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Korean research scandal staggers scientists.(GUEST EDITORIAL)
The world of biomedical research is being rocked by another South Korean research scandal. The controversy surrounds a paper published in Science (May 2005;308:1777-83), which seemed to demonstrate a major breakthrough in "therapeutic cloning"--treating patients with tissues grown from clones of their own cells. These cells would be less likely to be rejected by a patient's own immune system.
However, the work now appears to be flawed and perhaps even fraudulent. An investigation by Seoul National University concluded that all 11 stem cells Dr. Woo Suk Hwang claimed to have produced from cloned human embryos actually were obtained from fertilized embryos not cloned ones. On Dec. 23, 2005, a teary-eyed professor Hwang resigned in disgrace from Seoul National University. "I feel so sorry to speak about such shameful and miserable things to you people," he told a press conference.
Dr. Hwang made international headlines in February 2004 when his team announced the world's first successfully cloned human embryo. He became the most famous scientist in Korea in August 2005 when he claimed to have cloned a dog, which he named Snuppy, for Seoul National University puppy. However, in light of the current scandal, all of these claims were investigated. DNA testing indicates that the dog cloning claim is valid, but both human stem cell papers appear to be fraudulent.
As in the previous scandal, a U.S. professor was recruited to be the senior author. Dr. Gerald Schatten, a stem-cell expert at the University of Pittsburgh, was invited to be the lead author of the June 2005 report, even though he had done none of the experiments. Recruiting a senior author from the United States added credibility to the foreign research and may have facilitated its acceptance into a peer-reviewed U.S. scientific journal. Dr. Schatten is now under investigation by a panel of six scientists assembled by the University of Pittsburgh. When the publication came under fire, Dr. Schatten asked to have his name removed from the report, but editors at Science refused, instead pointing out that a researcher should not claim authorship of a paper unless he has participated significantly in the research and fully attests to its validity. Rather than allowing Dr. Schatten to walk away from the scandal, the editors demanded answers to questions about the paper.
Although this is a horrible situation, proponents of science and evidence-based medicine should be encouraged by the fact that the self-correcting nature of scientific research has once again prevailed. Although the study slipped through the peer-review system, errors were detected soon after ...
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Source: HighBeam Research, Korean research scandal staggers scientists.(GUEST EDITORIAL)