After a three-year moratorium on human stem cell research, South Korean officials gave the go-ahead to a new research project involving human eggs today (Apr. 29) provided that the research meets certain provisos.

A national bioethics committee effectively banned research using human eggs in 2006 after Hwang Woo-Suk, a leading stem cell researcher formerly at Seoul National University who claimed to have created the first human stem cells from cloning, was shown to have manipulated and falsified his data.

South Korean officials had not granted a single stem cell research license since then. But now, a team led by Chung Hyung-min at Seoul's Cha General Hospital has been granted approval to use human eggs on four conditions: The researchers must set up an Institutional Review Board to prevent fraud and bioethics violations, focus on lab animals to minimize the use of human eggs, secure renewed written consent from egg donors, and remove references to cures in the project's title to avoid giving people a false sense of hope.

"This research that we have conditionally approved today is really just the very first step towards a new academic study," said Roh Jae-Kyung, the bioethics committee chief, according to AFP. "Though we hope this will eventually become a ray of hope for those patients with an incurable disease, we want you to refrain from premature or excessive expectations."

Hwang is currently on trial for fraud, embezzlement, ethics breaches, and other charges.


Related stories:

Hwang Woo-suk's new pet project
[15th May 2008]

All Hwang human cloning work fraudulent
[10th January 2006]

Hwang faked results, says panel
[23rd December 2005]