Hwang's human Stem Cells Were All Fakes

Filed in archive Stem Cells on January 11, 2006

I've resisted posting about Korean stem-cell and cloning expert, Woo Suk Hwang, in this weblog, amidst the controversy that erupted towards the end of 2005. Until now, the extent of the supposed faking of results, has not been clear.

Today, the results of the investigatory committee set by Seoul National University is out:

The announcement finally confirms the gravest suspicions of Hwang's work with humans. There are two papers in which Hwang's group claimed to clone human cells - a 2004 article that describes the first cloned embryo and derivation of a stem-cell line from it (W. S. Hwang et al. Science 303, 1669-1674; 2004), and a 2005 article that claims the establishment of eleven 'patient-specific' stem-cell lines (W. S. Hwang et al. Science 308, 1777-1783; 2005). Both have turned out to be complete and deliberate fakes.

Not only does this make the concept of using embryonic stem cells raise ethical issues, it also seems that the prospect of its use is not as viable as reported. However, Hwang should be given credit for developing a modified cloning technique that resulted to Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog (which was proclaimed authentic by the investigating committee).

Read more from Nature.

Photo Credit: News.com