The South Korean researcher who was the first to clone human embryos for the creation of stem cells plans to establish a worldwide stem-cell bank to make the technology available to other scientists.

The World Stem Cell Foundation, to be announced today in Seoul, intends to produce about 100 new cell lines each year and make them available to scientists, particularly those in the United States who have been stymied in their research by federal funding restrictions.

The creation of the stem-cell bank offers the possibility of sidestepping the Bush administration's restrictive policies governing the use of human embryos for research purposes.

"I think U.S. scientists will be lining up to request them," said Dr. George Daley at Harvard Medical School.

The foundation will be based at Seoul National University and led by pioneering stem-cell biologist Hwang Woo-suk. Satellite laboratories will be opened in San Francisco and Oxford, England.

"When the use of these stem cells is limited to a particular country, it takes much too long to create technologies usable for the whole humanity," Hwang said. "By creating a global network, we plan to share stem cells created in each country and share information on those stem cells."

So far, only Hwang's lab has been able to master the delicate art of extracting DNA from human eggs, replacing it with DNA from the skin cells of sick patients and coaxing the eggs to develop to the point where stem cells can be harvested.

The procedure offered by South Koreans — called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning — is essential for creating stem cells tailored to individual patients. It is a key step toward developing medical cures based on stem cells, which have the ability to become virtually any cell in the body.

Scientists in the United States and other countries have been trying to replicate Hwang's achievement, so far without success.

Some U.S. scientists said they are convinced the advanced work would be happening here if President Bush hadn't limited the use of federal money for embryonic stem-cell research.

"There's no doubt that the federal policy has chilled research in this area," said Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Tissue Biology at the University of California, San Francisco. "How could it be otherwise if there are threats from the floor of Congress that this procedure might be criminalized?"

Researchers will be able to apply to have stem cells created from the DNA of their choice; once developed, the cell lines will be made available for other scientists to use. The South Korean government will pay for the foundation's work in Seoul, and private funders will be asked to subsidize operations in San Francisco.

Some potential collaborators view the new consortium as another challenge to the U.S. government to roll back the rules. The sponsors of a Senate bill to lift the funding ban — Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa — said the consortium underscores how far the United States is falling behind.

"We shouldn't be playing second fiddle to South Korea or anyone else," Specter said. Still, he said he hoped the consortium would advance progress in the field.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.