Sweden is a world leader in stem-cell research.

The bill, which will be presented on Monday and which is expected to be passed into law, would however strictly forbid any medical application of the research for the time being, as well as any human reproductive cloning.

The government said in a statement that it would propose "a series of measures to enable research on fertilized eggs that could ultimately lead to the development of new and effective methods of treatment for serious and until now incurable diseases."

The research would first have to be approved by an ethics panel, it said.

Sweden has since 1991 allowed research on human embryos for the purpose of in vitro fertilization, also known as test-tube babies.

The new law would now allow research into therapeutic cloning, which along with stem-cell research is one of the most ground-breaking, yet controversial issues in medical biotechnology.

Stem-cell research entails harvesting embryos at the earliest stage of their development, when a small cluster of cells has the apparent ability to develop into any organ of the body.

Researchers hope to be able to coax these cells into "growing" replacement organs for people who are born with a severe handicap or who, for instance, are crippled in an accident.

In order to ease the risk that the organ could be rejected as alien tissue, the idea is to clone an embryo so that it is a genetic duplicate of the person who will receive it.

Known as therapeutic cloning, this entails removing the nucleus of a donated egg and then "reprogramming" it with a tiny piece of genetic material from the recipient.

The cloned embryo would not be allowed to develop into a baby, a scenario widely considered abhorrent.

Sweden's Gothenburg University, in its collaboration with the Sahlgrenska Hospital, has 19 stem cell lines, the most in the world, while the Karolinska Institute and Huddinge Hospital in Stockholm hold six. There are about 70 stem cell lines in the world.

In the United States, President George W. Bush in 2001 banned the use of public funds for stem-cell research using human embryos, excepting those cultivated earlier. Private sector research was not covered by the ban.

WAR.WIRE