South Korean cloning scientist indicted

South Korean cloning scientist indicted
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-12 11:51

In February, the Board of Audit and Inspection said it was unclear how Hwang spent 2.5 billion won (US$2.6 million; euro2 million) he received in government funds and private donations for his research.

Supporters of South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk weep after hearing the announcement of the result of the prosecutors' investigation into the team led by Hwang, in front of the Seoul district public prosecutors' office May 12, 2006. Hwang, once hailed as a national hero, has been charged with criminal fraud and embezzlement, a senior prosecutor said on Friday. [Reuters]

Through last year, Hwang received 30.9 billion won (US$33 million; euro25 million) in government funds for his research as well as 6 billion won (US$6.4 million; euro4.9 million) in private donations, the audit board said.

Prosecutors on Friday also backed up earlier findings by Seoul National University that Hwang's research team had not created the world's first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them, including those genetically matched to patients, as they had claimed.

Those claims were published in the two papers in 2004 and 2005.

Prosecutors, however, concluded that Hwang's allegation that a junior researcher deceived him into believing that the team successfully created patient-specific stem cells was true.

Kim Sun-jong, who was indicted for tampering, brought ordinary stem cells - created from fertilized eggs, not from cloned embryos - to the lab to make them look like patient-specific stem cells, prosecution official Lee said.

Kim, a specialist in cultivating embryos, committed the wrongdoing "under psychological pressure" to accomplish his duties and "out of desire to succeed as a scholar," Lee said.

That made Hwang believe that he had succeeded in creating patient-specific stem cells, Lee said. Based on those wrong samples, Hwang carried out further fabrication of data to write the 2005 paper, Lee said. It was unclear when Hwang became aware he had been deceived.

Outside the prosecutors' office in southern Seoul, about two dozen people staged a rally in support of Hwang, calling for him to continue his research.

Page: