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Two researchers on the team of cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk say MBC TV
journalists bullied them into casting aspersions on Hwang��s stem cell
research. Kim Sun-jong (34) and Park Jong-hyuk (36), two Hwang
collaborators seconded to the University of Pittsburgh, said
journalists with the broadcaster��s "PD Diary" program sought them out
there and told them they were going to make ��outcasts�� of Hwang and
another core member of his team, veterinarian Kang Sung-keun. The two
quoted the MBC crew as saying Hwang's groundbreaking paper would be
exposed as a fabrication and he would be arrested.
The allegation has opened a new front in the increasingly hostile
confrontation between the investigative program and Hwang��s team. The two researchers�� testimony also suggested that the MBC
crew had a key role in the very public split between the Pittsburgh
team leader, Gerald Schatten, and Hwang. They said their interview with
the ��PD Diary�� crew was reported in writing to Schatten, who
immediately afterward announced he was ending his collaboration with
Hwang.
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Kim Sun-jong, a member of Prof. Hwang Soo-wuk's research team and
currently a doctoral candidate with the research team of Prof. Gerald
Schatten at the University of Pittsburgh, recounts how he was bullied
by MBC TV journalists into casting aspersions on Hwang��s stem cell
research, in this video grab from a YTN program broadcast Sunday./
picture courtesy of YTN |
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The fresh interviews with the two researchers were broadcast by cable channel YTN on Sunday.
In the YTN interview, Kim said, "I never told the production
team �� that the paper was fabricated. They just told me that they came
here to quietly ostracize professors Hwang Woo-suk and Kang Sung-keun.
��Prof. Hwang will be arrested by prosecutors next week. His article in
the journal Science will be retracted.��" The journalists then threatened that any criminal
investigation of Hwang could also reach the U.S., Kim said. ��They tried
to win me over by saying that if I come clean, my personal safety will
be guaranteed and they will give me a solution for my career�� in
America. "PD Diary" producers have not responded, saying only
everything would be revealed in a second part of their Hwang expose to
be broadcast on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a source on Hwang's team said the missing third
team member seconded to Pittsburgh, a 29-year-old woman identified only
by her initial P, had cut all communication with Hwang's team but is
keeping in touch with Schatten. Senior Seoul National University team
member Prof. Ahn Cu-rie, who flew to the U.S. last week, failed to
track P. down, the source said. ([email protected] )
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