South Korea opens controversial international stem cell bank

South Korea has opened a bank in Seoul that will create and supply new lines of embryonic stem cells for research around the world.

The project which is being led by cloning expert Dr Woo Suk Hwang, who has pioneered the development of stem cells tailored to individual patients, aims to serve as the main centre for an international consortium, including the U.S. and the UK.

However critics are already saying that the use of human embryos in research is unnecessary and unethical, while proponents argue that stem cells taken from embryos offer the best hope of new treatments for a range of diseases and injuries.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, and have the ability to become many different adult tissues.

Embryonic stem cells are the only type which have the ability to turn into any other tissue in the body.

The new bank will help scientists from countries such as the U.S. to avoid government restrictions on stem cell research.

Dr Woo Suk Hwang says the plan is to share stem cells created in each country and share information on those stem cells.

The Bush administration bans federal funding for research on all but a handful of old embryonic stem-cell lines.

The first branches of the stem cell bank will open in the UK and the U.S., and it is hoped to create about 100 cells lines per year with genetic defects that cause such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

This would then allow researchers to study how these cells develop into diseased tissues.

Dr Hwang says that when the use of these stem cells is limited to a particular country, it takes much too long to create technologies usable for the whole of humanity.

He says by creating a global network, they plan to share stem cells created in each country and share information on those stem cells.

It was the pioneering work of Dr Hwang's team which produced the first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells.

It was in May this year that Hwang announced he had created the world's first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients, which was a major step in the quest to grow patients' own replacement tissue to treat diseases.

Funding is expected to come from the government of South Korea, private American donations, and possibly other sources.

The South Koreans will not patent the new cell lines but will charge fees on special orders.

More than 125 stem cell lines have been reported around the world, taken mostly from donated embryos.

Professor Christopher Higgins, director of the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, welcomes the new bank, and says it is a very postive step forward.

Higgins says if we are going to make use of embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes it is very important that there is access for all the researchers who need them.

He says that embryonic stem cell therapy offers the prospect of treatments and cures for many non-infectious diseases caused by the the loss of specific types of cell in the body.

Critics however say that funding should be used for alternative forms of stem cell research, which are more ethical, and which have already produced promising results.