Note: Now that the South Korean research team has been found to have faked the data for the paper in which they claimed to be able to create patient-specific stem cells, it is unclear whether the World Stem Cell Hub will be able to create the stem cell lines it planned (12/30/05).

Korean stem cell researchers have announced the opening of the World Stem Cell Hub, funded by the South Korean government. The hub will create and store embryonic stem cells that can be made available to researchers around the world.

The new stem cell lines will be made by a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which the DNA of a human egg is sucked out and replaced with DNA from an adult cell. The new cell grows, divides, and becomes an embryo. After a few days, technicians will extract stem cells from the embryo. (Research on these stem cell lines could not be supported by federal dollars in the United States because embryos will be destroyed.)

This process–also called therapeutic cloning–isn't easy. Sucking out the DNA of an egg and replacing it require powerful microscopes with specialized equipment. Technicians need great manual dexterity–Seoul National University researcher Hwang Woo Suk has attributed his team's success to the South Korean practice of eating with slippery steel chopsticks. And, for now, getting human eggs requires women to take drugs that kick the ovaries into overdrive; the process is time-consuming, expensive, and potentially dangerous to women who choose to undergo it. This means that researchers who want to work on stem cells may be happy to buy the cells from a center that does the manual labor rather than learn to do therapeutic cloning themselves.

Eventually, the plan is to open branches in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the meantime, many U.S. researchers are working on ways to make embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos. Earlier this week in the journal Nature, two teams reported making mouse embryonic stem cells using two different methods.

The usual way to get embryonic stem cells is to take an embryo–either a leftover from in vitro fertilization or the product of therapeutic cloning–and let it develop for a few days in a dish, until it reaches the so-called blastocyst stage. A blastocyst has an outer globe of cells that would eventually develop into the placenta and an inner mass of embryonic stem cells that could become any type of cell in the body. Researchers suck out those cells, destroying the embryo.

Both of the new methods this week address the moral objection that the destroyed embryo could have become a baby.

One team used a method based on a technique used during in vitro fertilization to determine whether embryos are carrying genetic diseases. At an earlier stage of development, when the embryo has only eight cells, the researchers took only one cell away. The removed cell was used to make embryonic stem cells, and the rest of the embryo–the other seven cells–was able to regroup and develop normally. The work was carried out at Advanced Cell Technology, a company in Worcester, Mass.

The other method took another approach: The researchers, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created an embryo in which they had turned off a gene that is required to make the placenta. Embryos with this gene were unable to implant into the uterus, which meant they could never make baby mice. But the researchers were still able to get embryonic stem cells out of the embryos.

Embryonic stem cell research is still in its infancy. New sources of stem cells like the World Stem Cell Hub and alternative sources may speed the progress of the research, giving scientists a powerful tool for studying human development and possibly–one day, if the stars align–finding cures for diseases.