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Prospects for the World Stem Cell Hub¡¯s joint research projects with overseas institutes looked less than bright on Tuesday, in the aftermath of a scandal surrounding its former director, stem cell pioneer Prof. Hwang Woo-suk, and his team.
Sung Myung-whun of the World Stem Cell Hub told a press conference at Seoul National University Hospital on Tuesday many international scientists said they understood Hwang¡¯s position but could not entirely accept it. The press conference was called to announce the result of Prof. Ahn Cu-rie¡¯s business trip to Japan and the U.S. last week. Ahn is in charge of clinical experiments at the center.
In a statement read by Sung, Ahn said the outlook for future cooperation with foreign research institutes was not rosy, adding researchers at the hub felt it was vital to keep up with global ethics standard in future research.
But the professor said the research must continue, pointing out that the American Journal of Ethics recently published an article that praised as a ¡°meaningful development¡± research by Hwang¡¯s team on cloning embryonic stem cells that match the DNA of patients, which was published in the journal Science this year.
Meanwhile, the National Bioethics Committee met Tuesday to review the ethics scandal centered on the way Hwang¡¯s team obtained human egg cells for cloning. The committee sees an in-house investigation by the Institutional Review Board of SNU¡¯s School of Veterinary Science, which cleared Hwang of ethical violations, as insufficient. It will ask Hwang and his team to submit related documents, making a final decision on the issue after reviewing them for two weeks.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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