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Seoul National University on Monday decided to sack the disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk without benefits. Four other faculty members involved in the fabrication of Hwang¡¯s ostensibly groundbreaking research results will be suspended -- medicine professor Moon Shin-yong and veterinary professor Kang Sung-geun for three months and veterinarian Lee Byung-chun and medicine professor Ahn Cu-rie for two. The committee also decided to dock the salaries of agriculture professor Lee Chang-kyu and medicine professor Baek Sun-ha for a month.
Insiders say the measures are not as strict as SNU President Chung Un-chan originally promised and wonder why. Suspension, dismissal with benefits and dismissal without benefits are the three most serious disciplinary measures under SNU regulations.
Meanwhile, prosecutors investigating the scandal said Monday the contamination of stem cell cultures at Hwang¡¯s lab in January last year was an accident.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors¡¯ Office said researchers at the laboratory did not deliberately contaminate the cell cultures, which were subsequently destroyed, leading to the absence of any evidence for Hwang¡¯s claim that he and his team produced stem cells from cloned embryos.
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From left: Profs Hwang Woo-suk, Ahn Cu-rie and Moon Shin-yong
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On Jan. 9, 2005, stem cells nos. 2 to 7 Hwang¡¯s team was cultivating were contaminated. The team moved the contaminated cells to MizMedi Hospital, which collaborated with the team, but they could not be restored. The team then used data from stem cell nos. 2 and 3, which had been separately stored at the hospital, to document findings in a paper published in the U.S. journal Science the same year, manipulating data to make it look as if there were 11 stem cell lines. Prosecutors have confirmed that these two stem cells, however, were grown from in-vitro fertilized eggs rather than from embryos cloned from patients¡¯ somatic cells, thus further discrediting the paper.
The criminal investigation was triggered by a complaint from Hwang that MizMedi researchers maliciously contaminated the stem cells. Monday¡¯s announcement puts an end to speculation about the contamination.
In determining how to deal with a case in territory as uncharted as the cutting-edge science of stem cells, prosecutors earlier dispatched a staffer to Japan to listen to authorities there. The staffer came back reporting Japanese prosecutors were skeptical of dealing with the matter in a criminal investigation. The office hopes to conclude the probe by early next month.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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