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S Korean scientist forged research in anti-aging report

A South Korean biotechnology professor agreed to retract two papers on anti-aging technology published in international science journals after the institute discovered he fabricated data, officials said.

Kim Tae-kook, a professor at the state-run Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), acknowledged that he forged data for a paper on anti-aging technology that was published by the journal Science in 2005 and a follow-up report published by Nature Chemical Biology in 2006, Seo Yeon-soo, a member of the KAIST investigation team, said on Friday.

EDITOR statement

Science issued a statement later in the day alerting its readers "that serious questions have been raised" about the validity of the findings in the published papers.

"We are working with the authors and KAIST to determine appropriate next steps," editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts and editor emeritus Donald Kennedy said in the statement.

KAIST has suspended Kim from teaching and conducting further research at the institute, Seo said

The university was still investigating to determine whether to take further disciplinary measures, KAIST spokesman Kim Chul-hwan said.

It was not immediately clear if Kim Tae-kook would face criminal charges.

The news is the latest blow to South Korean academics after the country's most prominent scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, was found in 2005 to have used faked evidence in purported stem cell breakthroughs that had been internationally hailed.

One of Hwang's papers also had been published in Science.

NOT SO `MAGIC'

In Kim Tae-kook's 2005 paper, he claimed to have discovered a technique he named "MAGIC" to use magnetic nano particles to find target proteins in human bodies, a step toward potentially developing anti-aging drugs.

The next year, he published a paper claiming he had found target proteins by using the technology and created two chemical substances that could slow aging.

On Thursday, the school announced that Kim Tae-kook had admitted his 2005 paper was based on fabricated results.

Seo said the anti-aging substance Kim Tae-kook claimed to have created in his 2006 paper had already been developed by Harvard University and that he had disguised it as his own finding.

"The aforementioned facts alone were already serious enough to justify retraction of both papers from the distinguished journals for the benefits of the scientific community," the school said in a statement offering an apology.

Kim Tae-kook was not available to talk to the media, Seo said.
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