Professor Hwang to Examine Establishing the World’s Stem Cell Bank

The establishment of the world’s stem cell bank in Korea will be promoted.

On May 25, Hwang Woo-suk, a professor of Seoul National University, said that Harvard University in the U.S. and the University of Cambridge in the U.K. recently proposed establishing a joint research center in Korea and holding a regular stem cell workshop, and that he will examine establishing the world’s stem cell bank with those suggestions.

If the world’s stem cell bank is launched in Korea, it’s forecasted that Korea will become a hub by supplying the results of stem cell research to patients worldwide.

Professor Hwang noted the above mentioned matter at a news conference after engaging in a “government officials’ meeting for the support of Professor Hwang Woo-suk” held at the office of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology, Jung-gu, Seoul, on that day.

Professor Hwang stated, “Our research team will achieve the result awaited by the Korean people sequentially and put it out as a ‘Korean brand’ around the world,” adding that the first act of the current research will be completed around the fall of next year or the year after.

Professor Hwang’s statement is interpreted that the result of the research, in which an extracted stem cell was applied to a monkey, will be released by as early as fall of next year.

Meanwhile, in addition to the scheduled financial support this year (research facility cost: 24.5 billion won, research cost: two billion won), the government decided to support an additional one billion won in order to stimulate stem cell differentiation research.

wolfkim@donga.com