Researcher Faked Evidence of Human Cloning, Koreans Report

Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean researcher who claimed to have cloned human cells, fabricated evidence for all of that research, according to a report released today by a Seoul National University panel investigating his work.

The finding strips any possibility of legitimate achievement in human cell cloning from a researcher who had been propelled to international celebrity and whose promise to make paralyzed people walk had been engraved on a Korean postage stamp.

In his string of splashy papers, his one legitimate claim was to have cloned the dog he named Snuppy, the panel said.

"Dr. Hwang's team cannot avoid taking grave responsibility for fabricating its papers and concealing data," said Chung Myunghee, the head of the university's investigatory panel.

Last month the panel said there was no evidence to support Dr. Hwang's claim of June 2005 to have cloned cells from 11 patients with an efficient new technique using very few human eggs.

But that still left open the possibility that he had gotten the cloning technique to work to some degree, as he wrote in the...