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Positivism in Stem Cell Research
Stem cells are unspecialised cells having the capacity of differentiation and self-renewal. Stem cell research is a sub-field in life science concerning the properties of different stem cells and their applications in medicine. As a field in natural science, truth in stem cell research is often positivist and objective. To study the properties of stem cells, researchers conduct experiments to measure the activities of the cultured cells. For example, to document the self-renewal ability of stem cells, lineage-tracing assays are done by tagging the studied stem cell with a genetic marker and monitoring its in vivo activity in a long term. The measurement of the strength of the marker overtime is therefore an objective indicator of cellular activity.

Constructivism in Stem Cell Research
However, stem cell research is still a new field of study and scientists only started to research on this field systematically from the first successful isolation of embryonic stem cells in 1981. Thus, the research methods used are not matured yet and are still under development. Subjectivity raises when the experiment results are not indicative enough. For instance, current lineage-tracking techniques usually cannot provide images with a clear resolution, and the interpretation of the result is subjective to researchers themselves. Depending on the differences in past experience, individual labs sometimes give different analysis to the result, resulting in the constructive side of truth in stem cell research. Moreover, when applying to the medical world, the therapy methods as the truth are constructed by researchers. Genetic engineering is frequently used to increase the survival rate of stem cells during transplantation. Though the selection of genetic elements in the regulatory system is based on previous research, researchers tend to emphasise different aspects of the system and choose different genes for the construction based on their own standards. Therefore, apart from the positivism in studying stem cells properties, constructivism is also reflected by the engineering nature of stem cell research.

Constructivism can be dangerous when researchers are pushed by personal interests of pursuing fame and success instead of being motivated by pure academic interest. The field of stem cell research is highly competitive due to its promising future in medical treatments, and the publication of successful results is often given with more rewards. Thus, researchers may avoid publishing negative experimental results, leading to a biased construction of truth. As a former lab director at Harvard Medical School and a leading researcher in cardiology, Dr. Pier Anversa was found out to use falsified and fabricated results in 31 publications related to cardiac stem cells in 2018. Due to his action, the whole field of cardiac stem cell research collapsed and many other articles were retracted from medical journals.