‘Snuppy’ cloning pioneer quits over suspect study
Dr Woo-Suk Hwang resigned from Seoul National University in South Korea amid claims of serious malpractice.
An investigating panel of experts at the university said Dr Hwang had faked at least nine out of 11 stem cell lines. He is alleged to have electronically manipulated photographs to make his results appear genuine.
The inquiry is continuing, but yesterday Dr Hwang resigned and stripped himself of his professorship.
"I sincerely apologise to the people for creating a shock and disappointment. With an apologetic heart I step down as professor," he said.
The university panel is now investigating Dr Hwang's other landmark achievements, including a 2004 paper describing the world's first human cloned embryo. Another milestone was Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, reported in the journal Nature.
Dr Hwang revealed Snuppy named for Seoul National University puppy in August.
The South Korean Government is now threatening to cut Dr Hwang off from any further state funding.
Dr Hwang was a major celebrity in his own country and respected throughout the world for his pioneering work on stem cells.
His team is credited with producing the first cloned human embryos and patient-specific stem cell lines cells which could pave the way to revolutionary new treatments for diseases such as diabetes or Parkinson's.
Dr Hwang had earlier got into trouble after admitting that he broke ethical guidelines by using eggs donated by his female staff in his experiments.
A number of the scientists stressed that Dr Hwang had made enormous strides, and stem cell research was not fatally damaged.
Dr Hwang insisted that he produced the technology to generate patient-specific stem cells the focus of the allegations.
The university panel considered claims arising from a paper published in the leading journal Science in May.
Dr Hwang reported that he had developed patient-specific stem cells by cloning human embryos.
The stem cells were allegedly extracted from embryos made by transferring genetic material from patients' skin cells to donated eggs.
This meant the stem cells were perfectly tailored to individual patients.
They could potentially be developed into different kinds of tissue which, if transplanted back into the patient, would not be rejected by the immune system.
But the investigators found that data for the 11 collections of stem cells Dr Hwang claimed to have made were derived from just two stem cell lines.
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