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Cloning pioneer Hwang woo-suk and his research team have said they will
give MBC no assistance in verifying a research paper published in
Science, which the broadcaster¡¯s ¡°PD Diary¡± current affairs program has
as good as said is a sham. The paper describes the team¡¯s
groundbreaking success in extracting stem cells from embryos cloned
from somatic cells. However, Hwang¡¯s team is separately retracing its steps during the
pioneering project in collaboration with the cable news channel YTN, in
an attempt to show that remarks by researcher Kim Sun-jong, whose
statement provided a basis for the ¡°PD Diary¡± report, were wrong. Kim
was a key researcher on Hwang¡¯s team and was dispatched to assist
Hwang¡¯s then-collaborator, Prof. Gerald Schatten of the University of
Pittsburgh. Members of Hwang¡¯s team said Friday it was pointless to argue
with the ¡°PD Diary¡± crew, adding many international scientists
protested that the team agreed to show the broadcaster the stem cell
lines in the first place. They said handing stem cells over to TV
journalists who are not scientists makes no sense. The sources said the team¡¯s Prof. Ahn Cu-rie would meet with
Kim in the U.S. to hear confirmation from Kim that he made the
disparaging remarks to the ¡°PD Diary¡± crew under pressure. Ahn will be
accompanied by a YTN reporter at the meeting. Meanwhile, ¡°PD Diary¡± producer Choi Seung-ho in a press
conference urged Hwang¡¯s team to conduct a second verification of the
work as promised. Choi said his colleagues were not 100 percent
convinced by the results of a first DNA test on five stem cells
provided by Hwang¡¯s team. He insisted the program was not claiming that
Prof. Hwang¡¯s research results were a sham. Another producer, Han
Hak-soo, also appeared to back down by saying the producers had no
evidence that the stem cells are fake.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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