For a while, Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk was the toast of the medical world and the poster boy for stem cell research. Hwang rose to fame after announcing a series of scientific breakthroughs in the field of stem cell research. He quickly became regarded as the world’s foremost and pioneering expert in the field, especially after he penned two articles in Science magazine in 2004 and 2005 detailing how he succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by cloning. It was later discovered that a large parts of his data were fabricated. Hwang himself admitted to lying and fraud.

On May 12, 2006, Hwang was “indicted on embezzlement and bioethics law violations linked to faked stem cell research.” One saving grace is that Hwang’s most popular creation, the cloned dog “Snuppy,” which was voted by Time magazine as its “Invention of the Year” for 2005, has withstood scientific scrutiny and has been pronounced as a legitimate clone.

The first time Hwang burst onto the international stage was in February 1999 when he announced the creation of a cloned dairy cow, “Yeongrong-i.” On record, it was the fifth instance in the world of cow cloning. It did not raise any eyebrows at the time, but Hwang mostly gave press conferences and interviews yet never provided any substantiated data on his research.

Two months later, Hwang announced that he had cloned another Korean cow, “Jin-I,” and once again did not provide any scientifically verifiable data. Despite this, the Korean public and even the press greeted the announcement with great delight, especially since it came with the promise of “immeasurable economic prospects” for the country.

In the months that followed, Hwang announced that he had created a BSE-resistant cow, a claim that has yet to be verified, and that he was close to cloning a Siberian tiger, a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.

In February 2004, Hwang announced that he and his team had successfully created an embryonic stem cell using the somatic cell nuclear transfer method. He published his research in Nature magazine. It was the first reported success in human somatic cell cloning, which was previously believed to be impossible.

Then, in May 2005, Hwang announced that his team had created 11 human embryonic stem cells using 185 cells. This was an even more impressive achievement than his previous announcement. His work was again published in Science magazine and was hailed as a significant medical breakthrough. Hwang also claimed that his team had increased its success rate by 14 times.

Things changed quickly in the months that followed. First, it was discovered that several photos of supposedly different cells were actually photos of the same cell. Hwang explained that as a mere accident. Next, questions were raised about the similarities between DNA profiles of the cloned cells. Finally, on December 15, the roof fell on Hwang when Roh Sung-Il, one of the members of Hwang’s team, revealed to media than nine of the eleven stem cell lines that the team supposedly created had been faked. “Professor Hwang admitted to fabrication,” Roh said.

Hwang’s free-fall from grace came swiftly after that. Today, the beleaguered scientist is still under trial for his fraudulent actions. In spite of that, he announced recently that he would continue to pursue his experiments in stem cell research, this time backed by private investors.

One saving grace for Hwang is that his creation of Snuppy, the first cloned dog in history, has been pronounced as legitimate following an extensive investigation by Seoul National University. An examination of Snuppy’s DNA confirmed that he is indeed a genuine clone of the DNA donor dog named Tei.