About Us

The Harvard Stem Cell Institute's overall aim is to use the power of stem cell biology to understand and ultimately treat selected diseases and conditions. Achieving this will require advances on many levels, from basic biology to patient delivery systems. The Harvard community, comprising the university, the medical school, and 11 hospitals and research institutions, is one of the largest concentrations of biomedical researchers in the world.

These goals must be accomplished amid a background of intense ethical and political debate. Much of the current debate revolves around embryonic stem cell research and public fears about human reproductive cloning (which is strictly prohibited under Harvard policies), but stem cell research—with its potential to transform many aspects of medicine—raises many other societal issues, from legal to political and economic.

Addressing these will require an interdisciplinary approach, and HSCI draws upon faculty not only from the biomedical sciences but also from Harvard’s professional schools, including Harvard Law School, the Kennedy School of Government, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Divinity School.

The Center for Regenerative Medicine at Mass General is a cornerstone of the HSCI, which is co-directed by both Dr. Scadden of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Douglas Melton.