STEM cell pioneers in the region are warning that they still have a mountain to climb if they are to achieve their world-beating goal.

Newcastle is poised to become the leading world centre for stem cell research following yesterday's decision to grant a licence for their controversial work.

It promises radical new treatments for a range of diseases, from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes, in as little as five years.

But Professor Alison Murdoch, who is leading the research team at Newcastle's Centre for Life - working with principal researcher Dr Miodrag Stojkovic - said no one should underestimate the task facing the team.

She also urged UK private sector investors to get behind the Centre For Life's drive to become world leaders in this promising new field of medicine.

Prof Murdoch said extra funding at this stage could reduce the time it takes to turn research into treatments.

She said: "We would not have been given our licence if we were not confident of success, but we should not underestimate the mountain we have to climb."

The professor said that the Newcastle Human Embryonic Stem Cell Group had just enough resources to take on the challenge.

But she stressed that extra investment was vital to improve the chances of success.

She added: "The UK is leading in this particular field, but how rapidly it develops is going to depend on how much investment goes into the people and the places where the research will be done.

"We need to make sure we are successful. It would be disastrous if we fail."

Yesterday, the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority gave the Newcastle team permission to undertake what is known as somatic cell nuclear transfer.

In principle, embryonic cells can be used to make any cell type in the body, replacing cells that have been lost as a result of disease or injury. The procedure that the Newcastle team will follow involves reprogramming cells from, for example, skin tissue of a patient who has lost important cells through disease.

The reprogrammed cells will grow into the cells needed by that patient.

The approved research requires the nucleus from a skin cell to be removed and placed into an unfertilised egg.

Strictly speaking, this unfertilised egg is known as a "oocyte" rather than an embryo, which is the product of a fertilised egg.

This egg, which is donated as a surplus by-product of test-tube baby treatment, is then stimulated to divide until a group of cells form.

Stem cells are then isolated from this group and have the potential to grow into any cell type in the body..

Professor Jack Scarisbrick, national chairman of pro-life group Life, said the stem cell work was "the manipulation, exploitation and trivialisation of human life of a most frightening kind".