Harvard team explains Hwang’s stem cell fraud

For the first time, a Harvard science team led by Korean scientists proved that Hwang’s NT-1 stem cell was achieved by parthenogenesis, not somatic stem cell transfer. Hwang has maintained that the stem cell was created through the latter procedure.
In the September issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, a team of scientists led by Kim Kitai of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said that they developed a method of distinguishing whether or not embryonic stem cells were achieved by parthenogenesis or somatic cell nuclear transfer.
Parthenogenesis refers to the development of an embryo that has not been fertilized by a male. Although this occurs naturally in some species such as lower plants and invertebrates, it can also occur by artificially activating oocytes without fertilization. Somatic cell nuclear transfer refers to the growing of a cell by removing the nucleus from a regular, or somatic cell. The nucleus is then injected into an ovum, which does not then need to be fertilized.
According to the article, the scientists used DNA fingerprint analysis of nuclear donor cells and analysis of gene patterns among other things, to prove which stem cells were from parthenogenesis and which from somatic cell nuclear transfer.
Although there had been previous successes in somatic cell nuclear transfer, such as Dolly the sheep, Hwang made a sensation in 2004 when he said that he achieved the process with a human embryo. His research results were published in the journal Science, but were later retracted because of research misconduct and forged data that was used in the paper. Hwang was eventually fired from his position as professor at Seoul National University.
When prosecutors began Hwang’s case two years ago, they focused only on fund embezzlement and bioethics violations, saying it was up to the science community to figure out the “truth” behind the stem cells.
According to the September article in Cell Stem Cell, Hwang did create the first human stem cell line, but by parthenogenesis. This finding coincided with that of the Seoul National University Investigation Committee last year.

By Wohn Dong-hee
Staff Writer for JoongAng Daily

Hwang’s defense: Most charges untrue, but data were faked

Hwang Woo-suk, the cloning and stem cell researcher who was indicted by Korea’s prosecution on Friday, says he has been falsely accused.
In an interview with the Joong-Ang Daily yesterday, Lee Geon-haeng said Dr. Hwang and his legal team were mortified by the prosecutors’ announcement of the indictments. Mr. Lee is Dr. Hwang’s lead attorney.
Mr. Lee rebutted the prosecution’s contentions point by point, saying that the researcher did not order his research team to fabricate data for a 2004 scientific paper on embryonic stem cell cloning. The paper was published and later retracted by the U.S. journal Science.
“Prosecutors concluded that Dr. Hwang had told junior researchers to forge data such as DNA fingerprints based on testimony by Park Jong-hyuk and Kim Sun-jong,” Mr. Lee said, referring to two members of the research team. “But Dr. Hwang says he never did so.”
Mr. Lee said it was unfair of prosecutors to charge Dr. Hwang with falsifying information in applications for government grants. “The first stem cell line for the 2004 article was actually created,” Mr. Lee said, “and even the prosecutors admitted that Dr. Hwang did not know until October that the supposed customized stem cell lines for the 2005 paper had been falsified by Kim Sun-jong.” Mr. Kim was a member of Dr. Hwang’s research staff and was also indicted Friday for those falsifications.
The lawyer did admit that Dr. Hwang directed his staff to create false data for the second of the two Science articles, but argued that the researcher was guilty of no more than impatience. He said Dr. Hwang, believing that the first two lines had been successfully cultivated, continued his research after the article had been submitted and nine more ― also fabricated, although Dr. Hwang believed the opposite ― had been added.
He also denied that Dr. Hwang had embezzled any funds. He said the researcher had profited from lectures and books he authored to the tune of about 800 million won ($840,000). All that money was put into the same bank accounts, but those were private earnings, he said.
Separately, Chung Un-chan, Seoul National University’s president, said he would ask the school’s disciplinary committee to fire Lee Byung-cheon and Kang Sung-keun, both veterinary professors. The two were indicted for embezzling government research grants; they were earlier suspended from their jobs because of their association with Dr. Hwang’s alleged research fabrications.

by Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily

Hwang faces charges of fraud, theft of cash

Prosecutors indicted the disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk on charges of fraud, embezzlement and violation of Korean bioethics laws yesterday. Five other people related to the matter, including the former MizMedi Hospital researcher Kim Sun-jong and a Seoul National University veterinary professor, Lee Byung-cheon, were also indicted.
Reporting the results of its five-month investigation, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said that Dr. Hwang embezzled research funds and fabricated data for his team’s 2004 article on embryonic stem cell cloning, which was published and later retracted by the journal Science. But they did not charge him with any crimes directly related to that or a 2005 paper, saying that scientific fraud was probably a matter best left to the scientific community.

The prosecution said, however, that data fabrications in a second article for Science, on cloned stem cells customized for individual patients, were the work of Kim Sun-jong alone. The journal also retracted that article.
“The customized stem cells that were used to write an article for Science in 2005 never existed in the first place,” said a prosecutor, Lee In-gyu.
But the prosecutors said they did not wish to become bogged down in attempts to determine whether the data for the first paper were completely fraudulent or whether there had been at least a partial breakthrough in cloning technology. The first cloned stem cell NT1, announced in Dr. Hwang’s 2004 Science paper, was created by Park Eul-soon at Seoul National laboratories, prosecutors said, after she laboriously transplanted somatic cell nuclei into hundreds of human egg cells from which the nuclei had been removed. But they said the project was documented in such a sloppy manner that sufficient supporting data for an academic paper did not exist. Dr. Hwang then allegedly ordered his staff to invent those data – photographs, DNA test results and other information needed to support the 2004 paper. In short, anyone trying to determine whether the whole affair produced any scientific breakthroughs would be able to find no evidence of them. The clone produced by Ms. Park, if it indeed existed, was never documented sufficiently to pass scrutiny by scientific peers.

Prosecutors said Mr. Kim mixed egg stem cells that were fertilized in vitro in the Mizmedi Hospital labs with cells at the Seoul National University research laboratories. They contended that Mr. Kim had been pressured by Dr. Hwang to create customized stem cells and was also eager for the glory that would come from having participated in such a breakthrough. He was indicted for obstructing research work at Seoul National University, a government-run institution. He was also indicted for destroying evidence, such as computer files, and telling MizMedi researchers to hide the fact that he was removing stem cells from laboratories there.
After a long period of indecision, prosecutors said, they decided not to indict Dr. Hwang for fabricating research data. “There have been no precedents anywhere in the world in which someone was criminally punished for fabricating data, and we believe that is something that should be handled by the academic community,” said Mr. Lee, the prosecutor.
Dr. Hwang, however, was accused of embezzling 2.8 billion won ($3 million) of research grants from public and private sources.
Prosecutors said that he used the money to make political donations, to buy gifts for large donors and to buy his wife a car. Prosecutors said he used 63 different bank accounts, in the names of relatives or junior researchers, and personally traveled between banks, withdrawing and depositing cash to “launder” the money received from donors.

Earlier in the investigation, Korea’s national auditors had thrown up their hands after attempts to unravel Dr. Hwang’s finances had proved fruitless, at least without subpoena powers. Dr. Hwang also worked with the veterinary professor Lee Byung-cheon, prosecutors said, to forge tax receipts in an attempt to make it appear he had bought farm animals for use in his work, according to the indictment.
He was also charged with violating a new Korean bioethics law that banned the purchase of human eggs for research. Prosecutors said he spent 38 million won last year, the first year in which the law was in effect, to buy eggs from Hanna Women’s Clinic. Donors there were promised discounted fees for fertility treatments in return for the eggs. But prosecutors said they found no evidence to support the claims of one female researcher on his staff that she and one other researcher had been pressured to donate eggs for the project. The charges of fraud were related to applications for government research grants backed by the fraudulent data he and his team allegedly prepared.
Lee Byung-cheon and Kang Sung-keun, both professors at Seoul National University, were indicted for fraud – Dr. Lee for helping to prepare false tax receipts, and Dr. Kang for preparing false receipts for salary payments to junior researchers and embezzling the money. Chang Sang-sik, the head of Hanna Women’s Clinic, was charged with violations of the bioethics law in connection with egg procurement.
Yoon Hyun-soo, a professor of medicine at Hanyang University, was indicted for embezzling research funds at MizMedi.
Roh Sung-il, the director of MizMedi, was not indicted; prosecutors said he paid for no egg donations after a law banning the practice went into effect. Neither was Park Ky-young, a former Blue House science aide who received funding from Dr. Hwang for her own research under circumstances that appeared suspicious when first discovered.
Dr. Hwang’s supporters were undeterred; the “I Love Hwang Woo-suk” Web site announced a rally at the prosecution office tonight. They repeated that Dr. Hwang was being cheated out of cloning patents.

by Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily

Korea sees big future in bio research

published in JoongAng Daily.
by Shin Sung-sik, Wohn Dong-hee 

Perhaps inspired by the high-tech, cutting-edge success of Silicon Valley, the Korean government said yesterday it wants to create a “medical valley” to make Korea a leader in genetics, following the significant advance in stem cell research by a team at Seoul National University. Scientists at the university, led by veterinary professor Hwang Woo-suk, recently announced they had harvested stem cells, the precursors of all other cell tissue, from cloned human embryos.

“If Professor Hwang’s achievement is adapted for practical use, then Korea will become the center of the world in somatic treatment and organ transplants,” Health Minister Kim Hwa-jung said yesterday. “We will establish a medical valley or hospital valley.”
The minister placed a congratulatory telephone call to Mr. Hwang to explain the ministry’s plans. “If we are the first to commercialize this technology, then it will be inevitable for patients with incurable disease to come to Korea,” Mr. Kim said.

Ministry officials said plans include the construction of a medical research village as a middle- to long-term goal. Researchers estimate that it will take about 10 years to commercialize the technology.
Turning aside criticism that a project of such large scope could face ethical dilemmas, Mr. Kim said, “If we do not do it, than some other country will. I see no point in waiting for other countries to get a head start.”

Seoul National’s research with stem cells sidestepped violations of Korea’s bioethics laws, which went into effect on Jan. 29. The laws forbid planting a cloned fertile egg inside a woman’s womb or cloning a human being. It also forbids purchasing female eggs or sperm.
Mr. Hwang’s research was conducted with freely donated eggs, so it did not fall under either category. “We will try as much as possible to make Mr. Hwang’s research legal,” Mr. Kim said.