Title : Cloning expert faked stem cell research: investigators
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Date : 23 December 2005 1059 hrs (SST)
URL :
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/185058/1/.htmlSEOUL : South Korean investigators said on Friday that cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk had fabricated some of his apparently landmark research into stem cells.
"The 2005 paper by Professor Hwang did not contain simple mistakes but it was intentionally fabricated," a nine-member investigation committee said.
"It is inevitable for Professor Hwang to be disciplined in light of the evidences of fabrication that have so far been revealed," it said in a statement, going public with the results of a week-long probe.
It said Hwang had manipulated data and photographs of two stem cell lines to make it appear as if his team had cultivated 11 stem cell lines as they had claimed in the paper published in Science journal in May 2005.
The veracity of the two stem cells has yet to be verified pending the outcome of the ongoing DNA analysis of the cell lines which were supposed to be "therapeutic" patient-specific cells.
"Professor Hwang admitted to having played a role in extending the data of the two stem cell lines to those of 11 stem cells," said Roh Jung-Hye, a key member of the Seoul National University investigation committee.
Hwang was idolised as a national hero until TV network MBC and young scientists publicly accused him of fabricating key parts of his research into the production of patient-specific stem cells.
The government had showered Hwang with honours and research funds. Since 2002 the Science and Technology Ministry alone had given him some US$40 million.
But Hwang's reputation began to crumble domestically when a key co-author of the paper, Roh Sung-Il, said last week that pictures accompanying the article and purporting to show 11 patient-specific stem cell lines had been faked.
Roh said the patient-specific stem cell colonies had never existed.
At a press conference last week, Hwang withdrew the paper, saying that there were "mistakes" in the study including the photos.
But he insisted that the fundamental scientific aspects of his paper were correct and that
he had cloned 11 human embryos and cultivated patient-specific stem cell lines from them. - AFP/de
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