S. Korean Scientists Describe Cloning

S. Korean Scientists Describe Cloning

Rick Weiss
Washington Post
February 13, 2004

Scientists, ethicists and politicians scrambled yesterday to absorb the implications of the surprise revelation that South Korean researchers had made the world's first cloned human embryos -- and had isolated from one of them a colony of highly prized stem cells, which researchers believe have great potential to cure diseases.

On the scientific front, researchers debated whether yesterday's online publication of the experiments provided a "cookbook" for less scrupulous scientists who might use the data to make cloned babies. Some contended that the human cloning cat is now mostly out of the bag, while others said that cloning is still as much an art as a science and will not so easily be taken from the laboratory to the maternity ward.

Speaking at a scientific meeting in Seattle, the South Korean researchers also provided previously undisclosed details about their experiments, revealing that their technique had not worked when they tried to clone male cells -- a fact that calls into question its therapeutic potential for men.

In the...