Stem cell scandal: Updates
I found more details and a background on the website of Science magazine, where Dr. Hwang's "landmark paper" was first published. Today there will be a press conference at Seoul National University. I continue to be baffled about this story, and I'm impressed how Korean media has been able to reveal the truth about this complicated controversy.
Read more here.
Quote:
The investigation comes amid a flurry of claims and counterclaims in the Korean media. On 10 December, a Korean news Web site called Pressian reported that it had seen a transcript from an unaired documentary by the Korean Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. MBC pulled the documentary, prepared for a weekly TV show called PD Notebook, in response to public outcry over allegations that the investigative team had coerced its sources; MBC later apologized for the investigative team's transgressions. Pressian claimed that in an interview for the unaired segment, a member of Hwang's team alleged that Hwang had directed him to manipulate photographs of stem cells.
OhmyNews lists some details about the possible reasons:
The reason given by sources published in the media here, for Hwang's faking of data in the Science article, was that he felt pressurized by the science community to get results, since his team had used several hundred donated ova for the research.
In similar research done in 2004, Hwang had succeeded in creating only one successful cell line, despite having used over 200 ova, which lead to criticism overseas for his squandering such a valuable resources.
Other analysts point to the cost of the research to explain Hwang's actions. The South Korean government has invested more than $26 million in his stem cell project and any failure on the part of Hwang's team would have probably jeopardized future investment by the government.
Stem cell scandal previous
Read more here.
Quote:
The investigation comes amid a flurry of claims and counterclaims in the Korean media. On 10 December, a Korean news Web site called Pressian reported that it had seen a transcript from an unaired documentary by the Korean Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. MBC pulled the documentary, prepared for a weekly TV show called PD Notebook, in response to public outcry over allegations that the investigative team had coerced its sources; MBC later apologized for the investigative team's transgressions. Pressian claimed that in an interview for the unaired segment, a member of Hwang's team alleged that Hwang had directed him to manipulate photographs of stem cells.
OhmyNews lists some details about the possible reasons:
The reason given by sources published in the media here, for Hwang's faking of data in the Science article, was that he felt pressurized by the science community to get results, since his team had used several hundred donated ova for the research.
In similar research done in 2004, Hwang had succeeded in creating only one successful cell line, despite having used over 200 ova, which lead to criticism overseas for his squandering such a valuable resources.
Other analysts point to the cost of the research to explain Hwang's actions. The South Korean government has invested more than $26 million in his stem cell project and any failure on the part of Hwang's team would have probably jeopardized future investment by the government.
Stem cell scandal previous
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