South Korea restarts stem cell research - April 30, 2009
South Korea has re-entered stem cell science, with the national committee on bioethics approving the first research proposal since the national scandal over Woo Suk Hwang’s fraudulent stem cell claims.
A new study will be undertaken at Cha Hospital in Seoul.
“The decision will help reactivate stem cell research in South Korea,” says Chung Hyung-Min, the hospital’s lead researcher (AFP). “Stem cell research has been done by scientists in Britain and other countries. But there has been no successful case yet, using human eggs.”
Reuters says the research will involve “producing human stem cells through cloning” while AFP confusingly says the project will be “using aborted human eggs to develop cures for grave human diseases”. The Korea Times says the approval is for “somatic stem cell cloning”.
A number of conditions have been placed on the research team. The Korea Times explains:
In lifting the ban, the committee called on the hospital to minimize the use of human eggs by having the research conducted primarily on lab animals. The use of human eggs will be limited to 800 for the research, lower than the 1,000 originally requested by the centre.The hospital was also required to remove all references about stem cell research leading to 'cures' for certain diseases and improve the quality of its consent process for egg donors.
