Fall from Grace?
For Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, a Korean national hero renowned worldwide for his groundbreaking research into embryonic stem cell research, he could be well on his way for a Nobel Prize in Biology.
After all, in May this year he and his team from Seoul National University (SNU) made headlines by creating stem cell lines that are genetically compatible with the patients that donated them. This was done by essentially injecting a skin cell nucleus into a nucleus-free egg from an unrelated donor. This research would have meant that there would be a chance for those with genetic disorders to be cured, by creating a genetically modified stem cell line that is compatible with their own body. Therapeutic stem cell treatments seemed closer now than before. For this and other achievements over the last 2 years (including deriving the first embryonic stem cell line from a cloned human embryo and the world’s first dog clone, Snuppy) SciAm bestowed him the honor of being named the Research Leader of the Year in their annual Scientific American 50, an annual salute to the research, business and policy leaders of technology. That was just less than a month ago.
Today, SciAm has announced that they are retracting the title bestowed here. He was in hospital for stress related problems, first undergoing treatment for an ulcer, and now he’s in the psychiatric ward. SNU launched an internal investigation of his team, and his article published in Science is now on the verge of being withdrawn. First, ethical issues cropped up, and he resigned as Chairman of the World Stem Cell Hub but retains his academic position. Now, even that is in danger of slipping away.
How could it go so wrong?
It all began with allegations that for the May research some of his assistants donated some eggs used in the research (it’s an unethical conduct as the assistants may be subjected to unwarranted pressure in donating) which surfaced weeks ago. He lost his chairmanship position, and went separate ways with Dr. Gerald Schatten at the University of Pittsburgh. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Then, yesterday, NewScientist reported that there were some irregularities with his data here. The short story was the experimental data on the 11 stem cell lines created was strikingly similar, and the photomicrographs provided on the individual stem cell lines looked as if they are photomicrographs of the same batch of cells. At the same time other researchers were puzzling over the data, Dr. Schatten requests his name be removed from the Science article. He hinted at being recently informed that the data may be inaccurate. This was followed by a press conference by Roh Sung-il, who collaborated on that paper, who stated in December to media outlets that "Professor Hwang admitted to fabrication," and that he, Dr. Hwang, and another coauthor had asked Science to withdraw the paper. The controversy was subsequently picked up by Time and SciAm Editor’s Blog.
Adding to the confusion, Dr. Hwang finally managed to speak to the press (you can check BBC here). His side of the story? The admission never happened, but some cell colonies died after being contaminated. He’s confident that after thawing some frozen samples and reassessing the cells his research will be vindicated. So all indications show that the credibility of the rest of his research (Snuppy and the first ESC line) are unaffected, at least for now. The technique for the research is not in question, but the number of lines created is.
However this turns out, he’s most probably not going to Stockholm anymore with that tainted reputation of his unless he can somehow redeem himself. So is he just trying to jazz up his research or fraud? Time till tell. But in John Rennie’s Stem Cell Meltdown blog, the consequences don’t just involve him and his team, but on the future of ESC work! It may be raining even harder now on Dr. Hwang’s parade, but yet another storm cloud starts to gather on Science’s horizons.
