Scientists in countries with the most restrictive policies on research cloning may not be able to take advantage of the international consortium based in South Korea, which was hailed this month as a means to provide stem cells to researchers living in restrictive environments. Most U.S. researchers are allowed to import the lines, but researchers in Canada and Germany cannot, and some experts are voicing concerns about how the consortium will handle ethical and commercial issues.
South Korean veterinarian and stem-cell biologist Woo-Suk Hwang will head the World Stem Cell Hub, based at Seoul National University, with two satellites labs in the San Francisco area and in England, according to a New England Journal of Medicinearticle coinciding with the consortium's announcement. The researchers plan to recruit egg and somatic cell donors in all three countries and Korean technicians will travel to the satellite labs to perform somatic cell nuclear transfer ...
