Korean Scientist Said to Have Faked Data

Reports allege stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk has confessed to Korean co-author. New allegations of fabricated research by Korean scientist and national icon Dr. Hwang Woo Suk broadcast in the last hour on Korean nightly news have sent shock waves through the nation.

Hwang’s research team member Dr. Roh Sung Il told Korean broadcaster MBC, “No embryonic stem cells exist” in the research that was later published in the journal Science in May, 2005.

Roh told an MBC reporter that Kim Sun Jong, one of the team researchers dispatched to the University of Pittsburgh to work with U.S. scientist and paper co-author Prof. Gerald Schatten, said in a telephone conversation recently, “Dr. Hwang and Dr. Gang Sung Keun ordered me to fake the stem cell data.”

Roh added that Kim “revealed new developments” to him about the controversy, in particular that Hwang had “ordered Kim to return to Korea by Dec. 27 and clone stem cells” to cover up the original fabricated data.

Hwang allegedly threatened Kim with legal action if he failed to comply.

Roh told MBC that he was speaking with the press because he was a strong supporter of Hwang but in light of these latest developments he felt that Hwang would “not acknowledge his obvious wrongdoings” and has thrown “the nation into confusion.”

Dr. Lee Wang Jae, associate dean of the research department at Seoul National University Medical School, was quoted by Yonhap News as saying, “Dr. Hwang’s team has never cloned stem cells.”

Roh revealed that out of 11 stem cells detailed in the paper, six were contaminated by fungus and had died. Roh said that he suspects the remaining five stem cells were not cloned but were just duplicates of donor cells.

He further added that three of the main Korean co-authors, which included Hwang, had “agreed to retract the paper a few days ago.”

The excitement over the team’s reported results originated in indications that refinements in the techniques used by Hwang’s team for theraputic cloning would require far fewer human eggs per patient. The Science paper had said that just 10 eggs would be required per procedure, as opposed to the 242 used in the team’s earlier work in 2004.

[Dec. 15, 8:30 p.m. (KST)]

A report published today in the online version of a Korean daily newspaper has revealed that beleaguered Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk confessed to an associate that his much-hailed research, which was published in the respected journal Science, had been faked.

Dr. Roh Sung Il, head of the Miz Medi Clinic in Seoul, who was part of the Seoul National University team that presented its ground-breaking research, told the Hankyoreh Newspaper that no stem cells were cultured, as was first presented in their paper.

Hwang reportedly told Roh that he wanted to retract his team’s 2005 Science paper.

Though there has been no independent confirmation of Hwang’s confession, early reports on Korean nightly news have sent the country into a state of shock, as the Korean scientist was a national icon over the past few years with a number of internationally recognized breakthroughs in the field of cloning human cells for medical treatment of genetic diseases.

Todd Thacker