Hwang Woo-suk is Guilty!

After three years and 43 hearings, the Korean court finally decided to put an end to the whole Hwang scandal. Hwang was sentenced to 2 years in prison but the sentence is suspended for 3 years. Basically what this means is that Hwang is supposed to go to jail for two years but that it’s being put off for three years; if Hwang does not violate the law during that time, the jail sentence is cleared and the guilty verdict no longer applies. In most cases with high-profile in Korea, a person who receives this kind of sentence will end up not going to jail.

*Bioethics law violation => GUILTY
*Fraud => NOT GUILTY (The Times Online says “guilty of fraud” which is incorrect)
*Embezzling funds => GUILTY

Despite the disgrace, Hwang isn’t in such a bad position (he seems pretty happy in all the press photos). He’s head of Sooam Biotech, a privately funded research center where he continues to do cloning work on animals instead of humans (good call: although he faked the human cloning research, he was proven to have cloned the world’s first dog). Since then, he’s been cloning dogs for commercial purposes and cloning mini pigs for human organ transplants.

A few months ago, he signed an MOU with Gyeonggi province to conduct joint research to clone gnotobiotic mini pigs that have diabetes so that they can test drugs on the pigs. (Apparently pigs are better subjects than rats.) He also has a bunch of devout followers (comprised of various religious groups, politicians…) who not only support him emotionally, but are willing to shell out their money for his research.

Korea allows research on human embryos, but Hwang Woo-suk doesn’t get to do it

Spurred by the Obama administration’s lift on a previous ban on human embryonic stem cell research in the United State, South Korea is also lifting its ban, the JoongAng Daily. and AP report. Not everyone gets to do the research, though. The lucky research institute is the CHA Medical Center, which has the largest private stem cell research lab in Korea. Hwang Woo-suk, who was the only scientist allowed to do research on human embryos before he was stripped of his license a few years ago, will not be allowed to resume his research. Hwang currently does animal cloning research at a private lab that he founded after he was dismissed from his professorship at Seoul National University.

Korea’s decision to allow research on the cloning of human stem cells was not surprising, especially amidst a lot of public discussion about re-opening research in the United States. Koreans have a very sentimental attachment to the study of embryonic human stem cell cloning that goes back to the days before Hwang was discovered to have faked his research. The story of Hwang Woo-suk’s spectacular rise (and equally spectacular fall) is unique in terms of the role Korean nationalism played in it. It occurred at a time when Korea was seeking a new economic business model and the United States had banned research on human embryos, giving Korea an opening to become a world leader. And while previous science frauds were usually detected and played out largely within the science community, the Hwang case was different in that the Korean media not only made Hwang a celebrity even before his work was published in a major scientific paper, but it also conducted the in-depth investigation that led to his demise.

Now, however, it doesn’t look like Hwang will be playing a role in any future human stem cell research. For the meantime, anyway.

RNL Claims Stem Cell Treatment Relieved Arthritis

A press release from RNL BIO claims that their stem cell treatment helped an American artist with a severe case of arthritis. I would be skeptical, but I’ve seen dogs benefiting from this treatment, so maybe it works in some cases. Who knows? Still, it seems awfully fast that they came up with this treatment because it was just last January that RNL announced that they had cloned puppies using the nucleus from stem cells derived from fat tissues. Apparently they have been using this stem-cell-from-fat technique for a number of different things…?

One must note that one of the guys behind RNL is Lee Byeong-cheon, who does a lot of dog cloning at Seoul National University. He and Hwang Woo-suk used to work in the same lab, but Hwang was fired and now has his own enterprise going. I’m not quite sure who is in charge of the adult stem cell research at RNL; maybe I should ask.

Here is the press release:

John Lawson Cullison, Jr., an artist known for his work in the genre of visionary realism or “new age art,” lost his ability to paint due to the effects of arthritis. This incurable condition is due to the degeneration in cartilage tissue and symptoms include: pain, tenderness in the joints, stiffness, loss of flexibility, bone spurs and severe swelling. Pain management and joint replacement surgery are the typical means to treating this condition. Cullison was taking prescription pain medication for over 15 years when he finally decided to seek treatment that was unavailable in the United States.

RNL Bio, a South Korean adult stem cell therapy company, developed a method to take one’s own stem cells from fat tissue and make identical copies that have no genetic modifications and no cancer risks so that high doses of stem cells can be administered back into the body. The stem cells that come from fat tissue can easily form new tissues. Given that characteristic, the stem cells have the capacity to treat any tissue degenerative disease which includes, Parkinson’s Disease, Spinal Cord Injury, Renal Failure, among many. When Cullison heard of the treatment, he sent a small fat sample to RNL Bio, where the cells would be manufactured under the strictest safety and quality conditions.

February 2009, Cullison made the trip to Seoul, South Korea where he was escorted by RNL staff to The Sunrise Regenerative Medical Center, their stem cell hospital in Yanji, China to receive intravenous and local injections of his own stem cells. When asked about his decision to seek this new and developing treatment, he said, “I had more faith in that [the fact that RNL was using my own stem cells] because I knew that I would be receiving the material that genetically was supposed to be in me.”.

A week after his injection, Cullison began to see small improvements and after two weeks, he no longer needed his cane to walk. He noticed that his joints were feeling better, his vision was improving to the point that his glasses were outdated, his eyes were getting bluer (eye pigmentation is often an indicator of good health) and his legs were getting stronger. “This is major improvement and it’s only been 2 weeks! Six months from now, I’ll be doing back-flips!” Only three weeks post treatment, Cullison reported that he was no longer taking any medication and back to painting his pictures.

President and CEO of RNL Bio, Dr. Jeong Chan Ra said, “John Cullison arrived in Korea as an old man. He is returning to his home, an adolescent”. After witnessing the remarkable improvement of Cullison as well as patients being treated with RNL stem cells, Ra is committed to making RNL stem cell therapy an accessible and affordable treatment, globally.

Stem cell frenzy

How wonderful is it that stem cells are so hot while I’m finishing up my thesis? The most interesting thing is how Korea is reacting. I wonder what Hwang is thinking. His fingers must be itching. It’s a huge shame that most of the researchers that used to work for him at SNU followed him to Sooam- he may be doing animal cloning there, but the researchers (who were responsible for all the actual work) won’t be able to do any research on human embryos, which they deserve to do. If it hadn’t been for Kim Sun-jong and the few others (Yoo, Park, Roh) responsible for manipulating data and messing with the lab in general (It’s amazing how screwed up things were in that lab, it’s no surprise that things came tumbling down; blame Hwang for not seeing it), I truly believe that the diligence of the junior researchers would have paid off. But then they were the ones who decided to follow Hwang, so they really don’t deserve much sympathy.