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Leading geneticists including Ian Wilmut of Edinburgh University, who cloned the sheep Dolly, have written to the U.S. journal Science urging Korea's cloning pioneer Prof. Hwang Woo-suk and his team to help confirm the validity of stem cell research that has been the subject of much recent speculation.
The scientists said when Dolly was cloned in 1998, the integrity of research was also questioned.
AP cited one of the signatories, Dr. Robert Lanza of the Massachusetts-based firm Advanced Cell Technology, as saying such a test was easy enough to perform in a few hours and would dispel all accusations about Hwang's work. Hwang¡¯s team has declined to verify the research arguing this would set a bad precedent for future Korean research.
Meanwhile, former Hwang collaborator Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh has written to Science asking it to remove his name from the list of co-authors of the paper published in June and urged the other 24 co-authors including Hwang to withdraw the paper. "Over the weekend, I received allegations from someone involved with the experiments that certain elements of the report may be fabricated," Schatten said in the letter released by his university on Tuesday. "My careful re-evaluations of published figures and tables, along with new problematic information, now cast substantial doubts [on] the paper¡®s accuracy.¡±
Pittsburgh said its own investigation team is looking at the allegations mentioned by Schatten and his re-evaluation results.
Science in a statement downplayed the claim, saying it was ¡°not aware of any scientists claming that the data are fraudulent." It added no one can take their names off published papers without the consent of all other co-authors.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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