Science and the lay perspective: lay people's involvement in assessing tissue engineering

Tissue engineering (TE) is a scientific field that will have an influence on our daily lives. It has the potential to revolutionize medical treatments, but it has also an impact on our human image and is associated with potential risks and ethical aspects. Among the publicly controversial issues are embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, cloning, uncertainties regarding risks and informed consent issues. To maintain public confidence in the science of TE, a good solution is public dialogues with patients and other interested lay people that gives the public the chance to independently evaluate TE issues and build their own opinion based on information from different perspectives. The article describes public participation projects in TE on stem cell research and gene therapy and presents the case study of the EU-Gene Activated Matrices for Bone and Cartilage Regeneration on Arthritis (GAMBA) panels, a dialogue with patient and citizen panels in three European countries. In the GAMBA panels, lay participants assessed the basic research project aimed at finding ways of healing osteoarthritis through a matrix composed of adult stem cells, gene vectors, nanoparticles, and biomaterials. The results of the dialogues in different countries, such as Denmark, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, and Germany, are compared and the evaluation criteria for high quality dialogues are presented, including multiperspectivity, openness of results, a clear mandate, impartial facilitation of the panels, and transparency.