S. Korea Makes Stem Cell Leap

Scientists Speed Up The Process Of Generating Stem Cells

(AP) 
The research also will add to the political sparring over whether to expand government-funded stem cell research.

Because culling stem cells destroys the days-old embryo harboring the cells, President Bush in 2001 banned federally funded research on all but a few old embryonic stem-cell lines. A vote on whether to ease those restrictions could come in the House as early as next week.

The South Korean success spotlights the frustration that many U.S. scientists feel at being left behind.

"It's just going to highlight the tragedy of our current situation in America where there are technologies that are promising that are not being pursued by talented American scientists because of ideologic constraints," said Dr. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago. The genetics specialist has helped write recent national ethics guidelines on stem-cell research.

The Seoul researchers, funded by the South Korean government, collected eggs that were donated by 18 unpaid volunteers and removed the gene-containing nucleus from them.

The scientists inserted into those eggs DNA from skin cells of the 11 patients and chemically jump-started cellular division. Thirty-one blastocysts — early-stage embryos of 100 or so cells each — successfully grew. From those, the scientists harvested 11 stem cell lines.

Each is a genetic match to the patient who had donated a skin snippet, and each can form other tissues, such as brain cells or bone cells. Next, the scientists must learn how to control that cell development.

The work means there may be more demand for donated eggs for medical research. Women considering doing so must understand they get no benefit and face some risk, said Stanford University bioethicists David Magnus and Mildred Cho.

The advances do not mean it is time to try reproductive cloning, Hwang said. That, he said, "is unsafe and unethical," noting that animal studies show more failures than successes. "Biologically, it may be impossible."