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Korean stem cell fraud admits lying

A disgraced South Korean scientist admitted in court yesterday to ordering subordinates to falsify stem cell data in a paper last year, but he denied violating a bioethics law.

Hwang Woo-suk testified at the second hearing of a trial in which he is accused of accepting funds under false pretenses, embezzlement and violating the law by purchasing human eggs for research.

For a paper last year in the journal Science, Hwang acknowledged that he told researchers to make it look like they were basing their results on 11 cloned embryonic stem cell lines, rather than the two lines he believed they had.

Still, he said his researchers also share the blame.

"It was definitely wrong," Hwang testified. "I have no intention to escape the overall responsibility, but I feel differently about the view that all responsibility should lie with me as one of over 30 authors" of the study.

Even the two stem cells, which Hwang believed his team created from cloned embryos, were also later found to be fakes. They were actually ordinary stem cells created from fertilized eggs, not from cloned embryos.

Prosecutors have concluded that a junior researcher on Hwang's team brought the regular stem cells into the lab and deceived Hwang into believing that they were cloned. The junior researcher also has been charged.

Hwang also testified yesterday that he did not violate South Korea's ban on purchasing eggs for research, saying that he merely compensated the doctor who provided him with eggs from donors "out of gratitude," rather than as a commercial transaction.

Instead of paying the doctor with money, Hwang provided him with hormones needed to process the eggs, he said.

The prestigious Seoul National University, where Hwang used to work, fired him earlier this year after concluding that his claims to have created the world's first stem cells from cloned human embryos were fabricated.

Hwang has acknowledged that inflated data was used for his research claims, published by prestigious international journals in 2004 and 2005 and now deemed false.

During his first hearing, last month, he testified that the data used in the 2004 study was apparently falsified without his knowledge, suggesting that he had been deceived by his researchers.

Hwang has previously acknowledged responsibility for the false data in last year's study, but yesterday's admission was the first he had made in court.

Hwang has maintained that he has the technology to clone embryonic stem cells., and his lawyer, Lee Geon-haeng, said last month that he plans to open a new lab and resume research sometime in July. His prospects were unclear, however, since he is no longer authorized to conduct such research in South Korea.

Hwang was indicted in May for allegedly accepting 2 billion won (US$2.12 million) in private donations based on the outcome of the falsified research and embezzling about 800 million won (US$849,260) in private and government research funds.

If convicted, the 52-year-old scientist faces at least three years in prison. Hwang is being tried along with five colleagues who face similar charges.
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