Hwang Rebuts Investigation Results

Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk rebutted the investigation results of the SNU review panel at a press conference held at the Korea Press Center, located at Taepyung-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul yesterday morning. He did apologize, however, for fabricating the lab data in his paper. He also acknowledged that fellow researchers had provided eggs and that money was given to the egg donors.

On “stem cell fraud” and the existence of stem cells, Hwang said, “MizMedi Hospital was in charge of the stem cell cultures, and I trusted MizMedi’s reports 100 percent,” adding, “The DNA extraction and analysis were performed by the MizMedi researchers, and they reported fingerprint analyses that showed that the somatic cells and stem cell fingerprints were identical.”

Hwang also said, “I am certain that Yoo Young-jun and MizMedi researchers Park Jong-hyuk and Kim Sun-jong deceived me completely and submitted falsified results.”

On the review panel investigation of the 2004 paper that discovered that the first stem cell line was produced by parthenogenesis, Hwang stated, “When we submitted the reports, Yoo performed an experiment showing that the samples were not stem cells created from parthenogenesis.”

He continued, “We pioneered the stem cell cultures through somatic cell cloning of a sterilized pig by injecting human DNA into it, and we submitted the paper on animal cloning to an internationally renowned journal,” re-emphasizing that his team holds the core technology.