Editorial: Stem cell fallout

The fraud perpetrated by South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk is a setback for regenerative medicine, but it also serves as a rich learning opportunity for California's $3 billion stem cell research institute.

For the last two months, leaders of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine have resisted calls to publicly review the South Korea scandal and ensure that its ethics standards are adequate to avoid similar misdeeds. Now we know why.

As it turns out, an ethics adviser for the California institute, Jose Cibelli, co-authored a 2004 paper by Hwang that has been under suspicion for weeks and now has been shown to include fabricated data. Michigan State University, where Cibelli works, is investigating Cibelli's role in co-authoring the 2004 paper, in which Hwang made a monumental claim - now discredited - to have cloned a human embryo and extracted stem cells from it.

After inquiries from this page, the California institute disclosed Wednesday that Cibelli will not be advising the institute while the investigation continues.

"Until that issue is resolved, Cibelli has voluntarily withdrawn from his activities on the...