Science is hard. Explaining complex science to non-scientists is SUPER hard. But explaining science to non-native English speakers presents a whole new set of challenges.  

I know. I’m a first-generation immigrant whose highly educated parents arrived in their new home—the United States—a tad too late to become fluent in its native tongue. I’ve also had the unique experience of participating in a stem cell clinical trial—a topic my family still struggles to grasp.  

I still remember the day of my accident, which left me paralyzed from the chest down. My mother came into my room and cheerfully told me there was “something” that would “help me walk” again. Those “something” were human embryonic stem cells. The “help me walk” part was just doctors explaining the treatment’s potential. In her frazzled mind, she could barely understand Farsi, let alone English. Being told that I was a candidate to participate in a stem cell trial somehow translated into being cured.

And she kept looking for the magic bullet. Countless internet searches revealed all sorts of clinics and wellness centers offering cures for just about any disease imaginable. My mom wondered, “Were these the same stem cells from my daughter’s trial? Maybe they are even better since they are curing so many folks!”

I tried my best to explain, but there was always something missing in translation. I found that troubling. The language barrier made it so difficult to make informed decisions. I couldn’t imagine being a non-native English speaker and learning about such a complicated matter in a language I hadn’t yet mastered.

After all, stem cells concern people around the world, not just certain countries or people who speak only certain languages.

Dr. Paul Knoepfler would know. And not just because he said it. Paul is a stem cell scientist at UC Davis (full disclosure, we have funded some of his work). His blog, The Niche, is one of the longest-running blogs about regenerative medicine and an especially great resource for those without a science background.

More importantly, in 2021 Dr. Knoepfler launched SCOPE, an outreach effort to make a basic page of facts about stem cells available on the internet in as many languages as possible. What started as “Stem Cells in Spanish” has quickly become a stem cell white paper now available in 35 languages!

Naturally, I wasted no time and sent the Farsi version to my parents and the French one to my francophone mother-in-law. And I’m not the only one finding this information useful. Dr. Knoepfler says, “SCOPE has been a big hit, and as the number of languages has grown, the number of page views of my white paper ‘What are stem cells?’ in languages besides English has skyrocketed. For example, just our Stem Cells in Spanish page has received over 680,000 views as of the first half of 2021, while our Indonesian page has over 300,000 views and our Arabic page has a quarter of a million. We are getting readers from all over the world who appreciate reading about stem cells in their own languages.”

To learn more about this initiative, visit Dr. Knoepfler’s blog.