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Young Scientists to Document Hwang Research Fraud(Korea Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)By Kim Tong-hyung An Internet-based group of young Korean science researchers plan to write their own version of a report on the recent scandal surrounding discredited gene scientist Hwang Woo-suk. Once considered among the world's leading cloning experts, the Seoul National University (SNU) professor is now under criminal investigation after his landmark studies on cloned human stem cells were found to be fake. The editors of the Internet message board at the Biological Research Information Center (BRIC), which provides online news on scientific trends, and job information for junior researchers, said Friday they will organize a team of authors by early next month to write the planned report. The report will chronicle how the recent episode over Hwang erupted and developed, the way media members and SNU investigators approached the evidence regarding the manipulated experiments, and the writers' perspective on the intellectual climate of Korea's science sector and how to improve its ability to self-correct errors. The BRIC authors plan to complete the report by the end of April, and they are also considering publishing it either in print or in electronic form for Web-viewing. ``The episode over Professor Hwang had an explosive impact not only on the science sector but also on Korean society and culture as a whole. ``It would be important to produce some objective material to chronicle this scandal, identify how a fraud of this magnitude was allowed to take place, and discuss ways to prevent this type of error from recurring,'' the editors of the BRIC's Internet message board said in a posting on Friday. The unnamed scientists who wrote at BRIC's Weblog played an important role in the unearthing of the scandal on Hwang. Last December, one of the anonymous contributors posted an article pointing out the photos used by Hwang in his paper published by the U.S. journal Science in 2005 were strikingly similar in shape and size. The duplicated photos eventually served as critical evidence suggesting Hwang had faked the key results. Hwang was the toast of the science world when he published two separate papers in Science in 2004 and 2005, both claiming the creation of stem cell lines from cloned human embryos, which would have been world-first achievements if the studies were valid. Science recently retracted both articles after a SNU investigative panel concluded them as fraudulent, saying the stem cells described in the studies did not genetically match with the egg donors. Hwang could be indicted on charges of fraud or embezzlement if it is confirmed he received state research funds based on false accomplishments. The Seoul District Prosecutors' Office, which leads the criminal investigation into Hwang, said Friday they are looking into allegations the cloning expert sent about $500,000 of the private donations he received for research to an institute in Sweden last year. There are suspicions Hwang had attempted to lobby Swedish scientists as part of his efforts to be named a candidate for the Nobel Prize, following the publication of his 2005 Science article. In pushing their investigation, prosecutors are looking into materials provided by the Bureau of Audit and Inspection, which completed its probe into Hwang's financial records earlier this month. The state auditing body had said it could not account how Hwang spent a portion of his research money, including 31 billion won ($32 million) in public funds and 6 billion won ($6.2 million) in private donations. |