Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The Great South Korean Cloning Meltdown
Dr Hwang's house of cards continues to collapse around him:
Some of stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk's high-profile human cloning work announced earlier this year may have been "fabricated," a former top collaborator charged as he attempted to distance himself from the groundbreaking research. University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten has demanded that the journal Science remove him as the senior author of a report it published in June to international acclaim that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.
"My careful re-evaluations of published figures and tables, along with new problematic information, now casts substantial doubts about the paper's accuracy," Schatten wrote in a letter to Science released late Tuesday by the university. "Over the weekend, I received allegations from someone involved with the experiments that certain elements of the report may be fabricated."
Three cheers for Gerald Schatten for coming forward. Hopefully this will dispel the carefully constructed myth of "therapeutic cloning" that masquerades as an actual cure. Let's hope that similar initiatives will be scrutinized more closely.
Some of stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk's high-profile human cloning work announced earlier this year may have been "fabricated," a former top collaborator charged as he attempted to distance himself from the groundbreaking research. University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten has demanded that the journal Science remove him as the senior author of a report it published in June to international acclaim that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.
"My careful re-evaluations of published figures and tables, along with new problematic information, now casts substantial doubts about the paper's accuracy," Schatten wrote in a letter to Science released late Tuesday by the university. "Over the weekend, I received allegations from someone involved with the experiments that certain elements of the report may be fabricated."
Three cheers for Gerald Schatten for coming forward. Hopefully this will dispel the carefully constructed myth of "therapeutic cloning" that masquerades as an actual cure. Let's hope that similar initiatives will be scrutinized more closely.
papijoe 8:51 AM
|