ETHICAL disputes continue to hamper stem cell research – sometimes in unexpected ways.
The use of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is criticised by many because creating them usually requires a human embryo to be destroyed. Now ethical concerns of a different kind are jeopardising plans for a World Stem Cell Hub to share lines of human ESCs.
Plans for the hub were unveiled last month by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University in South Korea, who shot to fame through his work on deriving human ESCs from cloned embryos. This relied on the donation of large numbers of human eggs.…
