Hwang Woo-suk

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Korean spelling
Hangeul 황우석
Hanja 黃 禹錫
Revised
Romanization 		Hwang U-seok
McCune-
Reischauer 		Hwang Usŏk

Hwang Woo-suk (born January 29, 1953 in Buyeo-gun County , Chungcheongnam-do , South Korea ) is a South Korean veterinarian and scientist who was proven to have caused one of the largest counterfeit scandals in modern research history at the turn of the year 2005/06 .

Hwang first attracted worldwide attention in 2004 when he announced major advances in stem cell research : According to a study he published, he had succeeded for the first time in constructing a cloned human embryo with the help of cell nucleus transfer and in deriving stem cells from it. In the following year, publications about a cloned dog and eleven allegedly customized embryonic stem cell lines with the genetic make-up of sick people followed. In December 2005, however, it turned out that the eleven stem cell lines, which were published on June 17, 2005 in the renowned journal Science and shown in full format on its title page, were to be regarded as total forgery. At the beginning of January 2006, the stem cell publication from 2004 was also exposed as a fake. Cloning a dog in 2005 was recognized as being done correctly.

Hwang conducted research at Seoul National University (Seoul State University, SNU) and was elected dean of the veterinary college until he resigned from all scientific and public offices in November 2005 due to initial allegations and also gave up his chair in December.

Scientific career

Hwang Woo-suk comes from a simple social background and was the only one in his elementary school class to receive an academic education. In 1982 he received his doctorate in veterinary medicine, and since 1999 he has developed the tools to clone animals.

In 2004, Hwang became internationally known after he published the successful extraction of human stem cells from a cloned embryo . After the publication of these work results, the professor from Seoul became a star of science and a celebrated national hero in his homeland. The South Korean Post Office dedicated postage stamps to him and the National Railroad donated him a lifetime ticket. Not least, his rejection of offers from foreign research institutes, underlining his national loyalty, boosted his popularity in South Korea. He was under special police protection as the South Korean government feared being kidnapped in North Korea. The pig embryos cloned in his institute were also transported to the animal husbandry with police escort to be planted in sows.

Hwang's research on novel therapeutic methods should not be based solely on human embryonic stem cells; Rather, he experimented with the same methods of xenotransplantation of heart , liver and kidneys of genetically modified pigs , which immune genes were inserted human. In this way, rejection reactions, which regularly occur with foreign transplanted tissue, should be avoided.

The first cloned dog named Snuppy , which was presented to the public in August 2005 , also comes from his working group ; Snuppy is an acronym that comes from the abbreviation of the Seoul National University ( SNU : Seoul National University) and puppy (English for "puppy"). The US American magazine Time named the clone dog the most amazing innovation of 2005.

In most countries cloning of human embryos is banned, but in South Korea this form of stem cell research is heavily promoted by the government. The clone expert Hwang was therefore declared the first of a total of ten “top scientists” in the country who should secure South Korea a top international position in this field.

Counterfeit allegations

In May 2005, Hwang Woo-suk and his team presented eleven tailor-made stem cell lines for which allegedly only 185 donated egg cells were used: Developed on the basis of allegedly 31 cloned embryos, this was considered a comparatively efficient "yield"; this is an important prerequisite for a possible future introduction of therapeutic cloning into everyday medical practice. The improvement of cloning techniques was seen by his research colleagues as the most important aspect of this study, which was published by Science in May, initially online and on June 17, 2005, as the cover story in the printed magazine.

In November 2005, the first scandal occurred in Hwang's laboratory when the researcher had to admit that two of his employees had donated egg cells for the embryo research in exchange for payment. Hwang denied having known about this (initially legal in South Korea) process. In the course of the discussions that followed, however, Hwang resigned as chairman of the World Stem Cell Bank and withdrew from all other government and private organizations. In mid-December 2005 allegations were added that Hwang had manipulated the data from his publication on the eleven stem cell lines.

The public debate was triggered by a television report by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), which a former head of Hwang's laboratory, Ryu Young-Joon, had already initiated in early June 2005.

Investigating the allegations

An investigative commission at his university first came to the conclusion that at least nine of the eleven stem cell lines that he claims to have cloned were not independent cell lines, and that the data in the publication had been deliberately falsified. Hwang then offered to resign from his professorship, but continued to emphasize that he had mastered the technique of obtaining stem cell lines very well.

At the end of December, the investigative commission announced in a further interim report that the study published in Science on June 17, 2005 was a total forgery. Hwang could not provide any evidence that he could actually produce embryonic stem cells tailored to the patient. The publication is based on two cell lines that were obtained from normally fertilized egg cells, not in Hwang's laboratory, but in Seoul's Miz Medi Hospital, which had worked closely with the Hwang team. DNA analyzes had shown that the two cell lines did not match the patient's DNA .

In the final report of the investigative commission, which was published on January 10, 2006, it was said that of all the alleged research results, only the successful cloning of the dog Snuppy from 2005 had survived . In contrast, Hwang's team was unable to provide any scientific evidence for the production of human embryonic stem cells. The results of the study published in Science in 2004 about the allegedly first extraction of a stem cell line from a cloned human embryo are also falsified; among other things, photos and DNA analyzes were manipulated. Although Hwang actually cloned human embryos and cultivated them down to the blastocyst , he was not able to obtain stem cells from them.

The science publications, which are now considered total forgery, were not published by Hwang Woo-suk alone, but also had the names of numerous co-authors. Their possible involvement, especially that of Kang Sung-keun ( 강성근 ), who worked with Hwang in the same laboratory, remained unresolved. The investigation report called for severe penalties for the clone researcher.

At the beginning of February 2006, the South Korean Court of Auditors also announced that part of the state research funds had been transferred to Hwang's private accounts without it being possible to trace their exact use. A public prosecutor's investigation was then initiated against the researcher.

According to a South Korean press report on December 31, 2005, Hwang Woo-suk once again described himself as the victim of a plot. In press reports from the beginning of March 2006, however, it was said that Hwang had admitted to the public prosecutor that he himself had commissioned the falsification of the findings on alleged stem cell lines. The employee commissioned by him had purified normal body cells, divided them into two tubes each and then presented them as cloned cells. At the same time, he repeated his previous assurance that he had mastered the technique of cloning patient-specific embryonic stem cells since 2004.

The university sanctions against Hwang

In mid-March 2006, it became known that Hwang's South Korean license to work in the field of stem cell research had been revoked. Seoul National University also announced that it would release him from college and cut his future pension entitlements in half. As a result of the dismissal, Hwang will also be denied access to public research grants for five years. At the same time, salary cuts and disciplinary penalties were imposed on four other professors, who were deprived of their teaching license for a maximum of three months and the license to participate in doctoral procedures for 18 months . Two of those punished were jointly responsible for the controversial studies as co-authors, the other two had been identified as co-authors, although they had no part in the studies.

The trial of Hwang

On May 12, 2006, prosecutors brought charges against Hwang of fraud and embezzlement, as well as violating a South Korean bioethics law. Charges were also brought against five other members of his team: three people for fraud, one for violating the Bioethics Act, and another for destroying evidence and obstruction of justice.

The 150-page indictment admits Hwang that he and his team were initially actually convinced that they had obtained the stem cell line "number 1" - which was the basis of the 2004 publication - from a cloned blastocyst. Nevertheless, two separate studies by Seoul National University have shown that the cells - similar to the formation of identical twins - were created through parthenogenesis . However, Hwang is to be blamed for the fact that his team did not have proper records on this first stem cell line and therefore the scientific statements on this stem cell line were not verifiable. Instead, Hwang asked his employees Park Jong-hyuk ( 박종혁 ) and Kim Sun-jong ( 김선종 ) to invent photos, DNA test results and other data.

The study on the eleven allegedly tailor-made stem cell lines, which caused a worldwide sensation in 2005, was produced under similar circumstances. The employee Kim, who was again commissioned to manufacture cell lines, was unable to carry out the order. Instead, he got stem cells that had been obtained from fertilized egg cells at MizMedi Hospital in Seoul and presented them as the results of his own cloning. Hwang believed that the public prosecutor's investigations revealed that the two cell lines produced in this way were the result of correct research, but asked his colleague to falsify the data so that the generation of eleven stem cell lines could be published. It was only after the university fraud investigations began at the end of 2005 that Hwang found out that the first two stem cell lines were also fake. Kim has been accused by the prosecutor, among other things, of deleting computer files to cover up traces of his forgeries.

The prosecutor also confirmed that Hwang had used many more eggs in his research than the studies indicated. In fact, he used 2,236 eggs from 122 women; 71 women were paid for it. He is also alleged to have embezzled $ 2.99 million in government and private funds. Hwang had a system of 63 bank accounts, which were kept under different names (including junior researchers and relatives). In order to hide some of the alleged embezzlements, he gave false information to the tax authorities about the alleged purchase of pigs and cows for his research.

The trial against Hwang began on June 20, 2006. On July 4, 2006, the Reuters news agency reported that Hwang had admitted the allegation of falsification in court during an interrogation by the public prosecutor's office, and described it as his own failure. Although he could no longer remember having given specific instructions, overall responsibility for the processes in his laboratory rests with him. However, he was not aware that so much of the data from his assistants was completely unfounded. He relied on his employees and the results they presented. Hwang also admitted that his group paid money to egg donors.

Hwang faced up to three years imprisonment for violating bioethics law and up to ten years for embezzling research funds for the misconduct accused of him. The falsified specialist publications were not part of the trial. According to a report by the dpa news agency , in August 2009 - after 43 days of negotiations - the public prosecutor applied for a four-year prison sentence. On October 26, 2009, Hwang Woo-suk was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence in Seoul. Previously, 33 South Korean parliamentarians had petitioned the court to grant him extenuating circumstances so that he could continue his research without further ado. The judges certified that Hwang had not embezzled any research fields because the donors had not attached any conditions to their allocation. He was convicted only of violating bioethics law and the court's illegal use of US $ 700,000 from government funds in connection with the procurement and processing of the egg cells. Hwang and the prosecution laid appeal against the judgment.

On December 16, 2010, an appeals court reduced the sentence to 18 months probation. This time the court came to the conclusion that some of the grants had not been misused. A lawsuit against his dismissal from Seoul National University and against charges of violating bioethical rules was dismissed by the Korean Supreme Court in February 2014.

Unnoticed breakthrough in the maiden generation

In August 2007 it was published online in Cell Stem Cell that Hwang had overlooked one of his real successes: at least the cell line SCNT-hES-1, which was allegedly created by cloning, is actually the first known human cell line to be created by parthenogenesis . The American stem cell expert George Daley, in whose laboratory the cell lines were checked, pointed out, however, that Hwang's institute did not have the biotechnological instruments with which one could distinguish parthenogenetically produced stem cells from cloned stem cells. How this breakthrough in stem cell research came about therefore remained unclear, since the production process for the cell line was not published in a realistic manner, but was intended to give the impression that the cells had been cloned.

Continuation of research

Even after the announcement of the indictment against Hwang, there were repeated public demonstrations of sympathy for Hwang in South Korea - as had already happened several times before. Several hundred supporters demonstrated in front of the public prosecutor's office, and some Buddhist monks also supported the pro-Hwang activists. Hwang was still revered by them as the national hero who cloned the first dog and - created the first human stem cell line.

At the end of June 2006, Hwang's lawyer announced that his client would start researching again in a laboratory financed with private money. Hwang will be supported in his new start by around 30 former employees. Indeed, in Yongjin, 50 km west of Seoul, Hwang continued his cloning experiments with animal cells.

In September 2007 it was announced that Hwang and ten employees had moved to Thailand to do stem cell research on animal-human chimeras . He wants to integrate human DNA fragments into egg cells from cows, pigs and other animals and use the embryonic stem cells obtained for research and therapeutic purposes. Such experiments are ethically controversial in South Korea. Two months later, the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that the Sooam Bioengineering Research Institute in Yongin , founded by Hwang in July 2006, had applied for approval to conduct studies on the cloning of human embryos. Hwang Woo-suk is one of the eight researchers named for this. In 2008, the same institute announced that Tibetan mastiffs had been cloned there. According to New Scientist , Hwang is also involved in the cloning of dogs at the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation on behalf of the US company BioArts International , which offers private individuals the cloning of their dogs on its website. According to a report in Nature , Sooam produced around 300 cloned cattle and pig embryos and around 15 cloned puppies per day in 2013.

In August 2009, the South Korean province of Gyeonggi-do announced that it was planning to collaborate with Hwang to create transgenic animals from which organs could be obtained that could be transmitted to humans. In October 2011, the news agency afp reported that , thanks to the support of the provincial government, Hwang had cloned eight coyotes by removing cells from the skin of a coyote and implanting a nucleus in each of the enucleated egg cells of a bitch; the first young animal was born in June 2011. At the same time, it became known that the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation , of which Hwang is head of research, had contacted the National Transitional Council in Libya in order to resume stem cell research on human embryos, which the Foundation is banned from in Korea.

In October 2006, Hwang testified in court that he had paid the Russian mafia to obtain tissue samples from mammoths . He wanted to try to clone the cells of this extinct animal species, but failed. In March 2012 it became known that Hwang Woo-suk was attempting again to obtain cells from mammoths through a cooperation with the Northeastern Federal University in the Russian republic of Yakutia .

Trivia

In 2014, the Korean feature film Jeboja (“Whistle Blower”) was released in theaters in Korea, based on the research of Hwang Woo-suk as the background to the plot.

See also

literature

  • David Cyranoski: Cloning comeback. In: Nature . Volume 505, No. 7484, 2014, pp. 468–471, full text (PDF)
  • Sang-Hyun Kim: The Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in South Korea: Contesting National Sociotechnical Imaginaries . In: Science as Culture . tape 23 , no. 3 , 2014, ISSN  1470-1189 , doi : 10.1080 / 09505431.2013.860095 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ en: WP: There are different dates for Hwang's birthday due to different calendar systems. According to the Gregorian calendar , he was born on January 29, 1953. Older Koreans, however, often give their date of birth according to the Korean lunisolar calendar , according to which Hwang was born on December 15, 1952, from which renowned institutions have already constructed the completely wrong date December 15, 1953.
  2. ↑ Woo Suk Hwang et al .: Patient-Specific Embryonic Stem Cells Derived from Human SCNT Blastocysts. In: Science . Volume 308, No. 5729, 2005, pp. 1777–1783, doi: 10.1126 / science.1112286
  3. ↑ David Cyranoski: Whistle-blower breaks his silence. In: Nature. Volume 505, No. 7485, 2014, pp. 593 f., Doi: 10.1038 / 505593a
  4. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 7, 2006, p. 16
  5. ^ Science. Volume 311, March 24, 2006, p. 1695
  6. ^ Science. Volume 312 from May 19, 2006
  7. ↑ Imprisonment demanded for fraudulent clone researcher. On: focus.de from August 24, 2009
  8. ^ Hwang Woo-suk Trial Wraps Up with Clemency Plea. On: english.chosun.com from August 25, 2009
  9. ^ Sentenced geneticist Hwang Woo Suk. On: zeit.de from October 26, 2009
  10. ↑ a b David Cyranoski: Hwang verdict imminent. In: Nature. Volume 461, 2009, p. 1035
  11. ↑ David Cyranoski: Woo Suk Hwang convicted, but not of fraud. In: Nature. Volume 461, 2009, p. 1181
  12. ↑ Court sentenced Klonfälscher to probation. On: Spiegel Online from December 16, 2010
  13. ↑ S. Korea upholds suspended term for faked stem-cell research. ( Memento of July 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) AFP report of December 16, 2010
  14. ↑ Korean Supreme Court upholds Disgraced cloner's Criminal Sentence. On: sciencemag.org of February 27, 2014
  15. ↑ Kitai Kim et al .: Recombination Signatures Distinguish Embryonic Stem Cells Derived by Parthenogenesis and Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. In: Cell Stem Cell. Volume 1, No. 3, 2007, pp. 346–352, doi: 10.1016 / j.stem.2007.07.001
    Virgin generation: Clone fraudster Hwang overlooked his own pioneering act. On: spiegel.de from August 3, 2007
  16. ↑ Ingenious village idiot. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No. 182 of August 8, 2007, p. N1
  17. ^ Reports from several news agencies dated June 28, 2006, citing South Korean newspapers
  18. ↑ Nature . Volume 445 of January 18, 2007, p. 244
  19. ↑ David Cyranoski: Stem-cell fraudster,is working in Thailand ' . In: Nature. Volume 449, 2007, p. 387
  20. ^ Science . Volume 319 of January 4, 2008, p. 15
  21. ↑ South Korean team led by Hwang Woo-suk claims dog clones. On: usatoday.com June 19, 2008; The article was written on the basis of a report from the agency ap
  22. ^ Dog clone face-off. In: New Scientist, June 28, 2008, p. 6
  23. ↑ BioArts Products & Services Pet Projects ( Memento from July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) “Our recently announced 'Best Friends Again program' is the first in a series of Pet Projects - limited offerings of pet cloning services and specialty animals for the general public. "
  24. ↑ David Cyranoski: Cloning comeback. In: Nature. Volume 505, No. 7484, 2014, pp. 468-471, doi: 10.1038 / 505468a
  25. ↑ South Korean introduces eight cloned coyotes. On: welt.de from October 18, 2011
  26. ↑ Hwang's Libyan stem cell dream still alive. In: The Korea Times of October 21, 2011. - This article reads: "Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation (SBRF) leader Hyun Sang-hwan said Friday that the foundation is in talks with scientific representatives of the country's National Transitional Council ( NTC) regarding the bioengineering project. If agreed to, Libya is supposed to offer a huge amount of money to SBRF, whose research is headed by Hwang, so that the Seoul-based biotech institute can conduct embryonic stem cell research, which is banned here to it, near Tripoli. "
  27. ↑ Hwang paid mafia for mammoth samples. On: spiegel.de from October 25, 2006
  28. ↑ South Korea: scandal researcher wants to clone mammoths. On: spiegel.de of March 14, 2012
  29. ^ Entry by Je-bo-ja in the IMDb
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Hwang is the family name here, Woo-suk is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Hwang, woo-suk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 황우석 (Hangeul); 黃 禹錫 (Hanja); Hwang U-seok (revised Romanization); Hwang Usŏk (McCune-Reischauer)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Korean veterinarian who caused one of the biggest counterfeit scandals
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Buyeo-gun County , Chungcheongnam-do , South Korea