Research policies in Wisconsin probably will not be affected by fraud on the other side of the world, UW-Madison researchers said. Yet, the actions of Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk, a South Korean stem cell researcher who was found Dec. 23 to have faked results of several of his experiments on human embryos, may give the field a black eye in the short term.
Given the scope of his fabrications and how integral stem cell research is to the UW-Madison research community, Hwang's case may also put a spotlight on research policies at the university.
Apart from peer publication, no formal review process of published research exist at UW-Madison, but Bill Mellon, the university's associate dean of research policy, assures this is par for the course, and that all research submitted undergoes this process.
'The peer review process worked exactly as it should,' Mellon said of the situation in South Korea. 'The research community always scrutinizes research findings.'
Additionally, both Mellon and Timothy Kamp, a UW-Madison associate professor of medicine and physiology who works with stem cells, pointed to the recent addition of a committee that will hear research proposals on campus that will involve embryonic stem cells.
In accounting for the size and scope of Hwang's deceit, some pointed to the environment of South Korea.
'The Korean government was very proud of him and supporting him, perhaps putting a lot of pressure on him,' said Barbara Lewis, manager of the Wisconsin Stem Cell Research program. 'Most American researchers are not doing that so much. In the Korean case, they were rushing things.'
'The recent news from South Korea is a setback for the field as a whole,' she added.
Lewis said he saw the incident in Korea as separate from research being done at the university.
'No one at UW is doing the types of experiments Dr. Hwang is doing in terms of nuclear transfer,' she said. 'A lot of scientists are feeling that this is more or less a typical case of scientific fraud.'
Unanimously, scientific insiders at UW-Madison assure that research being done on campus is ethically sound.
'The stem cell scientists at UW are very careful before they publish anything,' Lewis said. She notes that the research being done at UW-Madison is basic, unlike Hwang, who pursued therapeutic research.
'People lie, regardless of what the regulations are,' Kamp said.
