WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A multi-national partnership led by South Korean researchers soon may be cloning human cells to generate embryonic stem cells for research intended to lead to insights into various disorders.
Woo Suk Hwang, of Seoul National University -- who gained notoriety earlier this year by demonstrating therapeutic cloning is feasible in humans, will lead the effort, the New England Journal of Medicine reported. The project, called the World Stem Cell Foundation, will be based at Hwang's university, but will include satellite laboratories in the San Francisco area and the United Kingdom.
Scientists will be able to request embryonic-stem-cell lines produced by the foundation, which will use a technique called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, or cloning. The procedure involves inserting DNA from a body cell, such as a skin cell, into an egg cell collected from a female donor. This results in the formation of an embryo, from which embryonic stem cells can be obtained -- although the process involves destroying the embryo.
Such cloning currently is legal in the United States, as long as federal funds are not used, but opponents to stem-cell research likely will condemn the project, because they equate the destruction of human embryos with the taking of human life, and they oppose recruiting women to obtain egg cells.
Under the project, women would be invited to donate their eggs to be used to generate the embryonic stem cells.
Evan Snyder, a stem-cell scientist at Burnham Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who will be participating in some of the first projects of the foundation, said the goal was not to skirt U.S. legal or regulatory issues.
"It's not meant to circumvent the law or restrictions or do anything unsavory," Snyder told United Press International.
Instead, the purpose is to benefit from the South Korean expertise. The country's government has made stem-cell biology a national priority, and consequently their scientists "have become the most proficient in the world" at these techniques, he said.
President George W. Bush's policy on stem-cell research bars federal funds from being used to generate new stem-cell lines, and has been criticized for hampering progress in cloning and embryonic stem-cell research in the United States. In addition to using stem cells to understand diseases better, scientists think the cells -- which can give rise to any cell type in the body -- could be harnessed to replace damaged or diseased tissues.
"If the Bush administration had been more supportive of science, we'd be as good as the Koreans are and we wouldn't have to do this," Snyder commented.
He said the effort aims to manufacture lines of human cells containing the defects associated with various diseases that are poorly understood, and for which there are no cures or treatments. By studying these cells, researchers might able to determine what causes the diseases and how to treat them.
The first step will be to study a rare disease caused by a defect in a single gene, just to determine whether the concept works, he said. "Once we know it works, then we can move onto more and more poorly understood diseases."
Snyder plans to use embryonic stem cells generated by the foundation to study a rare childhood disorder called Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Other diseases that could be studied in this way include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, as well as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.
Several patients' groups applauded the development of the foundation.
"The announcement of a world stem-cell hub in Seoul ... is a significant biotechnology milestone, and indicates that many of the world's most advanced economies are getting serious about stem-cell research to cure human diseases," Daniel Perry, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a consortium of patient groups, medical organizations and universities, said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, the United States finds itself marginalized as this important development unfolds, due to anti-science policies either already in place or threatened by the federal government and several states," Perry added.
The national debate over cloning and embryonic stem-cell research has resulted in several states taking the lead in research efforts. California, for example, has enacted laws permitting the research, and plans to spend $3 billion over the next 10 years. Connecticut has authorized $100 million over the same period.
The issue has managed to gain momentum among some Republicans in Congress. The House passed a bill last May that would ease Bush's restrictions on stem-cell research and allow federal funds to be used to study surplus embryos from fertilization clinics that were destined to be discarded.
The Senate has not voted on the bill, known as the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, but there seem to be sufficient votes to pass the measure. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the majority leader, broke with the president last summer and said he supported it.
Bush has said he would veto the bill, however. If he does, it would be the first veto of his presidency.
The Senate's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Subcommittee plans to hold a hearing Wednesday, at which four stem-cell scientists will testify "on the vital need for increased embryonic stem-cell research and approval of" the legislation, according to the Republican Main Street Partnership, an organization of 60 Republican senators and members of Congress.
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