A microneedle had squeezed out all the genetic material from a freshly harvested human egg. Now, in the shadows of a darkened laboratory, a technician in a blue jumpsuit prodded and probed the egg's outer membrane on Monday morning, seeking to introduce a skin cell from a patient with an immune deficiency.

Finally, on the third probe, the rubbery wall gave way. Magnified 250 times on a black-and-white screen, the egg could be seen making room for the new skin cell, with its new genetic code.

"I never destroy any life during my process," said Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, the laboratory director, his eyes flashing above his surgical mask as he gave a reporter a rare look at the controversial human-cell transfer process developed at this small lab on the sixth floor of Building No. 85 at Seoul National University.

To his supporters, Dr. Hwang's report on May 20 that he had created new colonies of stem cells that matched the DNA of their donors was a major leap toward the dream of growing replacement tissues for conditions like spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and congenital immune deficiencies.

Silicon Valley tycoons, Nobel laureates and Hollywood celebrities are backing a measure on California's Nov. 2 ballot to devote $3 billion to human embryonic stem cell experiments in what would be the biggest-ever state-supported scientific research program in the country.

The measure — designed to get around the Bush administration's restrictions on the funding of such research — would put California at the very forefront of the field. It would dwarf all current stem cell projects in the United States, whether privately or publicly financed.

Proposition 71 promises to be one of the most contentious election issues in California, pitting scientists, sympathetic patients who could benefit from stem cells and biotechnology interests against the Roman Catholic Church and conservatives opposed to the research because it involves destroying days-old embryos and cloning.

The $3-billion measure puts California in the forefront of an ongoing national debate.

An initiative that would have state taxpayers underwrite $3 billion worth of research into using embryonic stem cells to develop cures for Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases qualified for the Nov. 2 ballot Thursday, propelling California to the forefront of a national battle at the intersection of science and morality.

German scientists said Friday they had developed a "pioneering" method of extracting stem cells from the human body that could render obsolete the controversial practice of harvesting the cells from embryos.

Researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute and the University of Luebeck succeeded in extracting cells from human and rat glandular tissue that have similar properties to embryonic stem cells, the institute said in a statement. Researchers said they took cells from a 74-year-old person and a rat that were extremely stable, and easily multiplied them and conserved them by freezing.

The debate over embryonic stem-cell research, which occupied President Bush during his early days in the White House, is re-emerging as an election issue as advocates for patients, including Nancy Reagan, press the president to loosen the limits on federal financing for the science.

Mrs. Reagan, whose husband, former President Ronald Reagan, suffers from Alzheimer's disease, has made her support for the research known but has never spoken publicly about it. She is expected to do so in Beverly Hills on Saturday night at a star-studded fund-raiser sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Embryonic stem-cell studies are controversial because they involve the destruction of human embryos; Mr. Bush's policy, announced in August 2001, restricts the research in a way that does not permit embryos to be destroyed with taxpayer dollars. But the diabetes foundation says the policy is impeding science. It has been sending patients to lobby lawmakers in Washington and has found some unlikely allies in Congress.

Australian scientists will be producing embryonic stem cells within weeks after the Government issued the first licences yesterday, giving permission for the controversial research.

In a move likely to reignite debate on the issue, Sydney IVF and Melbourne IVF were granted licences to do research using embryos left over from IVF treatment.

Between the fifth and tenth days the lump of stem cells differentiates into the overall building plan of the mouse embryo and its organs. It is a bit like a lump of iron turning into the space shuttle. In fact it is the profoundest wonder we can still imagine and accept, and at the same time so usual that we have to force ourselves to wonder about the wondrousness of this wonder.
- Miroslav Holub

A patient's own stem cells can patch up some of the damage wreaked by a heart attack, shows a new study. But it also causes side effects in an unexpectedly high proportion of patients.

The adverse effects prompted researchers at Seoul National University in South Korea to stop enrolling patients in a current stem cell trial. The effects also fuel debate about this controversial therapy, which is undergoing preliminary tests around the world.

In the latest study, Hyo-Soo Kim and his colleagues injected 20 patients who had suffered heart attacks with a chemical called granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), which prompts the bone marrow to churn out blood stem cells. Ten of the patients had stem cells filtered and purified from their blood, and then introduced into their heart.

After six months, those injected with the stem cells were able to run further on a treadmill than a comparison group and their hearts beat more strongly, the team report in The Lancet1. The group treated with G-CSF alone showed no such improvement. But seven of the patients in the trial developed abnormal growths around implanted devices known as stents, which had been used to prop open their arteries.

The White House's policy on research with human embryonic stem cells has been put under new pressure by the dismissal of a leading biologist from the President's Council on Bioethics last week and by the development, announced today, of new stem cell lines by a Harvard researcher.

At present, researchers who receive government financing can only work with human embryonic stem lines that were derived from embryos before 9 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2001.

This was a political compromise that allowed stem cell research to begin but that also assured opponents of abortion that no more very early embryos would be destroyed.

South Korean scientists have developed the technology to extract human embryonic stem cells from frozen embryos and have applied for patent rights in four countries, the leader of the team said Tuesday.

Park Se-pill, head of Seoul-based Maria Biotech Ltd, said in a statement he and his colleagues had, with the consent of those responsible, harvested seven stem cells from 20 frozen embryos, due to be discarded after being used at in-vitro fertilization facilities.

Harvard University plans to launch a multimillion-dollar center to grow and study human embryonic stem cells, the school announced yesterday.

The center is expected to be the largest privately funded American stem-cell research project to date.

It must use private funds to create new lines of stem cells because President Bush has limited federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research to existing lines of cells. To harvest stem cells, researchers must kill days-old embryos.

It may well be the smallest scaffolding in the world, and the easiest to set up. Researchers have devised a tiny self-assembling structure that they hope will help repair damaged spinal cords.

Every year in the United States alone, about 15,000 people damage their spines. Few recover fully as it is difficult for damaged nerves to grow across the gap in a severed spinal cord.

The Australian Federal Government will approve the first experiments on "excess" IVF embryos within weeks following applications from universities, research institutes and private companies.

And in an effort to counter concerns over the controversial research, the Government is employing two inspectors to ensure that its new laws on cloning and embryo use are not broken.

The first kidney transplant, performed nearly 50 years ago, opened the possibility of replacing worn or damaged body parts. Today, with demand for replacement tissues and organs far exceeding the supply, creating new organs in the laboratory is one of medicine’s important goals.

Thanks to the development of novel biological materials and advances in stem cell biology, scientists are making functioning organs and tissues from scratch. The day when a doctor can order a ready-made kidney or bladder is still many years away, but several types of organs and tissues are now being tested in humans.

A humble marine snail has helped scientists to unravel the signals that keep stem cells young.

Human embryonic stem (ES) cells can give rise to almost all of the body's different cell types. They could eventually provide patients with replacement tissues - but there are some roadblocks that currently prevent researchers from putting the cells into patients' bodies.

One problem is that scientists don't yet know how to control the cells' transformations into other types. Another is that the cells cannot be grown without help from mouse cells, which means that they could be contaminated with mouse proteins.

Ali Brivanlou of Rockefeller University in New York says that he and his colleagues may have found a partial solution to these problems. Brivanlou treated ES cells with a chemical, nicknamed BIO, from a sea snail.