South Korean Panel Debunks Scientist's Stem Cell Claims

Hwang, 53, a specialist in veterinary medicine and animal cloning, had risen to the top echelon of scientific circles over the past two years and was hailed as a national hero. This weekend, however, the public prosecutor's office ordered Hwang and 10 of his top associates to remain in the country and discussed possible charges against them.

Although Hwang's initial research was conducted largely without public funds, his team's reports brought $30 million in official grants that propelled his work forward. At least $50,000 of that money, according to a report by the Korea Times, went to two South Korean researchers living in the United States who allegedly helped falsify the 2005 article in Science, which is set to be retracted by the journal.

Hwang's research has been questioned publicly since November, after the team's sole American collaborator abruptly withdrew from his 20-month association with Hwang, citing unspecified ethical concerns. A barrage of allegations ensued, including charges that two female researchers in Hwang's lab were pressured to donate eggs for research; such donations are notoriously difficult to obtain.

Reached this weekend by telephone, Hwang declined to comment. He has maintained that the errors discovered so far have resulted from technical mishaps attributable to his younger researchers, but has yet to provide a full accounting of how such gross errors could have occurred. Most of his associates had stuck by him, but in recent days, several of them have said that the team's results were manipulated and exaggerated or that Hwang had lied to the public.

Editors at Science magazine said Monday that they were proceeding to retract the 2005 article about the 11 cell lines and would consider doing the same for the 2004 article after they saw the final report from Seoul. Science's editor in chief, Donald Kennedy of Stanford University, said the editorial board was studying whether review procedures for articles needed to be changed.

"We have to look carefully so we can learn what we have to learn about how to increase our vigilance about this kind of thing," Kennedy said. "It's going to take a while, but we are thoroughly committed to that process."

Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., said his firm was about to resume efforts to produce stem cells from cloned human embryos. "The race is back on and the United States has a second chance to do it right and win," he said.

The company was very close to succeeding in that endeavor, Lanza said, when the information on Hwang's research came out in 2004, drying up the company's pipeline of private investment and its supply of eggs from donors.

Weiss reported from Washington. Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.