Remember Dr. Hwang and the story of the faked cloning results?
Well it turns out he may well have done what he was trying to do, only not in the way he expected.
In a paper published online Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, an international team of scientists says Hwang and his colleagues actually accomplished the feat in the research behind their discredited 2004 paper.
New genetic analysis of Hwang’s stem cells establishes that conclusion with ”as close to certainty as you can come in biology,” said an author of the new analysis, Dr. George Daley of Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
It seems Dr. Hwang cloned stem cells by parthenogenesis:
The production of new individuals from virgin females by means of ova which have the power of developing without the intervention of the male element; the production, without fertilization, of cells capable of germination. It is one of the phenomena of alternate generation. Websters
If this is not the darnedest thing to happen but it does seem that Dr. Hwang did accomplish some useful science after all.
14 Comments
How great is that!? He accomplished it, didn’t realize it, and then faked results to show he accomplished it by another method. Doubly stupid.
Dr. Hwang vindicated. He wasn’t a fake. I think his means to justify his ends were unethical. Why did he do it?
What could have been accomplished during the last 2 years that he wasn’t working?
How is he “vindicated”? He and his team didn’t even realize what they’d done.
“On May 12, 2006, Hwang was indicted on charges of fraud, embezzlement and breach of the country’s bioethics law, without physical detention. Prosecutors also brought fraud charges against the three stem cell researchers. He embezzled 2.8 billion won ($3 million) out of some 40 billion won in research funds for personal purposes and the illegal purchase of ova used in his experiments.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....laborators
He wasn’t a fake, he was a fraud.
Indeed. Think of all the additional money that went unembezzled.
From the NY Times piece..
“NEW YORK (AP) — Remember the spectacular South Korean stem cell fraud of a few years ago? A new analysis says the disgraced scientist actually did reach a long-sought scientific goal. It’s just not the one he claimed.
The new study suggests Hwang Woo-suk and his team produced stem cells — not through cloning as they contended — but through a different process called parthenogenesis.
That, too, is an achievement scientists have long been pursuing.”
…………………………
The point of the article is that while Hwang and the boys were busy fabricating data that they FAILED TO RECOGNIZE an important research accomplishment staring them in the face.
There is nothing that vindicates “The Pride of Korea.” He’s still a punk.
Half full or half empty:
http://english.yonhapnews.co.k.....0320F.HTML
One thing is sure. He should receive a prize for his study.
Yes, the Nobel prize.Not the one that you receive at Oslo, though, but this one which you receive at the Harvard University.
http://improbable.com/ig/
#2.
You don’t know much about scientific research, do you?
So, let’s entertain the idea that the conclusions of this paper are correct (it could still be wrong. It needs to go through peer-review first), it wouldn’t absolve Wang of all suspicion. Parthenogenesis and cloning are two very different things after all. And, no, there is no proof that they ‘failed to recognize an important research accomplishment staring them in the face’ as Warren suggests. The inability to recognize a serendipitous moment may not have had anything to do with it, actually. Producing a breakthrough in cloning research is far more prestigious than that of a breakthrough in parthenogenesis in the eyes of the general public, and therefore it is also far more lucrative, both financially and reputation-wise.
PS. What Wang needs to do right now is concentrate on parthenogenesis and claim his previous paper was an honest mistake, regardless of whether it was or not. It might not convince everyone, but at least it could salvage his career. If he did succeed in producing parthenogenesis, it would be a shame, regardless of what he did, if someone else took credit for it.
Yes, this is an important distinction you have made. His work may have produced results but at what expense to his profession and Korean scientists alike?
The value of the science of Hwang rests on its efficacy as pure techne. If Hwang’s procedures produce results (I’m still skeptical) then de facto he’s succeeded. Hwang’s interpretation of his results were off but at the same time they were not completely ignorant either as he anticipated the possibility of parthenogenesis, apparently, in his papre, as indicated in the Time piece here:
“In his 2004 paper, he and his co-authors addressed the possibility of parthenogenesis. They wrote that they couldn’t completely rule it out, but they presented evidence to support their claim of cloning.”
But, that said, I’m not jumping on any wankin wagon regardless. I have a lot of doubts about anything claimed in the paper.
““In his 2004 paper, he and his co-authors addressed the possibility of parthenogenesis. They wrote that they couldn’t completely rule it out, but they presented evidence to support their claim of cloning.””
In other words, he picked the most lucrative explanation.
PS. Any doubts? Do I need to remind you of his grandstanding?
I think the ultimate conclusion is that Hwang (or the team he assembled) had some talent, but Hwang himself was a very flawed man morally.
His major sins were of Greed and Pride. Greed in that he wanted to claim more then he actually accomplished and Pride in the fact that he tried to cover it up and worse, reveled in all the attention.
In the genetics academic community, the cloning of human embryos is the holy grail. Had Hwang just been happy with proving parthenogenesis and successfully cloning dogs, then he probably would of gotten the funding he so desired and his reputation would of remained intact. With the funding and momentum from those two small, but at the same time huge steps, he may well be on his way to figuring out if human cloning was possible.