UPDATE: SNU professor Lee Byeong-cheon, a member of Hwang’s research team, said about the JoongAng’s report that he was hearing such news for the first time, and that he has heard nothing of such demands being made by Prof. Shatten, and that Hwang has never mentioned such demands being made.
ORIGINAL POST: Oh boy. The JoongAng Ilbo (Korean) is reporting that Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh demanded during a meeting with Hwang’s people in San Francisco on Oct. 3 that the patent shares for patient-tailored stem cells be split 50-50, citing his co-authorship of Hwang’s treatise in Science magazine. He also demanded the directorship of the World Stem Cell Foundation, which would be established in the United States, and that a large number of American scientists be allowed to participate in it.
He said he would strongly back Hwang for a Nobel Prize.
The JoongAng report cites a Korean government official and “multiple Korean and U.S. sources familiar with Hwang’s research.”
Hwang reportedly refused Schatten’s demand for 50 percent of the patent shares, saying that since the research was “property of the nation,” he couldn’t share the patent shares.
A government source said Schatten came to Korea, accompanied by a U.S. patent lawyer, in June to discuss the copyright issue with SNU medical school officials, including Prof. Ahn Cu-rie. He is also said to have brought up the issue again in September.
The Science magazine article in question was co-authored by 24 Korean scientists and Schatten.
Promotion of the World Stem Cell Foundation, which was pushed as an organization separate from Hwang’s World Stem Cell Hub, is currently suspended. While Schatten demanded the participation of a large number of Americans, Hwang said at least half the board of directors should be Koreans.
About all this, Schatten’s side is keeping its mouth shut, and does not plan to issue a statement on it anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Minister of Science and Technology Oh Myung and Health and Minister of Health and Welfare Kim Geun-tae said they have never received reports concerning Schatten’s reported demands, according to Yonhap.
MARMOT’S NOTE: Hard to know if the reports are true or not. They may very well be. But it seems the JoongAng is trying to raise a nationalism-charged side issue here to draw attention away from the Hwang ethics issue.
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19 Comments
It could be true but it could also be a smear campaign against Schatten.
If Schatten wanted 50% of tally and Hwang said he could not because his research was the property of Korean government, he lied again.
Rho SungIl, the guy who supplied illegal eggs, will get 40% of all proceeds from Hwang’s research.
Hwang is hiding out. When he returns, he has to explain many things. Schatten will eventually comment as well.
Many of Koreans who thought the scientists are venerable people will get the real glimpse of scientists at work. They want money just like an average Joe. They do cheat, lie and crush competitors like big corporations.
And, you want these people to go beyound the ethics guideline? Don’t ever think scientists are special people. Science is a part of human activities. It should be viewed in the same light as arts, law, politics and war. Would you allow some artists to put women’s eggs on a poster for an artistic effect? Why then let some scientists do it?
For finding cure for diseases? You don’t have to waste human eggs for that. Other cures, other stem cells and other techniques, will come up eventually. Let’s be humans. Not animals who will do anything for survival like stealing female eggs. Let’s have some class. Let’s soar above “survival”.
It’s easy to make proclaimations like that when you’re not worried about your own survival…
And the raising of the nationalism flag does not shock me.
It sounds to me like maybe Hwang et al are hoping that nationalism will make their lack of ethical judgement seem acceptable. I firmly agree with Mr Carr that he should be very publically humiliated and discredited. If not, it will reflect badly on the nation and SNU. As it is, academic endeavors that come out of Korea are already heavily discounted in the US for reasons such as this.
I do think it is commical that the Koreans are claiming this as property of the nation. To that I would have to say-what about the Internet? It appears the frog is still not ready to accept the fact that there is a world out side of the well.
“It sounds to me like maybe Hwang et al are hoping that nationalism will make their lack of ethical judgement seem acceptable”
Where do you get this from? It was the Joongang Daily which made the accusations, not Hwang. He hasn’t said anything about it.
Read the top part.
UP
and Mr Rodgers says, “can you say ’smear campaign’….I knew that you could :)”
The potential earnings for the research that evolves from this is ASTROFUCKINGNOMINAL (and that is the best word for it!) But it is also controversial…who wouldn’t want to get a piece of the action…imagine if you could have 10 dollars for each heart transplant the world over simply because you invented the procedure….the people who come up with all this will not only be rich but will be in the history books right next to MMe curie, jonas salk, and louis pasteur just to name a few (sorry if I didn’t name your fave).
Another angle to this is the naysayers who would like the idea of stem cell research to be banned worldwide…has anyone else besides me given thought to the idea that some of this negativity toward hwang and shatten could be spun by these groups?
Someone on another board (I thnk it was GIKorea) commented that they thought it was some kind of western conspiricy to discredit Prof. Hwang and “the Koreans” from excelling in the area of stem cell research in order to claim it for the U.S.
While I wouldn’t go that far….I could see why someone might think that something fishy is going on.
MBC PD Diary is working on a story that they claim Hwang’s research results are a sham. Is the MBC Diary simply trying to dig up dirt (which is very possible in Korean journalism), or can this be true? (which is also proven to be possible with Hwang’s admissions of unethical methods). At this point I don’t know what is true or who to believe. If the MBC accusations are true, then
1) I withdraw all my defenses of Hwang. I was really hoping, he really did have the answers.
2) This will be a complete discredit of Korea as a nation in the eyes of the world - a laughing stock, which would be well deserved in my opinion.
3) Which will probably make a lot of bloggers in Korea happy with yet more material about Korean corruption and yet another case of Korea falling flat on its face.
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....80025.html
dg611 is correct. The financial and eonomic stakes are outrageous. If Hwang’s work is not a fraud and is true and this technology can be turned into useful applications, it could put Korea on the world map and decidely push the country into the ranks of the most prosperous countries in the world. The stakes are high, I can understand how this thing could turn into blind greed and mass public hysteria supporting Hwang.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/S.....300019.asp
Science Magazine is in full support of the validity of Dr. Hwang’s work (if not his ethics).
If you are sure his work itself is a scam you must know something that the review board of the Science Magazine doesn’t.
Juan, I didn’t say I was sure it was a scam. I guess that’s what throws me off. If it is a scam, how in the world can anyone fool the people in Science and Nature, on top of that, fool top scientists from the US and Britain?
The MBC PD Diary is saying they have the story, I’m eager to watch it and find out what evidences they have to support their claims.
Like I said, they could be full of shit, or they really have something here.
Sorry Kimbob, my you wasn’t directed to you, it was directed to poeple in general. And as I told baduk about the story, lets wait and see.
Kimbob says: “MBC PD Diary is working on a story that they claim Hwang’s research results are a sham”
Not true. No one has suggested there are holes in the actual research.
I have a question of more immediate importance for the kind of person that would be reading this blog, maybe someone knows the answer….
The English language JoongAng daily didn’t do that same story in English at all, right? Which is why Marmot translated most of it? IF true (and I’m not sure), what does that tell you about JoongAng Daily?
This is how an article gets published in Scientific journals.
1) An article is submitted to the journal.
2) It goes to a committee of knowledgeable scientists(usually two or three) in that particular area.
3) They comment on the article. They do not have resources to repeat the experiments. They just look over writing and see all necessary work was done.
4)They recommend the article for publication.
Schatten probably was the one who read and approved Hwang’s work. There has been no verification of any kind. Not even to today.
MBC got a Hwang’s stem cell and found it be the same as one of other stem cell line(made with a sperm and an ovum) kept by Rho Sungil. In other words, Hwang’s cell was not what it was reported to be(a nuclear transfer).
‘a complete laughing stock…’ kimbob
one must wonder if dr hwang would do such a thing knowing what it would do to korea.
Oranckay, somebody is claiming Hwang’s research results are a sham:
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....80025.html
They even plan to air the show without commercials if all advertisers bail:
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....80027.html
That would indicate the program producers are confident they have some damning evidence about Hwang’s research. First, that would be a shame for science in Korea, if true. Second, the PD Diary crew should be lauded for real investigative journalism, if they do it right (it would be ironic if they were unethical in developing the story). Real journalism is a rarity in S.K.
This makes me wonder a couple things. First, if the procedures and results were a sham, why would they dispatch people to other universities outside the country to reproduce the results? Dr. Schatten himself, after breaking off ties with Dr. Hwang over the procurement of the eggs, still said the science was, to his knowledge, reliable. I’m not sure if he changed that.
Also, I think that scrutiny of the MBC report is in order. I’m reminded of CBS’s expose of Bush’s military record right before the election. Even if they got the story right (still a possibility) the documents were almost certainly bogus. If MBC PD Report (I think that’s the official title, but I’m not sure) built their case on innuendo and people pointing fingers at others to save their own skin, I’m not so sure how much I would believe it.
Finally, if Hwang turns out to be a big charlatan, I think that the major blow to Korea’s scientific credibility will turn out to be a good thing: it will be a wake-up call for a lot of people to change the way things are done. A lot of soul-searching will happen. Not unlike what Brendon Carr asserted with his Galapagos Island analogy.
I applaud MBC PD Reports FIRST show.
But on this second one? I agree with Kushibo that MBC needs to be scrutinized on this one. They may be carrying things too far. Lets wait and see.
Marmot, I think its a little late but I think it’s Schatten not Shatten. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The next MBC PD report will be a blast to watch.
This may turn into Science Mag. vs. MBC PD Report. http://news.naver.com/hotissue.....ction_id=8
Sorry but the newslink of the Science Magazine editor interview is in Korean since SBS News did it.
But to summarize it in short:
“The value of the paper has been tarnished by the uncovered issues…… but there is no possiblity of the results being a sham,” and that “Science will continue its cooperation with Dr. Hwang…. but the fact that he lied about the egg procurements is the burden that Dr. Hwang will have to carry into the future.
Sorry about the link above, this link might work:
http://news.sbs.co.kr/sbsnews_.....1000033798