South Korea university says probing ‘faked’ study

By Cheon Jong-woo and Kim So-young

SEOUL (Reuters) – One of South Korea’s leading universities
will step up an investigation into the country’s top stem-cell
scientist after reports key parts of a landmark paper were
fabricated, the university said on Friday.

Thursday’s reports brought to a head a controversy over
work by Hwang Woo-suk, whose team at Seoul National University
published the first scientific paper on cloning a human embryo
in 2004 and this year displayed the world’s first cloned dog.

“Seoul National University will probe doubts raised about
(Hwang’s) 2005 thesis first and, if the doubts are confirmed,
will replicate experiments,” the university said in a
statement, referring to a study on tailor-made human stem cells
published in May.

The case has wide ramifications for the already
controversial field of stem-cell research and for the prestige
of South Korea, where Hwang has become a folk hero.

Hwang — a charismatic figure pictured with the cloned
puppy earlier this year and more recently filmed unshaven in
hospital suffering from exhaustion — was in a meeting and did
not attend a news conference at which the university statement
was read.

He may brief reporters at 0500 GMT.

The professor, who was 53 on Thursday, has been under
scrutiny since November 24 when he apologized for two junior
women researchers donating their eggs for his work and for not
releasing information about that incident promptly.

Roe Jung-hye, the university’s dean of research affairs,
told reporters the review team would send Hwang’s team a
questionnaire on Monday and a conclusion could be reached in
one or two weeks.

She said the reports raised fresh doubts about Hwang’s
work. The probe, already arranged before the latest reports
surfaced, would go on even if Hwang confirmed the study had
flaws.

Just two months ago, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
opened a World Stem Cell Hub center, billed as a project to put
the country at the forefront of cloning research.

If the pinpointed study proves to be flawed or false it
would rank as one of the biggest science fraud cases in years.

“I am sure anti stem-cell activists will use this to show
that there are problems with this science and that it is not
effectively regulated,” said David Winickoff, assistant
professor of bioethics at the University of California,
Berkeley.

Shares in South Korean firms involved in biotechnology — a
key growth area for Asia’s fourth-largest economy — were down
by their daily limit of 15 percent. Overall sentiment suffered,
too.

TAILOR-MADE

“Even though other sectors have no relation to the news,
there has been an indirect impact on market sentiment,” said
Kim Joong-hyun, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
“From a Korean perspective, the news was shocking.”

Government officials held a meeting on the case on Friday.

“The government will decide whether to continue to support
Hwang team’s research after we have results of Seoul National
University investigation,” a government spokesman said.

A U.S. cloning and stem-cell expert who had lent his name
and prestige to Hwang’s work, Dr. Gerald Schatten of the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, earlier this week
alleged there may have been fabrications and asked to have his
name taken off a study he co-authored with Hwang.

On Thursday, Roh Sung-il, a hospital administrator and
specialist in fertility studies who worked directly with Hwang,
said his colleague had admitted there were fabrications in the
second study on tailor-made human stem cells.

“Professor Hwang admitted to fabrication,” Roh said on
South Korea’s MBC television.

Roh told media nine of the 11 stem-cell lines — batches —
that were part of the tailored stem study paper were fabricated
and the authenticity of the other two was questionable.

Reports in South Korean media said some photographic images
of the stem-cell lines may have been manipulated to make it
appear as if there were 11 separate lines, or batches. Hwang
had recently asked Science to correct some images in his study.

Science said it had heard nothing from Hwang so far.

Another television network, KBS, quoted Roh as saying: “I
agreed with Hwang to ask for it (the paper) to be withdrawn.”

In the disputed study, Hwang’s team reported they had used
a cloning method called somatic cell nuclear transfer to create
lines of genetically identical stem cells from nine different
patients, most with a rare neurological disease.

The study appeared to fulfil one promise of embryonic
stem-cell research — the ability to tailor medicine to
individuals, and to study a patient’s disease in the
laboratory.

(Additional reporting by Lee Jin-joo, Rafael Nam and Jon
Herskovitz in South Korea and Maggie Fox in Washington)