UPDATE 12: Be sure to check out the post on this over at Blog.bioethics.net. And, of course, Bioethics.net has a ton of news and link regarding the Hwang story.
UPDATE 11: If you want to read the SNU interim investigation result announcement in full and in English, here it is (via the Korea Times).
UPDATE 10: SBS is reporting that the website of POSTECH’s Biological Research Information Center (BRIC), an online community of young biologists that played a key role in uncovering Hwang’s apparent mischief, came under pressure from the Ministry of Science and Technology. After posts were made on the site calling into question the veracity of Hwang’s results, the ministry warned the website to erase the posts. According to records of government support for Hwang obtained by SBS from the National Assembly, the ministry warned the website to erase speculative posts and asked it to adopt a real-name system.
The ministry claims that all it did was try to confirm how the posts were made, and left it up to the website administrators to decide how to deal with things. SBS noted, however, that since BRIC gets research funds from the ministry, this explanation is less convincing than it could be.
NOTE: Hard to tell whether this is a legitimate issue or an attempt by the GNP to use the scandal to attack the government. If it’s the latter, they may wish to be careful, because I’m sure there were more than a few GNP lawmakers behind Hwang as well, and God knows their friends in Korea’s conservative dailies sure as hell were.
UPDATE 9: Prof. Hwang has declared his intention to resign his professorship at SNU (Korean version here, via OhMyNews):
"I give up my professorship at Seoul National University (SNU) in an attempt to offer my earnest apology to the people for disappointing them," Hwang told reporters at the university.
He’s playing the nationalist card to the last, however:
However, the embattled scientist stressed that the technology used for producing patient-tailored embryonic stem cells is purely South Korean, promising that he will prove it to the country in the future.
Well, if he says so.
SNU, meanwhile, is refusing to accept Hwang’s resignation, noting that its probe of the scientist is still underway.
UPDATE 8: The Hankyoreh reports that drinkers are already having fun with this by creating a new kind of poktanju (boilermaker). Like its predecessor, it’s a glass of beer with a shot glass dropped in it. But the shot glass, rather than being filled with whiskey, is also filled with beer. Of course, it’s called the Hwang Woo-suk poktanju.
UPDATE 7: Add your own bubble text:
Pic ripped off from here.
UPDATE 6: The intriguing (yet, as far as Hwang’s fate is concerned, utterly irrelevant) side story of Dr. Gerald Schatten continues, with the good doctor apparently showing open hostility to the Korean media, according to the Segye Ilbo. The paper reports that one of its reporters went to the Pittsburgh Development Center to request an interview with Schatten. He was met by a female employee who told him that the scientist hadn’t come into the office, and that she’d call his secretary to make an appointment. But some 10 minutes later, a cop showed up and told the reporter that he’d received a call from the center. He said that since the center was private property, he could not enter it without permission, and threatened to arrest and confine the reporter if he did not leave the building.
The paper also said security around the Magee-Womens Research Institute, which is part of the Pittsburgh Development Center, was beefed up after the appearance of Korean press teams.
The paper did say, however, that it wasn’t just Korean reporters Schatten was avoiding. Apparently, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review was having trouble getting an interview with the scientist. The Segye Ilbo quoted the Tribune Review’s medicine correspondent as saying that before the mess, it was easy to arrange an interview with Schatten, but now, it was completely impossible.
UPDATE 5: Yonhap examines what happens to scientists who pull this kind of crap in the United States, namely, expulsion from your research institute and a permanent ban on receiving public research funds. The problem with Hwang, however, is that this incident is rather unprecedented in Korea, so SNU doesn’t really have any guidelines to work with. A dean of a natural science college at a university in Seoul, however, said that given how Hwang broke the first ethic of science–honesty–the disgraced hero would have to be dealt with severely.
UPDATE 4: Nice to see Yonhap reads the Drudge Report.
UPDATE 3: The Daily Surprise, citing Media Today, is raising more suspicions, this time about just how "voluntary" the 2004 egg donation of a Hwang team volunteer was. Quoting an unnamed source familiar with the inner workings of Hwang’s team, the paper said that a female researcher was severely rebuked by Hwang after she broke a bottle carrying donated eggs in 2003. The researcher then asked Hwang if she’d return to Hwang’s good graces if she donated her own eggs, to which Hwang replied, "You do that." The paper also listed other sources that seemed to support the allegation.
UPDATE 2: AP ran a very good piece looking at how Korea’s bballi bballi culture may have played a part in the Hwang fiasco (tip of the hat to Edaily):
Six-day work weeks from morning until night. Companies trumpeting bigger and bigger flat-screen TVs. A government that proclaims it wants to be a "hub" for everything from finance to robots. South Korea is fiercely committed to being No. 1, and doing it yesterday.
As South Korea’s top scientist Hwang Woo-suk falls from his lofty perch amid a wave of allegations questioning his research, the country’s competitive culture of always hurrying coupled with a healthy sense of national pride and craving for international recognition could be partly to blame.
Definitely read the rest on your own.
UPDATE 1: The SNU committee said Hwang has admitted his involvement in at least some of the fabricating. It also said that based just on what they’ve found out so far, Hwang will likely face severe punishment, although it also said that since the investigation is still ongoing, how the scientist would be censured will be decided based on the final investigation report.
ORIGINAL POST: SNU’s interim investigation results are out, and they are not good for Dr. Hwang:
A panel from South Korea’s top university investigating the veracity of the country’s cloning pioneer’s past study said Friday stem cell expert Hwang Woo-suk fabricated the results of his human stem cell research, calling it "damaging to the foundation of science."
The internal panel of Seoul National University (SNU) issued an interim report saying he produced two stem cell lines and used them to claim the production of 11 stem cell lines.
The report, announced in a press conference, said, "Hwang’s team had reported it had 11 patient-tailored stem cell lines but there were only two such stem cell lines on March 15 when it submitted its paper to the journal Science."
The panel launched its investigation Monday on the authenticity scandal surrounding the country’s landmark stem cell research by Hwang which emerged last month.
More on this as the shit hits the fan.
17 Comments
This guy is a con man who took taxpayer money, and should stand trial–along with Roh Sungil, Schatten and anybody else involved in the fraud.
This will the first case of scientific fabrication that SNU has to deal with. There has been no precedence, so it will be interesting to see what the punishment will be. I think they will be harsh, only because the damage to reputation of Korean science will get worse if Hwang doesn’t get ejected.
In the US, the punishiment does not include criminal trials. An American University will fire the scientists who fabricate results and make him repay for all research grants. Furthermore they will never be able to practice science nor be eligable for grants. But what is not is that scientific fabrications are not a criminal case in the US.
Kimbob I’ll take your word for it on the legal aspects. It really looks now like intentional fraud against the gov’t though–that deserves more than a slap on the wrist.
ETHICS and the lack of such in Korea . . . ?
This has been the real issue all along. When will the leaders of this good nation take a sincere stand on this problem and deal with it? If I had 1,000 won for each broken contract I’ve seen in the last seven years, I would have more money than Dr. Hwang.
R. Elgin, there’s already an “ethics” in Korean culture, it’s called Confucianism, and you can see the results of it right here.
I smell suicide….
The culture of science that this story has helped uncover is rather reminding me of sports culture over the past 10-20 years. There was a time when the honor system was deemed pretty much sufficient at policing people, but as the rewards and celebrity of being a star grew and grew, the honor system broke down (and continues to break). Now, more formal, systematic checks are needed to regulate sports figures. I guess the same is going to happen with science.
(I’m not trying to start a debate on the culture of sports cheating. Obviously people have been cheating since the moment rules were invented. But I think the nature of cheating has changed since athletes went from earning good salaries to insanely huge ones.)
“creating a new kind of poktanju (boilermaker)” That’s the kind of innovation that makes Dynamic Korea the Pride of Asia.
The Hankyoreh reports that drinkers are already having fun with this by creating a new kind of poktanju (boilermaker). Like its predecessor, it’s a glass of beer with a shot glass dropped in it. But the shot glass, rather than being filled with whiskey, is also filled with beer. Of course, it’s called the Hwang Woo-suk poktanju.
I guess dropping an egg in the beer would be a bit much, eh?
So the news today is about the patient-specific cloning, right?
The internal panel of Seoul National University (SNU) issued an interim report saying he produced two stem cell lines and used them to claim the production of 11 stem cell lines.
The report, announced in a press conference, said, “Hwang’s team had reported it had 11 patient-tailored stem cell lines but there were only two such stem cell lines on March 15 when it submitted its paper to the journal Science.”
I’m not clear on something (and I’m not saying this to defend Hwang and/or whoever fudged this and fabricated that in order to come up with eleven).
What of the original two? It seems they are still NOT saying that these two were not in fact patient-specific stem cells.
Are they still investigating that and we don’t know the results yet? Are they suggesting these two WERE in fact patient-specific stem cells?
They have not yet analyzed Snuppy or the cloned human cells in 2004, right?
This news today seems not to reveal anything we didn’t already suspect to be true, but just is putting a clearer (and more official stamp) on one of the main accusations (that nine of the eleven were phantoms).
Hwang should be punished for his deceit, but it seems the nails are not yet in the coffin on some of the human cloning claims coming from Hwang and his team.
Or am I missing something? Is there something new here?
Correct nothing that new here but you’re still missing something. Without international verification/replication it won’t matter what they attempt to salvage. Some measure of face-saving will have to emerge but it’s going to be a long time before anything reported as an SK scientific breakthrough -past or present- is not met with at least a few raised eyebrows.
over/under for the number of days before we see ol’ doc hwang back in the hospital being treated for “exhaustion” with a pale, gaunt look and a few days stubble to jack up the pity factor: 2
“I guess dropping an egg in the beer would be a bit much, eh?”
But better than “spraying sperms” in it(hats off to baduk).
What made me a believer in Hwang’s success was the British press coverage of their own “First Human Stem Cells Cloned in the UK” news about a year ago, which was based on the methodology published in Science. The articles stated that the British lab had more or less independently verified the work by Hwang’s team.
I haven’t heard a word about them since.
I’d like to apologize to Baduk for insulting his allegations back then on another blog.
if you want a really good chuckle, check out a pic of the big sign on the front of the newly opened world stem cell hub (i think i saw it on oranckay’s blog).
if i remember correctly, it was:
Hope of the World
Dream of Korea
the punch lines just write themselves.
Your analysis of this and your comments over here are so amazing that it is almost pointless for us to blog about the news on the Hwang scandal anymore at blog.bioethics.net, but I guess we will continue to try to say something useful about the ethical piece. But wow this is a great blog and we’ll link to you a lot.
Three words:
Baduk was right.