Market Insight - Stem cells: the unsteady rise of the East?
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
South Korea has had an unsteady early relationship with stem cell research and the country has yet to recover fully from the high-profile Hwang Woo-Suk cloning scandal of 2006. This South Korean scientist famously and fraudulently reported to have succeeded in creating human embryonic stem (hES) cells by nuclear transfer. The scandal received widespread coverage in the media and dealt a terrible blow to the country on the embryonic stem cell research stage. Yet, the hero status bestowed on Dr Hwang before his downfall indicated that Asian governments supported, and that their communities were ready for, stem cell therapies.