NEWS RELEASES
1/10/06 News Release
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STATEMENT ON THE SOUTH KOREAN STEM CELL INVESTIGATION
Irving Weissman, MD, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine:
The findings announced Jan. 9 by Seoul National University are sobering and constitute a personal tragedy for Hwang Woo-Suk, who led the stem cell research involving nuclear transfer methods, and his collaborators.
While the announcement is a disappointing setback for nuclear transfer stem cell research, we are all making significant progress in the fields of adult tissue stem cell research, embryonic stem cell research and cancer/leukemia stem cell research. We must work more deliberately on nuclear transfer stem cell research, but we must go forward ethically and responsibly, as the future potential applications for the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases using these tools is so great.
With the dollars provided by California’s Proposition 71, Stanford intends to recruit scientists who will find ways to do nuclear transfer research, first in animal models and then with human cells, using the safest and most effective methods.
The Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine is committed to advancing the field through the creation of new stem cell lines, research to further understand stem cell biology and the development of treatments for disease. Proposition 71 will play a significant role in helping Stanford researchers as well as other California institutions achieve the full therapeutic potential of stem cells.
And so, in spite of this news from South Korea, I remain hopeful about the promise and potential of stem cell research.
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