BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - An investigation panel set up by Seoul National University confirmed Monday that the South Korean researcher Woo Suk Hwang and his team had faked data to support their claim to have cloned human embryos to provide embryonic stem cell lines.

The panel's final report said that test results from DNA fingerprinting, photographs and other results, which had been published in Science in May 2005, all had been fabricated. A statement released by Seoul National University said: "In conclusion, the research team of Professor Hwang does not possess patient-specific stem cell lines or any scientific bases for claiming having created one."

Hwang and his team had claimed to have taken cells derived from skin biopsies and transferred the cells' nuclei into donated oocytes. Their studies had shown, they told a press conference in London in May, that the embryonic cell lines they derived in that way were genetically identical to the donors who supplied the nuclei. (See BioWorld International, May 25, 2005.)

Earlier this month, though, the investigation panel concluded that nine of the 11 cell lines described in the May paper had never existed, and of the two remaining, both were genetically identical to the woman who had donated the eggs. Tests on other cell lines found in Hwang's laboratory, also claimed as patient-specific embryonic stem cell lines, gave similar results.

Yesterday, the university's investigation panel also released its conclusions relating its scrutiny of an earlier paper from Hwang's laboratory. That publication, which appeared in Science in 2004 under the title "Evidence of a Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Derived from a Cloned Blastocyst," reported taking the nucleus of a woman's cell and transferring it into one of her own oocytes to produce embryonic stem cells.

That paper, too, has turned out to be fiction. After tests, the investigation panel concluded that the cell line concerned was "not an embryonic stem cell line derived from a cloned blastocyst." The results described in the 2004 Science article, including DNA fingerprinting analyses and photographs of cells, also had been fabricated.

Hwang also reported the generation of a cloned dog, called Snuppy, in Nature in 2005. Tests carried out by the investigation panel on Snuppy, the egg donor, the dog that provided the somatic cells (called Tie), and the surrogate mother, have indicated that Snuppy is indeed a clone of Tie.

Nature also commissioned independent tests to verify the results. Yesterday, the journal released a statement saying that independent DNA tests on samples supplied by Hwang's colleagues have confirmed that Snuppy is a clone.

On Jan. 4, Science confirmed that all the authors of the May paper, titled "Patient-Specific Embryonic Stem Cells Derived from Human SCNT Blastocysts," said they were willing to retract the paper.

Science on Monday said it was moving "as swiftly as possibly" toward the retraction of the article, but would wait until it had formal confirmation of the findings of the Seoul National University investigation before finalizing the retraction text.

Concern about the May paper came to a head in November, when Gerald Schatten, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and senior author on the paper, severed links with his Korean colleagues. He had discovered that junior researchers had donated some of the eggs used.

That violated international ethical guidelines, because of the risk that researchers could be coerced into donating eggs. Furthermore, the authors had supplied Science with documentation that showed that the oocyte donors were unpaid volunteers who had signed informed-consent agreements.

Seoul National University's investigation panel also examined that issue and discovered that between November 2002 and November 2005, Hwang's laboratory received 2,061 eggs from 129 females, collected in four hospitals.

The 2005 article claimed to have used 185 eggs, but laboratory notes indicated that at least 273 eggs had been used between September 2004 and February 2005.

Hwang had claimed to have been unaware of egg donation by laboratory staff for the 2004 article. Yet, the investigation panel found, he had himself taken one graduate student to the hospital for egg aspiration. In May 2003, Hwang's research team had circulated a form asking for volunteers to donate eggs and had collected signatures from female technicians.

Following the panel's indictment of his work, Hwang resigned from his post and has lost his funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology.