7 replies to this topic

[Michael]

All:

I'm surprised to find no report of this on Imminst, or that I've just heard about it today. This is the first report by Hwang Woo Suk, involving putting the nucleus from a female donor's cumulus cell (a mass of ovarian cells that surround an oocyte) into her own, enucleated oocyte -- something that dodges the possible technical hurdle of mitochondrial incompatibility & woiuld only ever be of any use for treating young female patients. If even this report was faked, we are way. way behind where we thought we were...

This sucks.

Photos cast new doubt on cloning
Questions envelop S. Korean team

By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff  |  December 20, 2005

A landmark 2004 paper in which South Korean scientists claimed to have cloned human stem cells for the first time contains photos that appeared in an unrelated paper, calling their claim into question and increasing the controversy that surrounds the team.

Two photos in the 2004 paper, published to great fanfare in the journal Science, claim to show batches of the world's first cloned human embryonic stem cells. Yet the same photos appear in the journal Molecules and Cells, in a research article by another Korean team, submitted before the Science paper, and in that paper both photos are labeled as cells created without cloning.

The Globe showed the photos to four stem cell experts, and all said they appeared to be identical, down to the smallest detail. The two photos were used in the Science paper as evidence that the cells were cloned embryonic stem cells. The duplication, the scientists said, raised doubts about two of seven tests done to prove the cells were legitimate, but also raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the overall paper, especially after the questions raised about other work done by the team.

-Michael

[John Schloendorn]

Interesting... Do you think they did this on purpose to the cloning field? Or is it merely an unfortunate accident that cloning was hit, rather than ladybug genetics?

[Lazarus Long]

I have been following this closely but time has not allowed me to post all that I have read. Actually there is a lot of controversy surrounding the research but I did read that the photo confusion was actually the magazines fault combined with Dr. Hwang's lack of oversight.

Science apparently rushed this paper into print in record time and may have overlooked some of its own safeguards in peer review but there are larger ethical issues that have been confounding this researcher's rapid rise and fall. He is now mired in an ethics scandal for how he procured the eggs he used, and also that he may have falsified some of his data results.

If confirmed these are far worse issues than the the confusion of photos IMHO but it should also be noted that certain members of the press went after him full bore after the initial publication.

http://www.nytimes.c...ia/18clone.html

On Friday, Science announced that that paper was in the process of being withdrawn. In the meantime, investigations continue into what actually happened at the South Korean research labs and where the truth lies.

"This has become so dramatic," Ms. Bradford said, saying she could think of no precedent at the journal. "In a sense it has been unlike anything else."

For Science, the chain of events began on Tuesday, March 15, when the manuscript arrived by e-mail. It was clearly a high-profile paper, and its lead author, Hwang Woo Suk of Seoul National University, was known at the journal.

He had published a previous paper in Science, on Feb. 12, 2004, announcing that he had, with great difficulty, cloned a human embryo and extracted stem cells.

Still, Science put this latest paper from Dr. Hwang's lab through the same process it put the nearly 12,000 other papers received this year, Ms. Bradford said.

Papers are sent to one or two outside experts on the journal's board of reviewing editors who advise on whether they are appropriate for Science magazine. Seventy percent of submitted papers are rejected. The others are sent to at least two additional scientists for in-depth review.

The reviewers comment on the paper and also assess its quality, checking off boxes ranging from "reject" to "publish without delay." About 25 percent of those reviewed end up being published. But the reviewers are not the science police, Ms. Bradford and outside scientists emphasized.

"We work on the assumption that the data are real," Ms. Bradford said. "The question is, Do the data support the conclusions?"

On May 12, after having passed scrutiny by three outside reviewers, Dr. Hwang's paper was accepted for publication, faster than the journal's average time from submission to acceptance, which is about three months.
(excerpt)

The first hints that something might not be right came in November. By Dec. 9, Ms. Bradford and her colleagues - Katrina L. Kelner, the deputy editor, who has an office next door; another editor, working from another city, whom Ms. Bradford would not identify; and the editor in chief, Donald Kennedy, who is at Stanford - were trying to get some answers.

As the weeks passed, Dr. Hwang, was hospitalized for stress but insisted that his group had really cloned human embryos and created 11 lines of stem cells, as his paper reported. But one of his co-authors, Dr. Roh Sung Il, said the data were fraudulent.

One question was whether photographs, described in the paper as being stem cells derived from cloned human embryos, were frauds. Dr. Roh said they were actually from a large computer file of stem cells and not derived from cloning experiments.

Another question involved the veracity of the DNA fingerprints in the Science paper that were used to show that a stem cell was genetically identical to a person who provided cells for cloning.

"We sent a series of questions to the authors," Ms. Bradford said. "How did this high resolution image get put together? Look at all your images. Go through your data. The same with the DNA fingerprinting: go through your data. What are your answers?"

But despite repeated calls and e-mail messages to South Korea, Ms. Bradford said Thursday, "We haven't gotten any answers yet."
(excerpt)

The story continues, with its twists and turns. On Dec. 12, the one American author on the paper, Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, asked that his name be taken off and his university began an inquiry. On Friday, Dr. Schatten and Dr. Hwang told Science they wished to retract the paper.

But Dr. Hwang also held a news conference on Friday in which he insisted that the data were correct. And Dr. Schatten, in a telephone interview on Wednesday, did not really distance himself from Dr. Hwang, whom he had previously introduced as his best friend, or from the results.

"I still remain totally optimistic and convinced about all of this," Dr. Schatten said. "I'm optimistic that at some point, I hope sooner than later, this is brought to a satisfactory conclusion that I think will be constructive for everyone including the man I still think of as my best friend."

Dr. Kennedy said in news conference by telephone on Friday afternoon, "As of now we can't reach any conclusions with respect to misconduct issues." He also said that as of now the journal's editors did not know the exact reasons that Dr. Schatten and Dr. Hwang asked that the paper be withdrawn.

If the paper is withdrawn, Dr. Kennedy said, "There will have to be a retraction statement, and it will have to contain more than we now know about the authors' reasons for retracting it."

He added, "I can't state chapter and verse, but it is more than we have gotten now."

Dr. Hwang and Dr. Schatten were the only 2 of the paper's 25 authors who asked that it be retracted, Dr. Kennedy said. Ordinarily, Science requires each one of a paper's authors to sign a statement agreeing to a retraction. Ms. Bradford said that despite quite a bit of effort, she and her colleagues had been unable to get even e-mail addresses for all of the authors. But Dr. Kennedy said Dr. Hwang was trying to reach the members of his group.

Meanwhile, stem cell scientists and ethicists continue to follow the story with what Laurie Zoloth, an ethicist at Northwestern University, describes as "a kind of collective mesmerized despair," and some troubling questions.
(excerpt)

S.Korea TV documentary to question stem cell study

S Korea cloning expert hits back

[Lazarus Long]

More on this and an announcement from a review panel expected Friday.

High-stakes S.Korea stem cell scandal shakes science

It appears the imperatives of business mixing with science can have a detrimental effect when it compromises professional ethics in order to secure profits. This is only one possible interpretation aside from the possibility of just shoddy procedures. Personally I will await judgement from those a little closer to the case.

Korean team admits 'fabrications' in clone study By Cheon Jong-woo
Thu Dec 15, 4:02 PM ET


South Korea faces blow to stem-cell prowess
Investigators are examining whether the country's leading stem-cell scientist fabricated data.
By Donald Kirk | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

[bgwowk]

When it happens in ladybug genetics, you don't hear about it. There was a similar scandal in physics a couple of years ago, but most people don't know about it because the findings at issue were not of public interest.

---BrianW

[Lazarus Long]

That is true Brian but when a subject is as politically sensitive as this one it is important to be extra careful as the opponents to such research are going to use it to attempt to further block fundamental research.

The news today is not good, Hwang is stepping down and admitting to some irregularities while maintaining that his basic scientific procedures were sound. The problem is that the baby is going out with the bathwater along with collateral damage to another advance that we discussed here a few months ago, the private International Stem Cell bank. Too bad one of the organizations affiliated with Cryo are not yet in a position to pick up this service and salvage it.

Or are they?

You would know better than I. It seems a good fit and also the cost for doing so right now might be at fire sale prices.

Here is the BBC's report this morning on events;

S Korea cloning research was fake

[JonesGuy]

I've been thinking about this. These open-source publications are not patentable, clearly, but by yanking the article, aren't companies now able to patent processes that actually work?

There are quite a few companies that would like to be able provide SCNT clone creation services, and now, they might have to dust off their projects and give it a whirl.

[Lazarus Long]

Now the methods themselves are under question.

When we treat deceit too lightly not only the truth is collateral damage but often the very goals we hold in high esteem and justification for such action in the first place.


[quote]
Panel Further Discredits South Korean Scientist

By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: December 29, 2005

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 29 - Hwang Woo Suk, South Korea's disgraced star scientist, could present no evidence to corroborate his landmark claim that he had cloned human embryos and extracted from them stem cells that genetically match patients, a university panel said today.

The announcement by the panel, from Seoul National University where Dr. Hwang did his research, suggested that he did not just grossly exaggerate his work in an article published in the journal Science in June, but fabricated the entire paper.

"So far we could not find any stem cells regarding Dr. Hwang's 2005 paper that genetically match the DNA of patients," Roe Jung Hye, the university's dean of research affairs, said in a statement. "According to our judgment, Dr. Hwang's team doesn't have scientific data to prove that it has produced such stem cells."

There was no immediate comment from Dr. Hwang, who apologized last week for falsifications in his paper and resigned from the university.

The latest revelation added more skepticism to his persistent claim that he at least had the technology to clone human embryos and extract stem cells from them, which would be a breakthrough in the quest to help patients with hard-to-treat diseases to produce their own, regenerated tissues. Stem cells are master cells that can evolve into blood, liver, muscle and other cells.

If his claim proves false, the goal of such treatment, known as therapeutic cloning, may be considerably further off than it seemed a few months ago, when Dr. Hwang's fame was at a peak.[/quote]

ANd now for the rest of the story:

[quote]Hopes for therapeutic cloning soared after he published a stunning paper in Science in February 2004, claiming to be the first to clone a human embryo by transferring an adult cell's nucleus into an egg, and extracting a stem cell line from it. He further solidified his fame with his June paper, in which he claimed to have not only repeated the process with 11 patients but also to have done so with a far fewer number of human eggs.

But the university committee that has been investigating allegations of fabrications said last Friday that he had falsified data for 9 of the 11 patient-derived embryonic stem cell lines in his June paper. Of the remaining two lines, the panel had said it did not yet know whether they had been derived from patients or from fertilized human eggs.

In a follow-up report today, the committee, citing extensive DNA tests, said that none of the stem cells Dr. Hwang said he had created for his June paper was produced through cloning. All the samples presented for the paper that still exist in his laboratory were stem cells extracted from fertilized human eggs at Seoul's MizMedi Hospital, which participated in Dr. Hwang's research, Dr. Roe said.

"We have asked three independent labs to conduct DNA tests on the samples, and all three came out with the same conclusion," she said. "None of the stem cells were patient-specific. They were all fertilized-egg stem cells from MizMedi."

Apparently anticipating such an outcome, Dr. Hwang had claimed that his authentic stem cells were stolen from his lab and were replaced with MizMedi samples. MizMedi scientists accused Dr. Hwang of a cover-up.

The panel is still investigating his 2004 study, and the authenticity of an Afghan hound named Snuppy, which was unveiled by Dr. Hwang in August as the world's first cloned dog.

Verifying the 2004 paper holds the key to the question of whether the fallen South Korean researcher had ever cloned a human embryo. Dr. Roe said the panel would announce its final findings in mid-January.

Last week, Dr. Hwang, who had been celebrated as a hero in South Korea for his purported breakthroughs, apologized for the fabrication for his June paper. But he stood by his 2004 paper and the creation of Snuppy.

Dr. Hwang's rise and fall has shocked the nation and cloning researchers worldwide and raised fears that their opponents would use his case to scuttle research in a field that is already controversial because it requires the destruction of human cells and embryos.[/quote]

[quote]