The California stem cell agency says it is not going to participate at this point in South Korea's plans for a worldwide stem cell consortium. Nonetheless, the network expects to have facilities in San Francisco and ties with organizations in California.
Reporter Carl Hall of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the developments in a story today that said, "South Korea is moving to establish an international consortium to generate hundreds of stem cell lines from human embryos using controversial cloning technology, possibly the boldest foray yet in the sizzling new field known as regenerative medicine."
The network is being created by stem cell superstar Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues. The Chronicle quoted Hwang as saying California would be the best place for its US facility because of its stem cell-friendly climate.
Hall wrote that Stanford and UC San Francisco were recruited "but so far have declined, citing reservations about the project's legal and bioethical framework."
"The biggest issues include figuring out how to protect the health of research participants, set out financing and intellectual property rules, and ensure that any stem cell treatments will be affordable," Hall said.
As for CIRM, Hall wrote, it "has opted against becoming a formal part of the network. The California program's chairman, Robert Klein, traveled to Seoul to appear today with Hwang and his colleagues, but a spokeswoman said Klein's appearance was intended mainly as an endorsement of 'the science the South Korean government has made such a priority,' rather than as an endorsement of the network itself.
"Zach Hall, president of the California institute, said it's unclear how successful the South Korean venture might be given all the uncertainties.
"Hwang has been 'quite open,' Hall said, 'and we're delighted with that and want to encourage that. But whether this world stem cell hub will be helpful remains to be seen. We don't know enough about it to have any sort of opinion on it ... and at this time we felt it was premature for us to affiliate with them in any formal way.'"
The Chronicle said that women in California are likely to be recruited to donate human eggs. Hall noted that the governor recently vetoed a measure (SB18) by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, to add additional protection for egg donors.
Pacific Fertility Center, a San Francisco infertility clinic, will work with the network to procure eggs, according to the Chronicle.
"One of the first research projects is expected to be financed by grants from a Santa Barbara patient-advocacy organization called the Children's Neurobiological Solutions Foundation, which promotes research on pediatric brain disease," Hall said.
"'Our foundation wants to be a founding partner of this world stem cell effort,'" said Shane Smith, Bay Area-based science director for the foundation."
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