Melinda Bonnie Fagan (Philosophy Dpt, Utah), Stem Cell Models: Cell identity, Development, and Levels of Organization

Melinda Bonnie Fagan (Philosophy Department, University of Utah, USA)

• Abstract:
  The concept of a stem cell is a peculiar one, uniting two very different
  ideas.  A cell is a well-characterized biological entity, observable via
  relatively simple technology and clearly distinguished from its
  environment and other cells by a bounding membrane.  A stem is the
  beginning of a process, the point of origin for something that is to be.
  A stem cell, then, is both entity and process; a cell defined by what it
  gives rise to rather than its observable traits.  In this talk, I present
  a minimal abstract model of the stem cell concept, and explore its
  implications for key questions in philosophy of biology.  The model
  explicates the general definition of ³stem cell² as a cell that has both
  the capacity to self-renew and the capacity to differentiate.  After
  presenting the model, I discuss three of its implications. (1) Stem cells
  can be individuated only relative to particular experimental methods and
  hypotheses, such that the concept in practice is diverse and
  context-dependent. (2) Stem cell concepts involve substantive assumptions
  about biological development, at organismal, cellular, and molecular
  levels.  The modeling approach offers a systematic framework for
  representing and comparing these concepts, via the topology of lineage
  trees. (3) The aforementioned assumptions about development have
  implications for theories of cancer, in particular the idea of ³cancer
  stem cells.²

Slides of the talk