State stem cell bank opens today

By Yun Suh-young

A national stem cell bank will be launched today as part of efforts to promote research into advanced medical treatment.

The National Stem Cell Bank of Korea, the first of its kind supported by the government, plans to establish a network between foreign and local researchers and play an active role in managing research resources.

The bank will be supervised by the Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

It will acquire, preserve, and manage domestic stem cell lines as well as cooperate with overseas banks to receive research information on stem cells to support local scientists.

The bank will act as the core part of a “regenerative center” which will be established in 2015.

“We expect the stem cell bank to help commercialize the induced pluripotent stem cell technology that the Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine discovered this year and provide human embryonic stem cells,” a spokesman of the stem cell bank said.

“Moreover, the opening of the bank is significant in that the government is directly providing support for research on stem cells and regenerative treatment which will be applied to curing intractable diseases.”

The goal of the bank is to act as a national repository for stem cells and will provide them to private researchers to invigorate research on regenerative treatment.

The use of embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are quite similar — for regeneration. Until now the technology for general use has not been developed and only clinical trials to cure retinal damage have been conducted on patients.

For other conditions such as liver damage, domestic technology is still at the animal experimentation stage.

“We expect the stem cells to be used in a greater variety of experiments for various purposes. We hope that they can be used to cure incurable diseases,” said an official from the KNIH.