hankyoreh

By Lee Jae-myong, Economy Insight staff writer

Eight years after providing the first information in 2005 that Hwang Woo-suk’s research team had faked research on embryonic stem cells, Ryu Young-jun, 42, has made his identity public. Currently a professor at the medical school at Kangwon National University, Ryu was a resident physician at the Korea Cancer Center at the time.

Ryu said that he became a whistle blower in order to save the life of a 10-year-old boy. “Even today, I do not see any traces of genuine devotion or curiosity as a researcher in Hwang Woo-suk,” Ryu said. Ryu is a former student of Hwang’s.

During a recent interview with Nadeul, a monthly magazine published by the Hankyoreh, Ryu provided a full account of the Hwang Woo-suk scandal and what happened around the time that he provided information. (For full interview, see the March issue of Nadeul.)

Ryu was listed as the second author in the first paper on cloning embryonic human stem cells that was published in the journal Science in 2004. After being identified as the person who blew the whistle about the doctored research results, he lost his job and went into hiding. Last year, he was hired as a professor of pathology by Gangwon National University.

Asked about the NT-1 cells, which formed the basis of the 2004 paper, Ryu said, “We did not get the right results in our experimental confirmation of the cloning, so we could not be certain that they were stem cells. I suggested including this in the paper, but Hwang refused. We compromised by adding one sentence about the possibility of this at the end of the paper abstract.”

“It was not until after the issue came to a head that I learned that the research data had been faked after I wrote a draft of the paper and submitted it to Science on Hwang’s orders,” said Ryu.

A panel of inquiry at Seoul National University concluded in Jan. 2006 that these cells had not been cloned but were rather the result of auto-fertilization.

As to how he made up his mind to inform on Hwang, Ryu said that he wanted to protect a 10-year-old boy who had been paralyzed in a traffic accident.

It was 2005, and Ryu had left Hwang’s laboratory after his project came to an end and the paper was approved for publication. One month before the paper was to be published in Science, he heard that Hwang’s research team had made 11 cloned stem cells and was going to begin clinical testing.

Since all of the key researchers had already left, Ryu found himself unable to believe the research announcement. Not only that, but the subject of the experiment was to be a 10-year-old paralyzed boy - whose stem cells Ryu himself had extracted in 2003.

“Hwang’s plan was to insert stem cells into the boy in order to restore nerve function, but no testing whatsoever had been done about what side effects there would be. There could have been an immune reaction, or she could have gotten cancer. I warned people close to Hwang about these risks, but no one took any action,” Ryu recalled.

Asked about why Hwang would have fabricated research results that he then released to the media, Ryu said that it was because he was obsessed with getting a Nobel Prize.

Ryu also addressed criticism that his whistle-blowing disrupted the flow of stem cell research in South Korea. “Through the present, Korea has never been a leading country in stem cell research,” he said. “All that happened is the public was disillusioned after buying into media-driven hype.”

“The Hwang Woo-suk scandal involved unethical actions that were taken because of Korea’s past subservience to the absolute goals of survival and development, not only in politics, economics, and society but also in science,” said Ryu, urging young scientists not to repeat the mistakes of past generations.

On Feb. 27, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of a lower court, which had sentenced Hwang to one year and six months in prison, suspended for two years, in connection with the scandal. But despite this, Hwang seems to be none the worse for wear, announcing plans to work on setting up a bio-center with support from the city of Incheon.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]