By Ock-Joo Kim, M.D., Ph.D.

After several years of heated debate following cloning of Dolly, the Korean Bioethics and Safety Act began to be enforced in 2005. The Act was enacted by the government in 2004 without reaching agreement among different interest groups. Religious groups and some bioethicists opposed the Act, while researchers supported it because the Act permitted stem cell research, including somatic cell nuclear transfer. It was Woo-Suk Hwang’s misconduct scandal in 2006 that changed the Act and the ethical governance of stem cell research and biomedical research at large. The huge blow to stem cell research resulting from the 2006 Woo-Suk Hwang scandal resulted in stricter regulations on stem cell research, including tighter IRB ethics oversight. More importantly, the revelation of Hwang’s collection of more than two thousand eggs that were collected without proper consent led to revision of the regulations on egg procurement for research, making them more specific and more stringent.