By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter



Seoul National University president Chung Un-chan bows in apology for the stem cell fraud at the university in southern Seoul, Wednesday. /Yonhap

Seoul National University (SNU) president, Chung Un-chan, Wednesday offered a public apology for the stem cell scandal involving Prof. Hwang Woo-suk, and pledged to deal with him sternly.
``I apologize for Hwang who left a stain on both the Korean and overseas scientific communities through his misconduct,’’ Chung told a press conference at the university.

``The falsification of papers (conducted by Hwang’s team) is equal to an academic crime, which can not be condoned at all,’’ Chung added.

A peer-review SNU committee announced Tuesday that Hwang fabricated outright two stem cell papers featured by the U.S. journal Science in 2004 and 2005.

Chung also promised strict punitive steps against Hwang and his top lieutenants involved in the paper manipulation by bringing the case to the school’s disciplinary committee.

Hwang is expected to be dismissed from SNU together with his closest subordinates like Prof. Kang Sung-keun who was found to have spearheaded the paper fabrication.

In order to prevent the recurrence of such scientific fraud, Chung pledged to establish an in-house office to review the integrity of the school’s research.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to strip Hwang of his title as Korea’s first-ever ``supreme scientist,’’ according to Kim Chang-ho, minister of the Government Information Agency.

``Through an emergency meeting chaired by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, we opted to strip the now-discredited Hwang of the top status,’’ Kim said.

Hwang grabbed the title last June, just a month after he claimed to have created patient-specific stem cells, which experts hailed as a medical feat to help deal with hard-to-cure diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Thanks to the title, Hwang was expected to receive up to 3 billion won annually over the next five years, but now the properties will be taken away from the 53-year-old veterinarian.

In addition to the supreme scientist honor, Kim said Hwang will be forced to resign from all official posts.

The government also plans to investigate ethical breaches related to Hwang’s recruitment of human eggs in order to take both legal and administrative measures.

Kim, however, said Hwang’s team’s technologies in cloning animals and creating cloned human embryos will be continually nurtured as the SNU panel admitted their competitiveness.

Separately, the Board of Audit and Inspection said it will start an exhaustive audit early next week on the use of research funds provided to Hwang’s team.

The government had offered more than 40 billion won to the stem cell research team over the past several years, marking it the biggest amount spent on a single scientific team in Korea.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr