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South Korea Widens Probe of Tainted Scientists

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 04:50 CST

By Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL -- South Korean prosecutors have widened their criminal probe of a team led by a disgraced scientist to see if a bioethics law was breached by illegally purchasing human eggs, a prosecution source said on Wednesday.

Prosecutors have already launched a criminal probe of the team led by Hwang Woo-suk on suspicion of fraudulently using state funds.

Hwang's team intentionally fabricated key data in two landmark papers on human embryonic stem cells that have since been debunked, a Seoul National University panel said.

Hwang's research had raised hopes because it seemed to hasten the day when genetically specific tissue could be grown from embryonic stem cells to repair damaged organs or treat diseases such as Parkinson's.

"We will focus on the team's acquisition of ova after the life science ethics law took effect in 2005," the prosecution source, who declined to be named, said by telephone.

South Korea enacted a bioethics law in January 2005 aimed at raising ethical standards in stem cell research and ensuring the country's research met global practices.

The law allows for therapeutic cloning for embryonic stem cell research, but bans human cloning. It prohibits the commercial trade in ova or sperm, providing punishment of up to three years in jail for brokers and up to two years for donors.

Fraudulently using state funds can carry a jail term of up to 10 years.

Hwang was once hailed as a hero in South Korea, but trouble started to mount for him last November when media reports circulated saying junior researchers had given their own human eggs for his team's research.

Donations of this type by research associates are considered unethical because of the possibility of coercion.

Hwang at first said he did not know of the donations but later admitted he was aware of them.

The university investigation panel said that Hwang actually accompanied one of the research associates himself to the hospital for a donation.

The investigation panel also said Hwang's team used more human ova than they had claimed in their research.

It said women were paid for their donations, which would not necessarily have been illegal if the payments took place before the 2005 bioethics law was enacted.

South Korean auditors questioned Hwang last Friday as part of a separate investigation into whether his team misused state funds.

The team got 41.7 billion won ($43.41 million) in state funds from 1995 to 2005, the Board of Audit and Inspection said.

South Korean media said prosecutors may question Hwang some time this month as part of their probe.

Prosecutors have said they are also looking into Hwang's claims he was the victim of a conspiracy to discredit him.

At a news conference last month, Hwang apologized for the fraud in the papers, but laid the blame for the fabrications at the feet of junior researchers in his team.

The U.S. periodical Science has said it will retract the two landmark papers from the team that were based on fabricated data.

The papers were a 2004 report on producing the first cloned human embryos for research and a 2005 report on producing tailored embryonic stem cells.

(With additional reporting by Lee Jin-joo)

Source: REUTERS

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