stem cell pioneer admitted fraud

Doc: Stem-Cell Pioneer Admitted Fake Data

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a broadcast Thursday that the South Korean scientist admitted that most of the stem cells produced for a key research paper were faked.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

Roh also told MBC television that Hwang had pressured a former scientist at his lab to fake data to make it look like there were 11 stem cell colonies.

Roh said nine of the embryonic stem cell lines Hwang claimed were cloned in the paper were faked, and the authenticity of the other two was unknown.

Roh told MBC he heard from Hwang on Thursday morning that "there were no embryonic stem cells" because all colonies have since died in the lab.

Hwang did not answer his phone and researchers from his lab at Seoul National University could not immediately be reached for comment.
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University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten has already asked that Science remove him as the senior author of the report, citing questions about the paper's accuracy.
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The work by Hwang, regarded as a world-leading researcher in stem cells, recently has come under a cloud of suspicion. Last month, he publicly apologized after admitting that, despite earlier denials, he used eggs donated by two junior female scientists in his lab ? a violation of international ethics guidelines.
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