives awarded for their contributions to Stanford’s research enterprise.

Scott is a committee member for the International Society of Stem Cell Research, and a member of the Center for Biomedical Ethics, and a board member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology (Zurich). He is a past member of the Stanford Program in Genomics, Ethics and Society, the California Health Care Initiative, and the Bay Area Bioscience Center. He has been featured in national and local media, including ABC, NBC, PBS, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, NPR (Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, TechNation), and UPI and Fox News.