The creator of the world's first cloned mammal says stem cell research will shed much light on the mechanism of diseases, noting rapid progress in the field.

Visiting Seoul to attend a joint workshop between South Korea and Scotland, Professor Ian Wilmut made the remarks while speaking to reporters Tuesday. He said that South Korea, as an information and technology power, has ambition as well as confidence in the stem cell field, voicing hope that the nation will use those assets in bioscience.

Regarding his recent abandonment of cloning using human eggs, Wilmut said a Japanese research team produced cells with features of embryonic stem cells from normal cells. This, he said, led him to discontinue his research using somatic cell nuclear transfer techniques.