1.S. Korea seeks jail for disgraced cloning scientist
2.Furry Math
3.Patriotic Puppies -- and a Prize!
4.Cloning Canine Patriotism?
EXTRACTS: ...the scientist behind the dog cloning was just awarded a prize for scientific excellence. Why was this not part of the publicity push?
Unfortunately, he was otherwise engaged -- with the Seoul District Court, defending himself against charges of scientific fraud. (item 3)
...prosecutors saw the case as a chance to "resolve chronic research fraud in the academic field." (item 1)
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1.S. Korea seeks jail for disgraced cloning scientist
Hyung-jin Kim
Associated Press, 24 August 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_disgraced_scientist
[image caption: South Korean disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk arrives at the Seoul Central ADistrict Court in Seoul]
SEOUL, South Korea  Prosecutors demanded a four-year prison term Monday for a South Korean scientist disgraced in a cloning scandal that shook the international scientific community and led to his trial on fraud and other charges.
Hwang Woo-suk was fired from the prestigious Seoul National University after purported breakthroughs ”” including the claim of producing a human embryo through cloning and recovering stem cells from it ”” were deemed bogus in 2005, when a key paper was found to contain fake data.
Once hailed as a national hero, Hwang is accused of accepting funds under false pretenses, embezzling and illegally buying human eggs for his research ”” charges that are related to the fake claims.
Prosecutors sought the four-year prison term during a hearing at the Seoul Central District Court. Hwang was present in the packed courtroom, and supporters greeted his entrance with applause.
"The people's disappointment was very serious because their expectation for his stem cell research had been high," an unidentified prosecutor told the courtroom.
He said Hwang tarnished South Korea's image abroad and that prosecutors saw the case as a chance to "resolve chronic research fraud in the academic field."
Hwang pleaded for leniency, saying if the court forgives him he is ready to "pour the last of my passion" into research.
The court will rule on his guilt or innocence and decide a sentence Oct. 19, according to Yonhap news agency.
Hwang had been the only South Korean scientist allowed to carry out research into stem cells ”” master cells that can grow into any bodily tissue ”” that scientists say could lead to revolutionary cures for hard-to-treat diseases such as Alzheimer's. But the government stripped him of his license in 2006, citing his "ethical problems."
That case scandalized the international scientific community and caused intense soul-searching in South Korea.
Hwang and his former colleagues at Seoul National University ”” South Korea's most prestigious ”” claimed in 2004 to have produced a human embryo through cloning and to have recovered stem cells from it.
A year later, Hwang said the team created human embryonic stem cells genetically matched to specific patients ”” a purported breakthrough that promised a way to withstand rejection by a patient's immune system.
But a university committee later declared the 2005 paper a fraud based on faked data, and cast doubt on his 2004 findings as well.
Hwang publicly apologized for faking data in the two papers but claimed he was deceived by a fellow researcher who switched his cell lines. Hwang, stripped of his right to carry out research on cloning human embryos, is now focusing on animal cloning at a local institute.
Though most of his research was found to be fake, Hwang and his team of scientists successfully created the world's first known dog clone in 2005, and that achievement was independently confirmed.
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2.Furry Math
Pete Shanks
Biopolitical Times, August 21 2009
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/article.php?id=4863
RNL Bio has just made a substantial commitment to commercial dog cloning. It's bought 4 acres just outside Seoul to build a research center, which by 2013 is intended to have the capacity to produce 1,000 cloned dogs a year. That would make it a 100 billion Won business, said early reports, which seem to be using the current price of $100,000 per cloned dog, though the same article says that RNL intends to drop the price to $30,000 (about 37.5 million Won).
Even at $30,000 for a cloned pup, where RNL Bio thinks it will find 1,000 human customers a year is a mystery. And then of course there are the surrogate dogs and egg-donor dogs, a non-trivial number. Hwang Woo-Suk -- still the greatest of optimists -- and colleagues admit that "the techniqueÂ’s overall efficiency for dogs has lagged behind that for livestock animals." Spinning hard, the best they can claim is that "as few as 14 dogs and 54 reconstructed embryos were needed to produce a cloned puppy." Still, even 1,200 dogs a month shuttling in and out would require quite a facility.
And who will do the work? As far as I can tell (and I would welcome correction), RNL Bio's announcements of higher efficiency rates in producing commercially cloned dogs have not resulted in any peer-reviewed papers. This absence of documentation is important to those concerned about the animal suffering that pet cloning entails.
RNL's previous cloning work seems to have been done by Lee Byung-cheon of Seoul National University (SNU) and his team, who continue to publish related papers on cloning dogs and wolves. One of Lee's papers does include, as one of nine co-authors, one name affiliated with RNL Bio; but then two of Hwang's papers have a co-author from RNL's rival cloning company BioArts, including Lou Hawthorne who never claimed to be a scientist. (Hawthorne is on the paper about his mother's dog, which includes background, so fair enough.)
There was also a lawsuit over cloning techniques; presumably RNL Bio is confident of a verdict -- or has there been a settlement? Hwang and Lee are doing documented science; RNL Bio and BioArts have both been largely in the publicity business. Is this about to change? Maybe so.
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3.Patriotic Puppies -- and a Prize!
Pete Shanks
Biopolitical Times, June 23 2009
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/article.php?id=4735&mgh=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biopoliticaltimes.org&mgf=1
In our continuing coverage of "new life science" publicity-mongers BioArts, we note that they have now established Encore Pet Science as their pet-cloning division. This apparently replaces Best Friends Again, which in turn took over from Genetic Savings and Clone, which emerged from the Missyplicity Project.
By an extraordinary coincidence, Encore was launched at the same time as the announcement of puppies cloned from Trakr, a police dog that searched for victims in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Trakr was cloned for free, since his human companion won an essay contest, but the service is offered to anyone with $138,500 (plus sales tax and shipping where applicable) burning a hole in their pocket.
Now, puppies are always cute (except when cloning goes bad and leaves them deformed), and patriotism is a sure-fire way to get headlines, but what else does this story need? A prize! And yes, indeed, the scientist behind the dog cloning was just awarded a prize for scientific excellence. Why was this not part of the publicity push?
Unfortunately, he was otherwise engaged -- with the Seoul District Court, defending himself against charges of scientific fraud. Yes, it's Hwang Woo-Suk. That saga also still looks set to run and run.
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4.Cloning Canine Patriotism?
Marcy Darnovsky
Biopolitical Times, July 11 2008
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/article.php?id=4158&mgh=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biopoliticaltimes.org&mgf=1
The dog-and-pony show - er, I mean the dog-cloning business - improbably stars a Marin County impresario, an eccentric billionaire, and a pair of disgraced Korean cloning researchers who used to be partners but are now firing legal shots at each other over cloning patents.
The pet cloners' latest public-relations foray began with Marin County entrepreneur Lou Hawthorne's May appearance on Good Morning America. Sadly, GMA pliantly showcased the cute puppy clones but completely missed most of the story, including the involvement of cloning fraudster and embezzler Hwang Woo Suk (1, 2) and his ex-partner Lee Byeong-chun.
But the GMA feature was just a warm-up for a "Golden Clone Giveaway" essay contest sponsored by the "Best Friends Again" division of the Hawthorne-Hwang company, BioArts. And the contest, in turn, was a come-on for an online auction of five dog cloning "slots," with bids starting at $100,000.
When BioArts announced the winner of its Golden Clone contest on June 30, it broke new ground in emotional manipulation. The dog that BioArts says it will replicate for free is a German Shepherd that was already famous for his role in the search-and-rescue operation at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks. That dog - and those who spent hundreds of hours training him - are indeed heroes. The cloning ringmasters who are trying to appropriate the 9/11 disaster for a practice that abuses pets and misleads pet lovers are simultaneously ridiculous and offensive.
Meanwhile, outside the circus ring, the legal battle between BioArts and another dog-cloning company, Korea-based RNL Bio, continues to simmer, with both sides claiming exclusive worldwide dog cloning rights.
According to the Best Friends Again website, its online cloning auction concluded on July 9 at 3 pm Pacific time. As of today, the website shows only two of the five slots sold, and BioArts has provided no confirming details about the buyers or selling prices.
And in a display of collective good sense, the media has studiously ignored the entire cloning contest and auction sideshow.