Schatten: Part of the Hwang Stem Cell Article May be "Fabricated"

Nick Wade at New York Times has assumed the role of narrator in the continuing saga of South Korea's stem cell implosion (with Richard Doerflinger playing the role of Cassandra). Today's chapter - yes it is daily now - involves still worse accusations. If none of this stuff turns out to be true, Dr. Hwang will become the David Baltimore of South Korea.

Dr. Schatten, who had originally been senior co-author on the Science paper demonstrating the creation of stem cell lines through nuclear transfer, had already published a correction in the journal to the effect that his only role was to "analyze data and prepare the paper for publication." But now he has asked Science to remove him as co-author. The journal has refused the request, and cannot retract the article because Hwang and co-authors stand by it.

Today,

Eight leaders in cloning technology, including Dr. Ian Wilmut of Edinburgh University, [Dr.] John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins and Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, have written to Science saying that they encouraged Dr. Hwang "to cooperate with us to perform an independent test of his cell lines" to see if they matched the donors.

Dr. Schatten's confidence in Dr. Hwang's results has also been shaken. In his letter to Science, released yesterday by the University of Pittsburgh, he said he wished to retract his co-authorship of the June 17 article because "my careful re-evaluations of published figures and tables, along with new problematic information, now casts substantial doubts about the paper's accuracy."

He also said that over the weekend he had "received allegations from someone involved with the experiments that certain elements of the report may be fabricated."

The individual was not named, and Dr. Schatten was unavailable for comment yesterday, but Korean press accounts have quoted Kim Sun Jong, a member of Dr. Hwang's laboratory who now works at the University of Pittsburgh, as saying in an interview with MBC-TV in South Korea on the program "PD Diary" that he was told by Dr. Hwang to make 11 or so cell lines out of the two or three he had in his possession.

Meanwhile, the candlelight vigil for Dr. Hwang continues in South Korea, and he himself is apparently still ill, released from the hospital and at the University to answer questions Monday morning but back that afternoon. He vowed on Monday to continue his work, although on what it is not clear since he had previously said that he would no longer run the world stem cell bank that was to be the core of Hwang's work.