A leading stem cell researcher said it will be years -- maybe decades -- before breakthroughs by his team of scientists will benefit humans, but he expressed high hopes that they'll eventually help people with currently incurable ailments.
South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk was tired but elated Friday after returning from a trip to the US, where the prestigious journal Science published a review of his work, then to Britain, where he agreed to join forces with a researcher at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute to fight Lou Gherig's disease.
Hwang's team, who shocked the world last year by cloning a human embryo, has recently been credited with another major breakthrough -- creating the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients.
The match means the stem cells, the building blocks of all bodily tissues, are unlikely to be rejected by the body's immune system. Researchers hope the cells can be used to repair damage from disease.
Other scientists have lauded the advances made by Hwang's team -- and their speed. But Hwang, a professor at Seoul National University, said the researchers were working methodically, especially due to ethical concerns.
"We already had the technological know-how last year, at the time of the human embryo cloning," Hwang told reporters at Incheon International Airport near Seoul. "But our team imposed a moratorium on our own, because there were ethical issues."
"In conducting the new process, we've abided by domestic law governing life ethics and the regulations of the Institutional Review Board," he said, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush on Friday expressed concern about human cloning research in South Korea.
"I worry about a world in which cloning becomes accepted," he said.
White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the South Korean work amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of research.
"That represents exactly what we're opposed to," Duffy said.
Last year, Hwang's team cloned stem cells from one healthy woman. This year, they created 11 batches of stem cells that genetically match men or women with either spinal cord injuries, diabetes or a genetic immune disease.
"It means that we can create stem cells using the ... cells of patients regardless of sex and age," Hwang said.
Still, the researchers were cautious about giving a timeframe on when patients with incurable diseases might benefit.
"Some foreign researchers have said three to five decades, some have said in just several years," said Ahn Curie, a doctor of transplantation medicine at Seoul National University Hospital, and a member of Hwang's team. "We will work hard, but we don't want to raise false expectations."
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