South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said Wednesday he plans to open a stem cell bank by the end of the year to help speed up the quest to grow replacement tissue to treat diseases.
The bank would consolidate current stem cell lines in one research location. To treat a patient, researchers would look for a cell line that provides a close match to a patient's immune system, Hwang said in an interview with The Associated Press. It would resemble the process now used in finding donors for organ transplants.
"We hope to open a world stem cell bank, as early as this year, in Korea," Hwang said. "We will start with what we have, offering them to those patients who sincerely want them for the right reasons."
Hwang said he was willing to eventually put the bank under the management of an international agency.
"But, it would mean that South Korea is taking the initiative in fighting human disease," he said.
Hwang and his researchers at Seoul National University created the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients, work that was published in the journal Science last month. That came just a year after his team shocked the world by cloning a human embryo.
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 caused by ailments such as spinal cord injuries, diabetes or a genetic immune disease.
Hwang now wants to move his research into making embryonic stem cells grow into specific organs and tissues.
The publication of Hwang's work has made him one of South Korea's busiest and the most celebrated figures, his image gracing newspaper articles and television shows almost daily. His team is notorious for working long hours without weekends or holidays and even sleeping in the lab, but late Wednesday afternoon he found time to talk with a reporter about his project's current status and long-term goals.
Hwang's work is at the center of an international controversy over whether to ban all forms of human cloning or to allow it for medical research — known as therapeutic cloning — which South Korea has committed by law to pursue.
Culling stem cells destroys the days-old embryo harboring them, regardless of whether it was cloned or left over in a fertility clinic. Opponents, including President Bush, argue that is the same as destroying life. He has banned federal funding for research on all but a handful of old embryonic stem-cell lines.
Hwang knows he's treading on sensitive territory and rebutted critics who say he is destroying life.
"What we are doing is not creating embryos. An embryo, basically supposes a birth of a life. But we have no intention or goals whatsoever to create life," said Hwang. "When the genetic material is removed from human egg, it becomes a vacant egg shell, I would like to call it that. "
Ultimately, though, Hwang said he was a scientist and not a politician.
"Our ultimate goal is for those with incurable disease to lead social lives, and to recover their humane right to happiness."
克隆先鋒首要目標(biāo)是攻克人類絕癥
日前，在韓國首都漢城，世界克隆先鋒黃武樹先生表示，計劃在今年年底之前建立一座干細(xì)胞銀行，以此來滿足醫(yī)療領(lǐng)域逐漸增長的對于器官移植的需求。
據(jù)MSNBC網(wǎng)站6月1日報道，在一次接受美聯(lián)社的采訪中，黃武樹先生表示，未來將會建成的細(xì)胞銀行將會把當(dāng)前的干細(xì)胞線統(tǒng)一起來進行研究和管理。而在對患者進行治療之前，研究人員需要在銀行中尋找符合患者免疫系統(tǒng)的細(xì)胞線。這種做法與當(dāng)前在器官移植領(lǐng)域的運作步驟大致相似。黃武樹說：“我們希望在今年之內(nèi)盡快建立一家世界干細(xì)胞銀行，我們將會以現(xiàn)有的基礎(chǔ)為起步，為那些真正需要干細(xì)胞的患者提供他們所需要的。”
黃武樹還指出，另一方面，在干細(xì)胞銀行發(fā)展成熟之后，他最終將會把實際的管理權(quán)移交給國際代理機構(gòu)，“不過，銀行的建立仍然表明了韓國戰(zhàn)勝人類疾病的積極態(tài)度” 。
黃武樹和他在漢城國際大學(xué)的研究小組曾經(jīng)成功地培育了世界上第1個在基因方面匹配受傷和虛弱病人的胚胎干細(xì)胞，這一令人振奮的成果也被登載在上月出版的《科學(xué)》雜志上。一年之前，黃武樹和他的科研小組就曾經(jīng)以成功克隆人類胚胎而震驚了整個世界。
胚胎干細(xì)胞對于虛弱病人基因的匹配意味著，作為人體所有組織構(gòu)成部件的干細(xì)胞將不會被人體免疫系統(tǒng)所抵觸。研究人員寄希望于這些培育出來的干細(xì)胞可以幫助患者自動修復(fù)身體中的被損傷部分，如由脊髓損傷、糖尿病或者基因免疫系統(tǒng)疾病引起的損害。據(jù)黃武樹透露，他正準(zhǔn)備把研究的下一個重點轉(zhuǎn)移到利用胚胎干細(xì)胞培育特定器官和組織方面。
黃武樹目前已成為了韓國最忙碌也是最熱門的人物之一。他的照片頻頻出現(xiàn)在韓國各大報紙上，并且也為了電視節(jié)目中的常客。他的研究小組一直都以超負(fù)荷的工作量而聞名。據(jù)悉，他的工作人員不但沒有周末和節(jié)假日，連晚上都是睡在實驗室中。
同時，黃武樹的工作也成為了國際上有關(guān)克隆問題的爭論焦點：是否應(yīng)該禁止一切用途的人類克隆行為？還是允許這種克隆技術(shù)應(yīng)用于醫(yī)療手段，即所謂的治療性克隆。報道說，在韓國國內(nèi)，醫(yī)療性克隆已經(jīng)通過相關(guān)的法律。
一般來講，無論是被克隆還是被轉(zhuǎn)移到其他環(huán)境中，挑選干細(xì)胞線將會自動破壞曾經(jīng)養(yǎng)育它的胚胎。而干細(xì)胞克隆技術(shù)的反對者，包括美國總統(tǒng)布什則表示，這屬于一種對生命的毀滅行為。因此，除了一小部分的胚胎干細(xì)胞線研究外，目前為止布什已經(jīng)禁止了一切有關(guān)此項研究的聯(lián)邦基金。
實際上黃武樹明白自己觸及到了一個十分敏感的領(lǐng)域，自己也經(jīng)受了一些嚴(yán)厲的批評。他說：“我們正在從事的工作并不是創(chuàng)造胚胎。胚胎是支撐一切生命的基礎(chǔ)，我們并沒有任何創(chuàng)造生命的企圖。”黃武樹還表示。“如果把人類胚胎中的基因材質(zhì)去掉，那么這些胚胎將只是一個空殼，而這才是我們所作的。”
黃武樹指出，他自己是一個完完全全的科學(xué)家，而不是一個政治家，“我們的最終目標(biāo)是攻克那些至今為止人類束手無策的絕癥，并且讓更多的患者重新?lián)碛邢硎苄腋５臋?quán)利”。
