A team of South Korean scientists has grown pancreatic beta cells, which can help treat diabetes, from stem cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of new born babies.

The team, headed by Prof. Kang Kyung-sun of Seoul National University, Tuesday announced they had differentiated stem cells from cord blood cells into ones that secrete insulin.

The exploit will be featured by the Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, the U.S.-based weekly that documents breakthrough papers in biotechnology.

``We converted cord blood stem cells into pancreatic beta cells, which creates insulin, a substance that when it is missing can cause diabetes,’’ Kang said.

``This is arguably the first tangible advance in the study of the cord blood stem cells, with which so many scientists compete to make progress,’’ the 43-year-old professor said.

Umbilical cord blood is a small volume of blood retrieved from after the delivery of a baby.

Late last October, the BBC reported researchers at the University of Newcastle had grown coin-sized liver tissue from cord blood stem cells.

However, the Newcastle scientists have yet to author a paper on their work and this prompted experts to be cautious in evaluating the potential of cord blood stem cells.

By comparison, Kang and his team wrote an article on their feat and also applied for patents on the differentiation technology.

``The number of diabetes patients amounts to roughly 5 million in Korea alone,’’ Kang said.

``We hope cord blood stem cell-related advances will help them. It will enable patients to grapple with diabetes without causing ethical debates unlike that on embryonic stem cells,’’ he said.

Experiments with embryonic stem cells have constantly generated ethical controversies as they involve human embryos, which some regard as living beings.