SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea pledged Friday to continue its support for cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk despite his resignation as the head of an international center for stem-cell research in a controversy over the source of donor eggs.
A trained veterinarian, Hwang is a national hero and gained international renown for his breakthroughs, including cloning the world's first human embryos and extracting stem cells from them. Earlier this year, he unveiled the world's first cloned dog.
After more than a year of denying rumors that some eggs used in his experiment came from subordinate scientists, Hwang on Thursday acknowledged two scientists in his Seoul lab donated their own eggs for research.
He also acknowledged he had recently found out a hospital doctor paid some women for their eggs, and stepped down as director of the World Stem Cell Hub that he and international researchers announced just last month.
Under commonly observed international guidelines, scientists are advised to be cautious when using human subjects for research who are in a dependent relationship with them -- a precaution against exploitation.
Despite the controversy, government support for Hwang will continue, Health Ministry official Kim Sung-soo said Friday.
"Sure, there is an ethics controversy now, but we still believe it is crucial to build a strong infrastructure for stem-cell research if South Korea is to produce a strong advance in the area," Kim said.
Hwang's team will continue to receive annual government funding of $3 million until 2009. The government gave $26.4 million in assistance to his team this year, the ministry said.
The World Stem Cell Hub, led by Hwang, opened Oct. 19 with the aim of serving as the main center for providing scientists around the world with embryonic stem cells, master cells that can grow into all kinds of tissues in the body. Such cells are seen as a potential source of replacement tissue for people with a variety of ailments such as Alzheimer's disease and spinal cord injuries.
The center said Nov. 1, the first day it accepted applications from patients, that it had received 3,500 responses through the internet or by phone, fax or in person.
The foundation had announced plans to open cloning centers in San Francisco and London, but his U.S. collaborators, including University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten, dropped out of the project earlier this month.
Schatten said on Nov. 12 that he resigned from the stem-cell hub and ended his 20-month collaboration with Hwang because of the South Korean's "unethical practices" in collecting eggs from a volunteer then misleading Schatten about it.
The government said Thursday the junior scientists' donation of eggs were not in violation of ethics guidelines because they were made voluntarily.
The payments to egg donors, which ended in 2003, were also not illegal at the time. A law banning commercial trading of human eggs took effect this year.
Hwang's colleagues stressed Friday his resignation will not derail the international consortium aimed at finding cures for now untreatable diseases.
"Nothing has changed as far the World Stem Cell Hub project goes," said Yoon Tae-il, a personal adviser to Hwang. "Hwang's absence may delay the project a little, but every part of the plan is still intact."
Hwang will continue "working in areas related to the very core technologies" in finding cures for untreatable diseases, he said.
Still, scientists around the world raised concerns about possible ethics violations during research. "We are saddened by the confusion that has arisen in Korea and the distress that has been caused to those concerned," said Ian Wilmut, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh who cloned Dolly the sheep and who has also announced collaboration with Hwang.
The allegations that Hwang's junior scientists had donated eggs for Hwang's research were first made last year in the scientific journal Nature. Hwang said Thursday a reporter from Nature had asked him about a scientist's eggs in May 2004, the first time it was brought to his attention. He asked the scientist about it and she acknowledged it, but Hwang said he publicly denied the report because she asked that her privacy be maintained.
He added that he had previously sought to persuade the two female scientists at his lab not to donate their eggs.
"I regret that if I had told the truth then I wouldn't have caused such concerns to the public now," Hwang said. "I have learned a painful lesson that I should conduct research in a calm and cautious manner by living up to a global standard."
