Korean animal researcher clones human stem cells
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
SEOUL––“I never destroy any life
during my process,” Seoul National University
stem cell research laboratory director Woo Suk
Hwang recently told New York Times corre-
spondent James Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang on May 20, 2005
announced that he had become the first scientist
to successfully clone human stem cells––“a
major leap,” wrote Brooke, “toward the dream
of growing replacement tissues for conditions
like spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes, and
congenital immune deficiencies.”
Said Woo Suk Hwang, “We use only
a vacant [unfertilized] egg, with no genetic
materials” from which to form an embryo.
Trained as a veterinarian, Woo Suk
Hwang, 52, was raised by a widowed mother
who supported six children as a dairy hand.
“I could communicate with cows eye
to eye,” Woo Suk Hwang told Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang is a devout practic-
ing Buddhist, wrote Apoorva Mandavilli in a
profile for the journal Nature Medicine.
But in conversing with Brooke, Woo
Suk Hwang appeared to refer only to never
destroying any human life. His past achieve-
ments have included producing the first cow
conceived in South Korea through in vitro fer-
