The lead swap between America and South Korea

Just a few years ago, Michigan State University scientist Jose Cibelli was considered the leading expert on cloning human embryos to treat and study disease. Now, there's no debate that the cloning king is Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University.

On Thursday, Hwang announced yet again that he had successfully cloned human embryos, this time extracting stem cells from embryos created using the DNA of sick and injured patients. It was the second time in a little more than a year that Hwang had successfully cloned. He remains the only acknowledged scientist to have done so.

Hwang is succeeding where the United States is failing because generous South Korean government support helped him create an efficient cloning factory. In his lab, an army of researchers trained in specialized individual tasks mans a high-tech assembly line that often operates 24 hours a day, Cibelli and others say.

In contrast, the few U.S. researchers eager to clone are left scrambling for funds and staff and must contend with legal vagaries as well as staunch opposition from President Bush, who reaffirmed his position on Friday with a veto threat.

• leukemia and other cancers (which I just lost my grand mother to)
  
  
• impared sight / macular degeneration (grandmother suffers from this)
  
  
• severe burns
  
  
• kidney disease (lost grandfather to)
  
  
• diabetes
  
  
• Parkinson's disease
  
  
• Alzheimers (lost grandfather to)
  
  
• multiple sclerosis
  
  
• spinal injuries / paralysis
  
  
• aging organs
  
  
• organ rejection (reduce the risk of transplant rejection, it would be made from your own DNA)
  
  
• This list goes on and will only increase with time and research.
  
  

South Korean scientists have dramatically sped up the creation of human embryonic stem cells, growing 11 new batches that for the first time were a genetic match to injured or sick patients.