A South Korean panel confirmed Friday that cloning expert Hwang Woo-suk fabricated his stem-cell research report.
In an interim report, the internal panel of Seoul National University said Hwang, the university's veterinary professor, used two stem-cell lines to claim he had produced 11 stem-cell lines. The report was published in the U.S. Journal Science this year.
"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," said Roh Jung-hae, who headed the panel.
"After analyzing the data published in Science, we concluded that the glitch could not have been made by simple mistake but by deliberate manipulation."
Hwang's data fabrication is "grave behavior that damages the foundation of science," Roh said.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
