One key advantage the South Korean researchers enjoyed was a large supply of fresh human eggs: 242 obtained from 16 volunteers who donated them for the study. Researchers elsewhere normally get leftover eggs from fertility clinics, so they are not only aged but potentially of less than top-notch quality, said stem cell researcher Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh.
The donors' "sacred names will be inscribed in the monument for South Korean biotechnology," Hwang wrote to Chosun Ilbo, the country's biggest newspaper.
But another newspaper, Hankyoreh, said the donors "raised a question about whether South Koreans' ethics on human lives remain low."
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