An ampoule containing a medium for stem cell storage at the Stem Cell Bank in London. (Reuters)

London, May 19 (Reuters): The world’s first embryonic stem cell bank opened in Britain today, breaking new ground in one of the most controversial areas of medical research.

The bank aims to store and supply stem cell lines — strings of identical cells — for research and possible treatment of conditions like diabetes, cancer and Parkinson’s. Its store of cell lines is expected to number tens of thousands. But opponents say such research involves the “wanton creation and destruction of human life” and have condemned the bank as a storage site for dead babies.

Stem cells are master cells in the body that have the capability to transform into new cells or tissue.

They can be taken from adults and discarded umbilical cords but those from embryos are considered especially powerful because each one has the potential to become any sort of cell or tissue in the body at all.

Researchers believe they offer a potentially revolutionary way to repair diseased and damaged body tissue, although more research is needed to understand exactly how they work.

“This potentially revolutionary research could benefit thousands of patients whose lives are blighted by devastating diseases,” health minister Lord Warner said in a statement.

The bank puts Britain into conflict with pro-life campaigners and with the US where President George W Bush issued an executive order in August 2001 limiting federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research.

Anti-abortion groups argue that the bank is unethical because the extraction of stem cells from human embryos violates the human rights of the embryos.

“Our problem is in the marketing and developing of embryonic stem cells, whose existence depend on a massive destruction of early human life,” the Pro-Life Party said in a statement.

Patrick Cusworth, spokesman for the LIFE anti-abortion group, argued that stem cell research reduces human life to “little more than a pharmaceutical product” and holds out “false hopes of cures for sufferers of debilitating conditions”. “Using human embryos as a tissue source is unethical, unnecessary and dangerous,” he said.

The bank, in Hertfordshire, southern England, will be funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.