Prosecutors find no evidence of stem cell breakthroughs

South Korean prosecutors found no evidence that scientist Hwang Woo-suk created cloned stem cells that matched patients as he claimed, corroborating a university probe that deemed the claims bogus, an official said today.

It was not immediately clear whether the finding meant that Hwang could face criminal charges.

The scientist has accused colleagues of deceiving him about results of his team’s experiments, and also has alleged that some of the cloned embryonic stem cells at his lab had been switched without his knowledge.

Prosecutors have been looking into the scandal since Seoul National University said earlier this month that Hwang’s purported human cloning breakthroughs were fraudulent.

Investigators commissioned DNA tests on 99 stem cells from Hwang’s team and his partner research hospital, but none of them were found to match patients, a prosecution official said.

The investigation deals with Hwang’s claims – published in two papers in 2004 and 2005 in the international journal Science – that his team created the world’s first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them, including those genetically matched to patients.

Separately, South Korea’s state auditor has also been looking into whether Hwang misappropriated research funds provided by the government.

As of the end of last year, Hwang received €34m in government funds for his research as well as €3.4m from private foundations, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection.

Earlier this week, a presidential aide resigned over the scandal. Park Ky-young, presidential secretary for science and technology affairs, was one of the co-authors of Hwang’s 2004 paper where he claimed to create the world’s first cloned human embryo and cull stem cells from it.

Hwang’s claim of a cloning breakthrough had offered hope to millions suffering from paralysis and debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.