South Korea鈥檚 stem cell and cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk has responded to some of the allegations of ethical misconduct concerning the origin of human eggs used in his team鈥檚 landmark research.
It was alleged that Hwang鈥檚 team received eggs from his own junior researchers. The donation of eggs carries a small risk and ethical rules forbid junior members of teams doing so, to avoid the possibility of coercion. A shortage of donated eggs is a frequent obstacle in cloning and stem cell research.
On Tuesday, the Seoul-based MBC television channel disclosed medical records and testimony from witnesses that it said shows that human eggs included some given by at least one of Hwang鈥檚 junior researchers.
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In an interview with MBC, Hwang admitted junior scientists had asked him about donating their own eggs for the team鈥檚 experiment. 鈥淚 was very moved,鈥� he told MBC. 鈥淏ut in fear of possible misunderstanding, I persuaded them on several occasions it was better to work with what we have even if there weren鈥檛 enough [eggs]鈥�.
However, he added that he had not confirmed that the researchers had followed his advice. Hwang鈥檚 office says he will make a statement and answer further questions at a press conference on Thursday.
Paid donors
Another aspect of the controversy was the allegation that some eggs had come from paid donors, another breach of ethical rules. And on Monday, a member of Hwang鈥檚 team said that about 20 women had indeed been paid 1.5 million won ($1450) each for egg donation. However, Sung Il Roh, of the MizMedi Hospital in Seoul, said Hwang had no knowledge of this. The payments were made in late 2002 or 2003 and were not illegal in South Korea at that time. In January 2005, the country enacted a law banning the commercial trading of human eggs.
Ethical doubts 鈥� including allegations in the journal Nature 鈥� first surfaced after Hwang鈥檚 team gained international renown in February 2004 for becoming the first to grow human embryonic stem cells from a cloned embryo. The team used 242 eggs from 16 donors but only obtained the stem cells from one.
But the controversy flared up again earlier in November when Gerald Schatten, from the University of Pittsburgh, US, ended his collaboration with Hwang. Schatten said he now believes ethical rules were broken and that he was misled over the issue.
Proof of principle
In addition to the 2004 breakthrough, Hwang鈥檚 team passed another research landmark in May 2005. This involved deriving a series of human embryonic stem cell lines from different people, including patients with serious diseases. This provided proof of principle for 鈥渢herapeutic cloning鈥�, in which cells cloned from a patient are used to treat that same patient, without the risk of immune system rejection.
In October 2005, Hwang unveiled plans to create a World Stem Cell Hub, based in Korea but with satellite labs in other countries, which would share stem-cell lines and cloning technology.
But the ethical controversy puts plans for the hub in serious doubt. Potential collaborators have told New 杏吧原创 they will only participate if the Koreans can demonstrate that eggs have been collected ethically.
In the US in particular, there is substantial public opposition to any cloning experiments and researchers fear that any breach of their own ethical rules would harm their arguments in favour of therapeutic cloning.
