Hwang Woo-Suk – The Infamous Cloning Research Scandal
Hwang Woo-Suk, now in his 60s was once a Professor at Seoul National University who is specialized in theriogenology and biotechnology. He used to be a pioneering scientist who claimed that he had successfully cloned human embryonic stem cells, gaining fame and the attention of people around the world and shedding new light on biotechnology researches. However, it turns out that most of his experiments about human embryonic stem cells are fabricated and not true. In fact, at least 9 out of 11 of the stem cell lines were forged and by a scientist working in the laboratory, who was forced to make the embryos look like clones [1]. These investigations were done by an investigative panel …show more content…
The lack of transparency of the egg procurement procedures also contributes to this scandal in a way that Hwang did not provide full and clear information about the process that leads to potential health risks to victimized donators. However, due to the absence of proper egg procurement and donation law, Hwang did not commit any crime for this aspect of the scandal. Regardless, it is still considered unethical and this act has been frowned upon the society. The scandals do not only include egg procurements, but also the falsification and fabrication of data they did which had mainly contributed to the …show more content…
Besides the codes of conduct, the peer review system is also a good way to prevent scandals and scientific misconduct from happening. This is because this is a system where an unpublished manuscript will be reviewed by several reviewers in its respective expertise which they will either approve or disapprove its publication. For example, if 6 reviewers review an unpublished manuscript, and five accepts the publication of the journal but one, it cannot be published unless all reviewers approve of its publication. This system will also be able to minimize errors and deceptions found in a manuscript. However, this is only recommended if the double-blind peer review system is applied where the reviewers do not know the author and the authors does not know the reviewers so as to prevent any form of bias and/or conflict of
Hwang Woo-Suk, now in his 60s was once a Professor at Seoul National University who is specialized in theriogenology and biotechnology. He used to be a pioneering scientist who claimed that he had successfully cloned human embryonic stem cells, gaining fame and the attention of people around the world and shedding new light on biotechnology researches. However, it turns out that most of his experiments about human embryonic stem cells are fabricated and not true. In fact, at least 9 out of 11 of the stem cell lines were forged and by a scientist working in the laboratory, who was forced to make the embryos look like clones [1]. These investigations were done by an investigative panel …show more content…
The lack of transparency of the egg procurement procedures also contributes to this scandal in a way that Hwang did not provide full and clear information about the process that leads to potential health risks to victimized donators. However, due to the absence of proper egg procurement and donation law, Hwang did not commit any crime for this aspect of the scandal. Regardless, it is still considered unethical and this act has been frowned upon the society. The scandals do not only include egg procurements, but also the falsification and fabrication of data they did which had mainly contributed to the …show more content…
Besides the codes of conduct, the peer review system is also a good way to prevent scandals and scientific misconduct from happening. This is because this is a system where an unpublished manuscript will be reviewed by several reviewers in its respective expertise which they will either approve or disapprove its publication. For example, if 6 reviewers review an unpublished manuscript, and five accepts the publication of the journal but one, it cannot be published unless all reviewers approve of its publication. This system will also be able to minimize errors and deceptions found in a manuscript. However, this is only recommended if the double-blind peer review system is applied where the reviewers do not know the author and the authors does not know the reviewers so as to prevent any form of bias and/or conflict of