Debate rages over use of fresh stem cell eggs
By Shin Sung-Sik, Kang Ki-Heon, and Esther Chung,
Joongang Daily [South Korea]
| 05. 20. 2016
The use of fresh egg cells in stem cell research, banned in Korea for years, is being hotly debated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
The Bioethics and Safety Act forbids the use of fresh egg cells in stem cell research, more specifically in the process of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which can be used to create clones for reproductive and therapeutic purposes by removing the nucleus of an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of a somatic cell.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning is asking for a policy revision whereby the use of fresh egg cells, voluntarily donated, would be allowed for further development in stem cell research.
The use of fresh eggs in SCNT was made illegal in Korea after 2005, when Hwang Woo-suk, a veterinarian and a former professor at Seoul National University, was found to have fabricated evidence and even bought human eggs for his stem-cell research, which was once regarded as a breakthrough in the science of cloning.
Hwang...
Related Articles
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Riley Beggin and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post | 08.03.2025
The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said, even though the idea was one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges.
Last...
By Harry Hunter, PET BioNews | 08.11.2025
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has announced plans to publish a POSTnote and called for submissions on surrogacy law in the UK and internationally.
The current UK surrogacy laws, largely based on legislation from the 1980s, have been...
By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025
INTRODUCTION
Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.
Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...
