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Describing an ambitious, privately funded study using human embryonic stem cells, Harvard University researchers announced an ethically charged, long-term project that could produce treatments for a variety of diseases.

The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, joined by researchers from Columbia University, said June 6 that it would begin recruiting women in Boston to donate eggs to generate lines of embryonic stem cells, the master cells that give rise to all other tissues in the human body.

The battle over stem cell research has surfaced in Wisconsin, and both parties are members of the Catholic Church.

Democratic governor Jim Doyle announced in late April that the state would invest $5 million to recruit companies in the stem cell industry to the state. Doyle’s goal was for Wisconsin to have at least 10 percent of the market by 2015—in a race joined by states from California to Massachusetts.