Commercial promotion of unsupported therapeutic uses of stem cells is a global problem that should be addressed by coordinated approaches at the national and international levels.

In China, state investment into public hospitals has radically decreased since the early 1980s and has brought on the dismantling of the healthcare system in most parts of the country, especially in rural areas. As a result of this overhaul, the majority of public hospitals have needed to compete in the so-called socialist market economy. The market economy stimulated public hospitals to modernize, take on highly qualified medical professionals, and dispense new therapies and drugs. At same time, liberalization has clearly affected the attitude and behavior of both medical professionals and the general public. The public has many concerns about the healthcare system for various reasons: there are long hospital waiting lists, patients experience difficulties in obtaining an appointment to see a qualified doctor, and, over the past decades, there has been an increase in out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure. These and other changes in post-reform China have radically reshaped the doctor–patient interaction, which is increasingly eroded by tension and violence.

Recent demands for accountability in 'data management' by funding agencies, universities, international journals and other academic institutions have worried many anthropologists and ethnographers. While their demands for transparency and integrity in opening up data for scrutiny seem to enhance scientific integrity, such principles do not always consider the way the social relationships of research are properly maintained. As a springboard, the present Forum, triggered by such recent demands to account for the use of 'data', discusses the present state of anthropological research and academic ethics/integrity in a broader perspective. It specifically gives voice to our disciplinary concerns and leads to a principled statement that clarifies a particularly ethnographic position. This position is then discussed by several commentators who treat its viability and necessity against the background of wider developments in anthropology -sustaining the original insight that in ethnography, research materials have been coproduced before they become commoditised into 'data'. Finally, in moving beyond such a position, the Forum broadens the issue to the point where other methodologies and forms of ownership of research materials will also need consideration.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. 25 See Baud et al. (2013). It might have made a difference if the committee could have seen Bax's original materials (which he claimed to have destroyed), but only after the fact. FO RU M 4 01

A very large grey area exists between translational stem cell research and applications that comply with the ideals of randomised control trials and good laboratory and clinical practice and what is often referred to as snake-oil trade. We identify a discrepancy between international research and ethics regulation and the ways in which regulatory instruments in the stem cell field are developed in practice. We examine this discrepancy using the notion of 'national home-keeping', referring to the way governments articulate international standards and regulation with conflicting demands on local players at home. Identifying particular dimensions of regulatory tools - authority, permissions, space and acceleration - as crucial to national home-keeping in Asia, Europe and the USA, we show how local regulation works to enable development of the field, notwithstanding international (i.e. principally 'western') regulation. Triangulating regulation with empirical data and archival research between 2012 and 2015 has helped us to shed light on how countries and organisations adapt and resist internationally dominant regulation through the manipulation of regulatory tools (contingent upon country size, the state's ability to accumulate resources, healthcare demands, established traditions of scientific governance, and economic and scientific ambitions).

Over the last three to four years, an increasing number of private and public sector tertiary level hospitals and research centres in India have been using stem cell therapy, especially adult stem cell therapy, in the guise of experimental therapy for a variety of medical conditions. The promotion and growth of this experimental field across local and national borders traverses regulatory, ethical, social and financial boundaries. In this complex context, the article examines how healthcare centres in India negotiate bio-medical and health care circumstances in promoting a therapy that raises questionable medical, technical and ethical issues. The process of promoting experimental stem cell therapy is explained here by employing the concept of bionetworking and illustrated by two case studies of hospital groups. The case studies show how through bionetworking a centre creates and maintains novel networks of mutual exchanges with other collaborative bodies situated in local, national and global relations of inequality. Drawing on a three-month period of fieldwork and interviews in various locations in India, this article shows that: (1) Questionable stem cell therapy is promoted through bionetworks that resonate across local, national and global constellations; (2) Regulatory gaps facilitate the growth of such therapeutic practices; (3) The experimental stem cell therapies augment the healthcare divide in Indian society; (4) The weakening Indian state facilitates commercialisation of health, indirectly supporting the 'bionetworking' practices of therapy providers.

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This article concerns new developments in autologous adult stem cell research in Japan and India through the notions of biohierarchy and bionetworking. It conceptualizes how human subject research in one country may be turned into experimental stem cell therapies in another through bionetworks. We analyse the processes that enable researchers in Japan to discard a therapy as being of reputational risk, while researchers in India employ it so that it becomes reputation enhancing. At the same time, scientists from both countries collaborate in and potentially benefit from the same bionetwork. Explaining how the recruitment of patients and scientists is organized through bionetworking, this article analyses how experimental research in India thrives using Japanese technologies. The concept of biohierarchy illustrates how inequalities in health and standards of living in India and in Japan underpin the methods by which researchers, medical professionals, managers and patients collaborate in bionetworks. The concept of 'boundary object' here captures the ways in which the meaning of experimental therapy is defined by subjective categories projected onto it by patients and scientists alike. The article is based on fieldwork conducted by both authors during 3 months between September and December 2008 at various locations in India and Japan. Data for this article were collected from a wide range of interviews with stem cell researchers, medical doctors, coordinators, managers and patients, primary and secondary sources gathered at these centres, and through web and archival research.

The 2015 'draft' regulation indicates an important step toward the improved governance and review of stem cell clinical research and applications in China."