SNU Academics Seek Verification of Hwang Research MBC Union Unrepentant Over Hwang Expose Hwang Team Pre-Empts SNU Bid to Verify Research Cloning Pioneer Visits Lab From Hospital Top Geneticists Call on Hwang to Help Confirm Findings Hwang Defends Stem Cell Research U.S. Scientist Withdraws Name From Hwang Paper Hwang Scandal Splashed Across Global Front Pages SNU Sets Up Panel to Check Hwang Research Stem Cells Don’t Exist: Hwang Associate Researcher Says Hwang Stem Cell Research Accurate Hwang Grilled as SNU Inquiry Gets Under Way Fresh Mixup Casts Doubt on Cloning Pioneer’s Research Widening SNU Probe Seals Off Hwang’s Lab Hwang Achievements Succumb to Domino Effect SNU Panel 'Close' to Finding if Hwang's Stem Cells Exist Schatten Requested US$200,000 for 'Effort' MBC Producer, Hospital Chief Grilled in Hwang Probe

Where the two agree is in saying that though Hwang and his team did make six stem cells matching patients' DNA late last year and early this year, they died of fungal contamination. Stem cells Nos. 2 and 3, however, were sent to and kept at MizMedi before they could become contaminated and later returned to Seoul National University. There, the pictures and DNA fingerprints of the two stem cells were multiplied to make them look like the 11 stem cells the article in Science describes.

Another five stem cells were not cloned from somatic cells but taken from frozen embryos at MizMedi, Roh says. Hwang, meanwhile, says errors in the DNA analysis of stem cells 2 and 3 are due to the fact that someone mixed them up with frozen stem cells from MizMedi, an allegation he is asking judicial authorities to investigate.

We have no means of knowing who is telling the truth ? Hwang, the Science paper’s first author, or Roh, its second. What is certain is only that the pictures and DNA fingerprints of embryonic stem cells published in Science are either not those of cloned stem cells at all or were duplicated from a few. Under such circumstances, it will be difficult for Hwang to find acceptance in the scientific community for his claim to have the source technology.

Now, over 70 experts from Seoul National University Veterinary College and Medical School as well as from MizMedi took part in the Hwang team’s research. Scientific circles and the government will have to ask themselves why a paper is being questioned at such an elementary level despite having been checked and supervised by so many experts in advance.

The stem cell project was initiated by Prof. Hwang on his own. It grew into a state project with government backing and then became the people's project, adding a massive weight of national expectation. That very fact simply short-circuited any stringent verification procedures by scientists and the government. Scientists kept mum because they saw hope in one of their own becoming a national hero, and the government was happy to bask in reflected glory without asking too many questions. Between them, they immobilized the cool, rational process of scientific enquiry.

The government will not be able to dodge its responsibility for having failed to endure proper supervision of the research process despite its pouring billions of taxpayers’ won into the project. When President Roh Moo-hyun visited Hwang's laboratory, he said he hadn’t been so moved since he took office. The prime minister visited Hwang's dairy farm to promise official support; Cabinet ministers and other politicians were so keen to be seen backing Hwang that they set up a supporters club.

The presidential secretary for science and technology, who lists his name as a co-author of Prof. Hwang's 2004 paper on stem cells cloned from somatic cells, formed a Hwang support group dubbed the "Golden Bat" along with the presidential policy aide and the information and communications minister. Quite a few people who invested in bioengineering trusting the authorities’ assurances that Hwang’s research would create tremendous national wealth are now greatly perplexed.

The media, admittedly, also transmitted Hwang’s every assertion more or less unfiltered, using terms like "the people's project" to embrace everything he did. By sanctifying Hwang, there is no doubt that the press is partly responsible for making scientific scrutiny difficult.

Many have been hurt in the controversy. People who either defended or criticized Hwang have had to put up with abuse from the other side. But it is Korean science that has been hurt most, because the international scientific community will from now on take any paper written by a Korean scientist with a hefty pinch of salt.

Still, the fact that one report was fabricated does not invalidate the country’s claim to having reached world standard in the field. What we need now are scientists determined to sort truth from falsehood and turn this crisis into an opportunity for a new leap forward, and a public that supports their effort. If our nation’s hopes are ever to regain the height from which they plummeted when the stem cell controversy struck, our scientists must first be able to walk tall again.