The ministry on Monday said the Suam Bioengineering Research Institute, a nonprofit lab known as Hwang’s research base in Korea, submitted a research plan on embryo cloning using somatic cells on Dec. 17 last year. The ministry’s advisory committee reviewed the research plan in accordance with a bioethics law but postponed the decision whether to approve it because team leader Hwang is standing trial on criminal charges of violating the bioethics law by unethically procuring women’s eggs and embezzling research funds.

A ministry official said the qualifications of a researcher are crucial in deciding whether to approve a research plan, and a person found to have violated the bioethics law is not deemed qualified as a researcher. He added deciding whether to approve the embryo cloning plan is difficult now since the Hwang case has yet to be closed.

The decision will likely remain on the shelf until the ruling in Hwang’s first trial is delivered. The ministry said Hwang’s team was the first to officially submit an embryonic cloning research plan since the bioethics law went into effect in 2005. But recently another embryonic cloning research plan has been submitted and the ministry is reviewing it.

(englishnews@chosun.com )