HWANG TRYING TO RESTORE HIS REPUTATION
Working days, nights and weekends, with criminal charges hanging over his head, disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk is trying to climb the steep hill to rehabilitation. Assisted by a team of 30 in a private lab south of Seoul, he is working on cloning animal embryos. A colleague told AP that he dreams of working with cloned human embryos again. “There are many good research results that we want to boast about,” she says.
However, editors of leading journals are cautious. “Any submission form Dr Hwang would take into consideration the irreparable harm that his previous misconduct has inflicted on the scientific enterprise,” says Monica Bradford, executive editor of Science, one of the journals duped by the Korean. And Curt Civin, editor of Stem Cells, who was also a victim of his fraud, says that he would worry about recidivism.
Somewhat surprisingly, Harvard researcher George Daley told an international meeting of stem cell scientists in Australia recently that Hwang’s research was genuinely original. He had been the first to create stem cell lines from a parthenote, an activated, unfertilised egg.
- How long can you put off seeing the doctor because of lockdowns? - December 3, 2021
- House of Lords debates assisted suicide—again - October 28, 2021
- Spanish government tries to restrict conscientious objection - October 28, 2021
More Stories
A painful debate: shrinking the carbon footprint of anaesthetics
If there is any profession which seems remote from the Sturm und Drang of climate change, it must be anaesthetists....
Some patients recall death experiences after heart attacks
In an article in the journal Resuscitation, some survivors of cardiac arrest have described lucid death experiences that occurred while...
Queensland widower dies after taking assisted suicide drugs ordered by his wife
“Move along, please. Nothing to see here.” This was more or less the reaction of supporters of “voluntary assisted dying”...
Australian first: nurse donates organs after euthanasia
A Victorian woman has become the first Australian to combine death by euthanasia with organ donation. Ballarat nurse Marlene Bevern,...
Canadian study hints at crushing institutional conscience objections to ‘assisted dying’
Supporters of “voluntary assisted dying” fought hard to achieve legalisation in various jurisdictions around the world. After legalisation, however, battles...
Hope, hype and xenotransplantation
On January 7, 2022 David Bennett, a 57-year-old with terminal heart disease, made history as the first person to receive...