The End of the “Cult of Hwang”

South Korean scientists are furious with the “scam” they believe was perpetrated by Woo-Suk Hwang, to the point that they want him “punished.” I am not sure what that might mean, but if he obtained government or private funding based on fraudulent assertions, that could be a crime.

What led to Hwang’s fame is his supposed ability to accomplish research feats that nobody else could do or replicate. Now, it seems, the reason may be that he did not do it at all. In any event, Hwang is ruined. Along this same line, the journal Nature is now checking to verify he actually cloned a dog and gestated it to birth, which, like creating ES cells from cloned human embryos, no other scientist has ever been able to accomplish.