Cloning pioneer facing Catholic critics

Hwang Woo-suk, the world’s leading stem cell researcher, said said he’d continue his research while respecting for human dignity, after confronting Catholic critics who have condemned his work as unethical.

“All science has two sides,” Hwang said, adding that the religious groups serve to help provide ethical constraints to his work.

Hwang said he would meet religious and civic groups to listen to their views, to make sure his research is done transparently and in an ethical manner, but as long as it doesn’t compromise the security of his work.

In June, The Roman Catholic Church issued a statement presenting opposition to Hwang’s research and stressing that embryos are living beings. The statement signed by the Episcopal Commission for Doctrine and the Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs, which handle Catholic Church matters in Korea noted that "Embryos are life. We were all embryos once. Professor Hwang Woo-suk’s work entails anti-life activities of cloning an embryo, a human life, and destroying of a life. A cloned embryo is clearly human life. Thus, experimenting or controlling of an embryo defies the dignity of man."

"This infringes on life and will bring numerous disasters to mankind," the statement said, warning that his recent research in therapeutic cloning heightened the possibility that a human being could be created. The statement also highlighted the fact that the research could relegate women to the status of a “biological tool” for producing and donating eggs.

"I will take lessons from the great teachings and guidance,” Hwang told reporters after a meeting in early June with Seoul Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk. “I will not fail to meet the Archbishop’s expectations.”

The debate was re-engaged after the Hwang’s team created the first therapeutic embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients — a major step in the quest to grow replacement tissue to treat diseases. The team at at Seoul National University collected eggs donated by 18 unpaid volunteers and removed the gene-containing nucleus from each of them, implanting those eggs with DNA from the skin cells of patients with spinal cord injuries, diabetes or genetic immune diseases, and chemically jump-started cellular division.

The result was 31 blastocysts — early stage embryos with about 100 cells each. From those, the scientists harvested 11 stem cell lines. Last year, Hwang’s team created the world’s first cloned human embryos.

Seoul Archbishop Nicholas Cheong has previously asked for interdiction of Hwang’s research, which involves creating and destroying human embryos to extract stem cells and he has related manipulating cloned embryos to “murder,” condemning the research as a “serious violation of human dignity.”

He was relieved to find out Hwang’s research would be “complementary” to research into adult stem cells but researchers say adult stem cells are less versatile and are sometimes damaged by the health problems of the adult.

Ahn Curie, a doctor on Hwang’s team, stressed that research into embryonic stem cells goes hand in hand with that into adult stem cells: "We can stop, at any time, embryonic stem cell research into areas where adult stem cells have proven to provide cures," she explained.

The archbishop fears though that Hwang and his researchers may have heightened the possibility of cloning humans, although Hwang has said several times that human cloning is neither the aim of his research nor a possible venture.

“Human cloning is unethical and technically impossible,” Hwang concluded, adding that the world wouldn’t see cloned humans within this century.

South Korean cloning pioneer faces Catholic critics