SEOUL, South Korea
South Korea’s top university has asked for an interview with an American researcher as it investigates scientist Hwang Woo-suk’s purported breakthroughs in cloning, the school said this week.
Seoul National University said last week that Hwang did not create any of the 11 stem cell lines tailored to individual patients as claimed in a paper published in May in the prestigious journal Science.
The nine-member university panel investigating the controversy said it has officially requested an interview with Dr. Gerald Schatten, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who co-authored the paper, to carry out an “accurate investigation.”
The nine-member panel also plans to interview Park Jong-hyuk, another co-author of the 2005 paper.
Park is now also at the University of Pittsburgh.
“We have yet to receive responses, but expect both to agree,” the university said in a statement. “It looks like the interviews would be conducted either through video conferencing or by phone.”
