A world-leading science magazine has selected Professor Hwang Woo-suk’s embryonic stem cells research as one of this year’s top ten scientific breakthroughs. Hwang is credited with the world's first extraction of human stem cells from a cloned embryo.

In its Dec. 17 issue published Thursday, the editors of Science magazine said that although many other mammals have been cloned, the South Korean scientist’s work was the first to demonstrate that cloning techniques could work with human cells. The report clarified that Hwang’s research to clone human embryos was not an attempt to genetically duplicate a human, but was rather aimed at creating embryonic stem cells for research purposes.

This is the first time for a South Korean scientific discovery to be selected by the journal as one of its top ten scientific breakthroughs of the year.

The discovery by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission that Mars once had vast pools of water and possibly could have harbored life was chosen by the science journal as the most important scientific achievement of 2004. The finding of skeletons of a seemingly miniature human species and Fermi condensation were also among the top ten list.