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| /Courtesy of Twitter |
By Lee Jin-a
The Korean government will lift its seven-year ban on human stem cell research.
The National Bioethics Committee conditionally approved CHA Medical Group's research plan, allowing the company to use up to 600 human eggs by 2020. Under the approval, the company has to abide strictly by related laws and develop a research monitoring system.
"The research team must abide by relevant laws when it collects human eggs and somatic cells," the committee said. "In addition, it needs to establish its own bioethics committee to monitor the firm's activities."
The team is waiting for the final approval from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The government banned all research using human eggs in 2009, in the wake of a bioethics scandal involving former Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk in 2005.
Hwang was convicted of several charges, including illegal collection of human eggs and embezzling research funds. He was sentenced to 18 months' prison and suspended for two years.
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