(CNSNews.com) - The world's biggest "breakthrough" in embryonic stem cell research is in doubt after South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk, having already admitted unethical research practices, reportedly confessed faking key parts of his data.

The revelation Thursday has stunned Korea, where Hwang is treated as a national hero for becoming the first scientist anywhere to have allegedly cloned a human embryo, harvested it for stem cells and then created new stem cells lines matching the DNA of patients with diseases or spinal cord injury.

"Today is the most shameful day for Korea's science community," said a senior official at the Seoul National University, where Hwang is based.

The university earlier announced it would conduct a high-level investigation into questions that had arisen about a landmark paper by Hwang and his team, published earlier this year in Science, a prestigious journal produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Hwang's colleague and co-author, fertility specialist Roh Sung-il, told Korean media Thursday that Hwang had earlier in the day admitted fabricating key parts of the paper.

Nine of 11 stem cell colonies featured in the paper had been faked and the authenticity of the remaining two lines was in doubt. DNA data had also been manipulated.

Roh said he and Hwang, who has been hospitalized for exhaustion and made no comment, had agreed to ask the journal to withdraw the paper.

Science editor-in-chief Dr. Donald Kennedy said in a statement sent from New York Thursday afternoon that the publication had yet to receive any formal request for a retraction from the paper's authors.

On the questions raised about the paper, Kennedy said Science welcomed inquires now underway.

"The journal itself is not an investigative body, but we await answers from the authors, as well as official conclusions, before we can come to any ourselves. We are doing our best to follow these fast-moving developments, and we will continue, as best we can, to keep the scientific community informed," Kennedy said.

Earlier this week Hwang's former U.S. collaborator, Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, asked Science to remove his name from the paper.

Kennedy said in response there was no mechanism for retracting authorship - retraction of an entire paper would require the agreement of all authors.

The University of Pittsburgh has launched its own, separate inquiry.

Schatten split with Hwang last month after it emerged that the Korean's team had used donated eggs from two junior research assistants - a practice frowned on ethically because of the possibility of coercion. It was also learned that some donors had been paid for eggs, despite earlier assertions to the contrary by the researchers.

At the end of November Hwang made a televised apology for the donation irregularities and for covering up, and he resigned from several posts.

Despite that ethics row, he won widespread support in his country, and the South Korean government said it had no plans to withdraw funding for his ongoing work.

Thousands of women volunteered to donate eggs, and the Korean broadcaster MBC, which had screened a documentary critical of Hwang, faced a public backlash and boycott threats from advertisers.

On Thursday, MBC aired a follow-up - delayed because of the furor over the earlier program - in which a junior researcher claimed that Hwang had instructed him to manipulate photographs of a stem cell line to make it appear as though there were more than there actually were.

Trust, funding

The deepening scandal comes as a blow to a scientific field already highly controversial because of moral and ethical opposition to the manipulation and destruction of early-stage human embryos for their stem cells.

Cloning of an embryo involves the transferring of a somatic cell into a donated human egg, the nucleus of which had been removed. The fertilized egg is then coaxed into developing into an early-stage embryo, which has the DNA of the patient who provided the somatic cell and is hence a "clone" of that patient.

Stem cells are then removed from the embryo, which is destroyed in the process.

Proponents believe stem cells from embryos offer the promise of future cures for degenerative diseases like Parkinson's and injuries such as those to the spinal cord.

Prolifers counter that "adult" stem cells taken from sources like umbilical cords, placentas and nasal tissue provide an ethical alternative, and call for a greater focus on - as well as more funding for - that line of research.

Members of the stem cell research fraternity are clearly concerned about the fallout from the Korean controversy and how it could affect public trust, and funding support.

On Wednesday - before the latest and most serious development - eight leading researchers from around the world, led by Dolly the sheep creator professor Ian Wilmut, released a letter urging Hwang to make his work available for independent scrutiny.

"Many patients and family members of patients with degenerative diseases place great hopes in regenerative medicine," they wrote. "This trust and the monies that many public agencies are investing in the science underscore the sobriety the scientific community should bring to the publications of scientific results."

"If the allegations turn out to be true, the impact on the stem-cell science community will be huge," commented Nature, another top scientific journal.

"Shouldn't there be a global norm for ethical values?" U.S. bioethicist David A. Prentice asked in a recent article on the Hwang controversy.

"As it happens, there is a global norm already espoused," Prentice continued, noting that "the United Nations passed a declaration in March 2005 calling for a prohibition on all human embryo cloning."

See Earlier Stories:
Koreans Rally Around Shamed Stem Cell Pioneer (Nov. 29, 2005)
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Mired in Ethics Row (Nov. 23, 2005)

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