From time to time examples of scientific fraud come to light and raise questions about the integrity of scientific endeavour. The most well-known example of recent years must surely be South Korean stem cell biologist Hwang Woo-Suk, whose ground-breaking discoveries in the field of therapeutic cloning were exposed as bogus (In addition to his science reputation being in tatters, Hwang was convicted in October 2009 of embezzlement and violation of bioethical laws, although he escaped a custodial sentence).

In physics, the multiple re-use of the same graphs as data for entirely different experiments led to the downfall of a leading young nanoscientist (this was the subject of a 2004 episode of the BBC’s Horizon series The dark secret of Hendrik Schön). Are Hwang and Schön rare examples bringing unwarranted criticism to a body of otherwise exemplary scientists, or are their crimes indicative of much wider malpractice within the scientific community?

University of Edinburgh researcher Daniele Fanelli has shed some light on the the extend of scientific fraud in an article How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. Published in the open access journal PLoS ONE in May 2009, the research brought together data from a number of earlier smaller studies on scientific misconduct to generate “the first meta-analysis of these surveys” (p1).

Fanelli was interested in examining the rates of self-reporting of scientific misconduct and knowledge about the misconduct of colleagues. Recognising that “any boundary defining misconduct will be arbitrary” (p9), he limited discussion to incidents where there was clear “intention to deceive” (p1, p9) rather than generation of incorrect results as a consequence of shoddy experimental design and/or accidental misinterpretation of the data. For the purposes of this study, Fanelli also excluded plagiarism and other examples of “questionable research practices” (QRPs; such as failure to include a contributor amongst the list of authors for a paper) from his definition of scientific misconduct, which was instead limited to fabrication and falsification. The grounds for this decision seem valid; whereas fabrication (the invention of data) and falsification (the wilful distortion of results) change the actual body of scientific knowledge, these other unprofessional activities lead instead to changes in the distribution of credit for the work, the substance of which remains unaltered.

To identify the previous studies of misconduct, Fanelli conducted a search of citation databases, scientific journals, “grey literature” databases and internet search engines using the terms “research misconduct”, “research integrity”, “research malpractice”, “scientific fraud”, “fabrication, falsification” and “falsification, fabrication”. An initial search generated 3276 potentially relevant studies. The vast majority (3207) were easily excluded because they were not surveys of research misconduct.

The author then applied very strict criteria to limit the meta-analysis to genuinely appropriate studies. For example, papers were excluded if there was no quantitative data, if the data included no clear category of never/none/nobody (e.g. if only mean values were shown), if the sample had been generated in a non-random manner, or if undergraduate and/or other non-researchers were included in a manner that did not permit their removal from the dataset). Having done so, the initial pool of potential papers was whittled right down to 18 suitable studies.

Quantifying research malpractice

What were the conclusions of Fanelli’s analysis? The main issues addressed were the proportion of respondent admitting to misconduct or questionable practices of their own, or knowledge of similar behaviour committed by colleagues on at least one occasion.

In the various studies reviewed, between 0.3% and 4.9% of respondents confirmed that they had modified results to improve the outcomes. This led to an average of about 2% self-reporting of misconduct (although it was nearer 1% if the responses were limited to those that specifically mentioned ‘falsification’ or ‘fabrication’.

A rather larger number, 9.5%,  were willing to admit that they had carried out broader questionable practices. Again, however, the phrasing was important with more respondents willing to say they had “modified research results” than admitting that had reported results that they “knew to be untrue”. This may fit with an underlying assumption that it is okay to omit data that you “know” are outliers or otherwise “wrong”. As Fanelli puts it “many did not think that the data they “improved” were falsified” (p9).

When asked about the actions of others, a crude average of around 16.7% (range 5.2% to 33.3%, Fanelli elects to report this statistic as “up to 34%” (p10)) of scientists said they had personal knowledge that a colleague had fabricated or falsified data on at least one occasion. A much wider range (6.2% to 72%; crude mean 28.5%) said that they were aware of peers who had indulged in QRPs.

So, were Hwang and Schön isolated miscreants or does their identification mark the tip of an iceberg of scientific misconduct? The truth seems to lie somewhere in between. As Fanelli notes, usual rules of self-reporting bias – in which some people (typically older women) under-report criminal behaviour whereas others (typically younger males) over-report such activity – do not apply here. It is highly unlikely that anyone in a community where trust is taken seriously will over-report their own wrong actions. It is likely, therefore, that the calculated values of self-reported malpractice are underestimates.

The data regarding knowledge of other researchers’ actions are harder to validate. It is theoretically possible, for example, that more than one correspondent might be describing the wrongdoings of the same colleague. In contrast, the criteria was knowledge of malpractice on “at least one occasion” and therefore the data may not take into account serial offences.

Other approaches to measuring misconduct, as reviewed by Fanelli, have generated a range of figures which might be seen as very broadly equivalent. For example, about 0.02% of paper  are retracted from PubMed due to misconduct (Claxton, 2005). 1% of papers submitted to the Journal of Cell Biology were found to have been inappropriately manipulated (Steneck, 2006). 2% of clinical researchers were found guilty of serious scientific misconduct in routine US Food and Drug Administration audits (Glick, 1992).

Whatever the accuracy of these numbers, however, it remains true that the vast majority of science is carried out in a spirit of accuracy and integrity.

Riconosciuto colpevole di frode dalla Procura di Seoul il ricercatore che nel 2004 aveva annunciato la clonazione di cellule staminali embrionali umane. Nel 2006 i suoi colleghi d’università scoprirono che aveva manipolato i dati di Federico Tulli

Con tre anni di ritardo rispetto alla comunità scientifica internazionale, la giustizia ordinaria della Corea del Sud ha condannato per frode lo scienziato Hwang Woo-suk, in relazione alle sue ricerche sulle cellule staminali embrionali umane. Secondo un tribunale di Seoul, nel 2004, Hwang (noto anche per aver creato Snuppy, il primo cane clonato della storia) ingannò la comunità mondiale con la sua presunta clonazione di embrioni umani, che in un primo momento sembrava aver aperto grandi speranze in particolare nella cura del morbo di Alzheimer. Dopo aver dimostrato che Hwang diventò direttore della prima banca mondiale di cellule madri proprio grazie alla falsificazione dei risultati dei suoi studi sugli embrioni umani, la Procura di Seoul ha chiesto una condanna di quattro anni. Considerando la differenza di fuso orario con l’Italia la pena dovrebbe essere resa nota nel corso della giornata odierna. La storia di una delle più celebri tentate truffe in ambito scientifico ha inizio nel 2004, quando lo scienziato sudcoreano annuncia su Science di essere riuscito a clonare un embrione umano e a ricavarne cellule madri. Lo stesso avviene in un altro articolo pubblicato nel 2005 sempre a firma di Hwang. Ma, l’anno successivo, una commissione di inchiesta dell’università di Seul scoprì che Hwang aveva falsificato gli esperimenti. Nell’immediato, questo causò in Corea del Sud il divieto di fare ricerca sulle staminali fino a marzo del 2007, quando il Comitato etico genetico diede di nuovo il permesso ma solo in caso di utilizzo di ovuli scartati dall’inseminazione artificiale. A livello internazionale, invece, la notizia della frode di Hwang fu cavalcata soprattutto dai detrattori della ricerca sulle cellule staminali embrionali. è il caso ad esempio dell’Italia, dove nel 2004 con l’approvazione della legge 40 sulla fecondazione assistita e poi nel 2005 con la bocciatura del referendum che quella legge voleva modificare profondamente, si è via via acuita la frattura tra la comunità scientifica che, salvo alcune rare eccezioni, chiedeva di poter fare ricerca sia sulle staminali adulte che su quelle embrionali, e le istituzioni fortemente orientate invece sulle posizioni ideologiche della Chiesa romana. Laddove questa, annullando secoli di progresso scientifico, considera l’embrione un essere umano. «La condanna di Hwang conferma ciò che il mondo della ricerca aveva dimostrato in tempi molto brevi, ma questo non è un caso che può essere tirato per la giacca da una parte o dall’altra», osserva Armando Massarenti, epistemologo e autore di Staminalia. Le cellule “etiche” e i nemici della scienza (Guanda). Secondo Massarenti, tutta la vicenda, in fondo, mette in luce i caratteri positivi della scienza: «è importante riflettere sul fatto che di fronte a una prassi truffaldina di questo genere non c’è altro ambito dell’attività umana in cui tale prassi viene smascherata così velocemente». Non a caso le frodi nel campo della ricerca di base sono molto rare. Mentre, purtroppo, ben diverso è il discorso relativo alle promesse di false cure a base di cellule staminali adulte e che Massarenti documenta con precisione in Staminalia. «Il discredito gettato da Wang nei confronti della ricerca e le speranze alimentate dai suoi annunci non sono nulla in confronto alla speculazione praticata sulla pelle di persone affette da malattie genetiche, da parte di chi millanta cure possibili con le “nemiche” delle staminali embrionali». Una speculazione operata da medici in diversi Paesi del mondo, ma alimentata anche dai media con false notizie. In Italia, ad esempio, il 24 maggio 2005 il titolo di un famoso quotidiano recitava così: “Adulte 58, embrionali 0. Tra staminali non c’è partita”. Dove 58 sta per le malattie curate. La realtà è che finora le uniche trattate con successo col trapianto di staminali adulte sono alcune malattie del sangue, una forma rara di malattia genetica della cute, le ustioni della cute e della cornea. Terra, il primo quotidiano ecologista

Korea: Kiedyś bohater narodowy i czołowy naukowiec. Dziś skazaniec

Gw

Profesor Hwang Woo-suk, jeden z najbardziej znanych specjalistów od klonowania, został skazany na dwa lata więzienia w zawieszeniu na trzy m.in. za fałszowanie wyników swoich badań nad klonowaniem komórek. Bohater narodowy Korei, który kilka lat temu wprowadził ją na czołowe miejsce w naukowym wyścigu, ukradł też publiczne pieniądze i złamał zasady etyki zawodowej.

Sąd uznał, że Hwang jest winien wszystkich zarzucanych mu czynów: sfabrykował wyniki swoich badań nad klonowaniem, wydawał pieniądze przeznaczone na badania na własne cele i złamał przepisy etyki zawodowej…

Po przeprowadzonym w 2005 roku śledztwie Hwang został wyrzucony z uczelni i pozbawiony licencji do badań nad komórkami macierzystymi. Wykorzystując majątek, który zebrał pośród swoich zwolenników w kraju, założył Fundację Rozwoju Biotechnologii SooAm, która specjalizowała się w klonowaniu zwierząt, szczególnie psów.

♣

Cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk convicted of fraud

Times Online

Z ostatniej chwili: profesor Hwang Woo-Suk, o którym już kiedyś pisałem w kontekście jego wyczynów, czytaj: fałszowania wyników naukowych (twierdził, że udało mu się sklonować ludzkie zarodki, co okazało się kłamstwem), został dzisiaj uznany przez południowokoreański sąd w Seulu winnym zarzucanych mu czynów. Jakie to były dokładnie zarzuty, tego notatka prasowa Timesa nie precyzuje, ale można podejrzewać, że oskarżono go co najmniej o oszustwo. Hwang Woo-Suk został skazany na dwa lata więzienia w zawieszeniu na trzy. Za zbrodnię, której dokonał na nauce, powinno się go chyba za to napiętnować…

A dog which retrieved survivors from the wreckage of the World Trade Centre has been successfully cloned, Agence France Press reports.

BioArts International last year held a contest to determine the world’s most “cloneworthy” dog, in what they called the “Golden Clone Giveaway”. Genetic immortality was awarded to Trakr, the valorous Alsatian responsible for discovering the last human survivor of the terrorist attack on New York, September 11 2001.

Lou Hawthorne, Chief Executive of BioArts, said: “We received many very touching submissions to our contest, each describing some truly amazing dogs, but Trakr’s story blew us away.”

Five healthy German Shepherd puppies have been cloned from the prestigious pooch’s DNA, following the assitance of South Korea’s SooAm Biotech Research Foundation.

Trakr's offspring, with equally preposterous names: Trustt (sic), Valor, Prodigy, Solace and Deja Vu

“Trakr was an extraordinary search and rescue dog. His work at Ground Zero was the culmination of his career,” said retired RCMP dog handler James Symington, Trakr’s human partner.

It is hoped the puppies, dubbed Trustt, Valor, Prodigy, Solace and Deja Vu (pictured), will follow in the pawprints of their genetic forbear and embark (haha) on a career of rescue work.

“If they have the same attributes Trakr did, then hopefully they’ll develop into world class search and rescue dogs,” said Symington, as the assembled hacks dabbed their eyes with their handkerchieves.

In addition to the emotional potency of cloning a dead 9/11 hero, Trakr’s descendants somewhat vindicate the work of Hwang Woo-Suk, the South Korean scientist recently disgraced for falsifying his results. His five-for-the-price of-one attitude to American heroes is sure to go a long way towards his academic rehabilitation.

Remember that patent application that was discredited a while back converning Pitt and a South Korean researcher?  Well, it’s being applied for again. Basically all they did was remove the claims that were challenged on the last application. The article is interesting, even if you don’t believe if the morality of cloning .

Click Here for the reference article from the Tribune-Review.

-SWB

PS – I wonder if this will really lead to Arnold getting one of pets cloned at a real life “RePet”

Clonage: la dynastie Snuppy

(Agence Science-Presse) – Vous vous souvenez de Snuppy, le premier chien cloné en 2005? Depuis, ce lévrier afghan est devenu adulte… et papa! Son sperme a été utilisé pour inséminer deux femelles, elles aussi clonées. Et selon l’équipe de l’Université nationale de Séoul, sur 10 chiots nés en mai dernier, neuf sont en vie et en bonne santé. Prudence: certains des animaux clonés les mieux portants en apparence, comme Dolly la brebis jadis, ont développé des maladies à l’âge adulte. Et les plus sceptiques ne peuvent oublier que l’équipe responsable du clonage de Snuppy était dirigée, à l’origine, par le Dr Hwang Woo-Suk, celui qui a démissionné en 2005 après avoir reconnu avoir falsifié ses données sur le clonage de cellules-souches. Aucune malversation n’a été découverte dans le cas de Snuppy.

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Don’t you just love it when a piece of news comes up just in the nick of time that allows you to knock someone’s argument right out of the park? It’s gin, yahtzee and checkmate, Ms Jeni Barnett and the anti-MMR contingent over at JABS. The debate (I am using this term very loosely here – this really is not much of a debate) is O-V-E-R. The findings in the 1998 Lancet paper regarding the MMR vaccine causing autism by Dr Andrew Wakefield were rigged. To be perfectly honest, I am not surprised. His claims have not been reproducible since 1998. This Sunday Times story gives the details as to how the study was rigged.

Now for the past few days the bad science blogs were filled with outrage from the drivel that came from Jeni Barnett’s LBC radio show, as well as the treatment of Dr Ben Goldacre by the lawyers of LBC. However this outrage is, as claimed by the anti-MMR contingent at JABS, fuelled by the money from the “Big Pharma”. Money from the Big Pharma? The last I checked my bank account, which was this morning, I was still a poor PhD student.

So what should happen to Dr Andrew Wakefield? In 2005, Korean stem cell biologist Dr Hwang Woo-Suk claimed to have created the first stem cell line from a cloned human embryo, a big breakthrough if true. Subsequently, the data were found to be inflated and faked and Dr Hwang Woo-Suk was charged with fraud. No lasting damage was done with this fraud, except national pride and the integrity of science. The journal Science retracted his paper and he was fired from his institution, and subjected to criminal investigations. Should the same apply to Dr Wakefield? If anything, his research, a fabrication as it would seem now, which arguably caused the MMR panic, led to uptake of the vaccine drop from >95% to <80%, and led to measles becoming endemic in the UK again. We have lost herd immunity for measles. Last year there were 1,348 cases, compared with less than 58 in 1998. More importantly, there has been fatalities.

Should he at least stand trial for causing this mess? Dr Hwang Woo-Suk has since apologised to the nation. Dr Andrew Wakefield still stands by his research and the links between MMR and autism. We need an end game to this whole mess to stand a chance of putting this debate to rest once and for all, such that we could get on the road to acquiring herd immunity for measles again.

For the first time since Hwang Woo-Suk’s cloned stem cells were revealed as fakes, human cloning, for medical purposes or even for reproduction, appears to be a realistic possibility.

“We show for the first time that the same genes turned on in normal human embryos are the same genes turned on in human clones,” said Robert Lanza, scientific director of Advanced Cell

Technologies and co-author of a study published Monday in Cloning and Stem Cells.
Lanza’s team inserted human cell nuclei into hollowed-out egg cells from both humans and animals, then stimulated them into development, a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), or more informally, cloning. When compared to a normal human embryo produced through in vitro fertilization, the animal-human hybrids didn’t develop normally, but the human-human cloned embryos displayed many of the genetic characteristics of healthy development.
The research is the first step toward therapeutic cloning — making embryonic stem cells from a patient’s own DNA capable of replacing diseased tissue, failing organs and even lost limbs. And, theoretically, the same technique could be used to produce a cloned person.

In 2001, Lanza’s team claimed to have made cloned human embryos, stoking public hopes that cloning would soon produce thousands of embryonic stem cell lines — one for every common genetic group, capable of replacing diseased tissue, failing organs and lost limbs. It wasn’t clear, however, whether those embryos were actually healthy, and their DNA was never analyzed.

Four years later, researchers led by the now-infamous Woo Suk Hwang claimed to have actually harvested embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos. The findings again raised public hopes, only to be revealed as fraudulent. Hwang now works for a controversial dog cloning company, and embryonic stem cells taken from a human clone remains hypothetical.

However, even if the scientific challenges of so-called therapeutic cloning are overcome, ethical problems remain. Harvesting human eggs requires women to take ovulation-inducing hormones, a process that is arguably dangerous and inarguably arduous. As a result, egg supplies are limited and expensive. Some scientists hoped to solve this by substituting animal eggs for human.

Research on these hybrid embryos — as well as chimeric embryos, formed by mixing actual human and animal DNA — was approved last year in the United Kingdom. But that approval came after bitter public debate in which opponents raised the specter of sentient human-animal hybrids being used as biological parts factories.

The latest findings suggest that hybrids are incapable of growing to a medically useful stage, much less sentience. But both cloning and induced pluripotency — a recently-developed procedure in which adult cells are transformed into an embryo-like state — should work.

“Science has a way to go with both of these, but we will soon have a way to create a bank of stem cells to expand the range of stem cell therapies,” said Lanza.

His team compared the gene expression of a human embryo produced through in vitro fertilization with clones that incorporated human, cow, rabbit and mouse eggs. Several thousand genes were active in the fully human clones, but almost completely silent in their counterparts, which stopped developing after several days.

Among these were the genetic targets stimulated during induced pluripotency, in which adult cells are returned to an embryo-like state. Their silence suggests that animal eggs will not be useful in making clones capable of generating embryonic stem cells, much less growing to adulthood.

“You can never say never,” said Lanza, “but we’ve been at this a very long time, and despite literally thousands of these attempts, we’ve never seen one of these hybrids advance further than what we’re reporting here. And though negative results don’t often get reported, I know for a fact that other experts have had the same results.”

But the fully human cloned embryos could produce stem cells and, if permitted, perhaps grow into a person.

“The DNA resembles the DNA of a normal human embryo, which raises the question of human reproductive cloning,” said Lanza.

However, New York Medical College cell biologist Stuart Newman disagreed with Lanza’s assessment. Though the paper “shows that interspecies SCNT is a bust,” he said, there are still “substantial differences” between fully-human cloned and IVF embryos.

But even if Lanza’s embryos cannot develop, other scientists may come up with a more effective process. And though reproductive cloning has not yet been attempted, some experts say it’s inevitable.

The procedure is illegal in the United States, but a global ban proposed in the United Nations fell apart after the U.S. insisted that therapeutic cloning be banned as well.

“Virtually every country agreed, but President Bush held it hostage,” said Lanza.

President Barack Obama has promised to overturn President Bush’s moratorium on federal funding of most embryonic stem cell research. Lanza hopes he will abandon Bush’s position at the U.N. as well.

“Reproductive cloning is unsafe and unethical,” he said. “This raises the urgency that those laws need to be passed.”

Article Courtesy of WIRED.COM

Happy (belated) Christmas!

How do you really reproduce without sexual reproduction? Asexual reproduction, of course.  Simple, really… but not for the females of some species.

There are loads of links in this post, so click on them to learn more.

Parthenogenesis

Some plants, insects, shark and lizard species are known to reproduce by parthenogenesis – embryo development is carried out without fertilisation by a male -so called  ‘virgin creations.’

Parthenogenesis can take a range of pathways :

• The egg can be fertilised by a polar body (a ‘leftover’ of egg production), making the chromosome number diploid and triggering embryo development. Here is a simple explanatory  animation from amateurmicrography.net.

• Chromosomes in the egg can self-replicate, making up the diploid number and the embryo develops from there.

Other methods include suppression of male genotypes (technically still sexual reproduction?), or eggs cells dividing by meiosis.

The resulting offspring are going to be all the same gender. In some species, the XY system determines gender and parthenogenesis produces all females. In other, the ZW system dictates that they will all be male.

Parthenogenesis is a reproductive strategy that sacrifices the genetic variation (a driving force of evolution) of sexual reproduction for the simple ability to reproduce. Small invertebrates, such as aphids, can use it to produce large numbers of females very quickly.

Komodo Dragons

Larger organisms, such as Komodo dragons (Indonesia link!), have been known to use parthenogenesis in the absence of males, producing an all-male clutch of eggs. It is thought that this might allow them to set up new populations on isolated islands, using just a single female. Here’s a quick video of a Komodo dragon parthenogen hatching:

Some interesting Komodo readers here from Richard Dawkins and Not Exactly Rocket Science.

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Parthenogenesis in sharks

Parthenogenesis has also been observed in captive sharks – the female had no access to males, yet gave birth to live young (though only one, where the normal litter would be larger). Genetic tests confirmed parthenogenesis, rather than the alternative hypothesis of superfecundation (storing sperm for a long period of time). Read the full paper here, and another on hammerheads here. BBC audio explanation here.

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So can it work in us?

Let’s let House MD explain:

In short, no. Not naturally.

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Generally, we use mitosis to replace and repair damaged cells and tissues and for growth and development – filling in the gaps with copied cells. Along the way, our cells differentiate to their function and we end up with a body full of specialised cells – each cell’s structure and biochemistry reflect its function.

We don’t use mitosis for reproduction, as it narrows genetic variation – one of the driving forces of evolution. Instead, when sperm and eggs are produced, meiosis is used – producing daughter cells with half a set of chromosomes. During meiosis, crossing over occurs, giving some recombinants – or ‘mixed up’ chromosomes – leading to some varation. The greatest variation comes from the process of sexual reproduction itself – the gametes – sperm and egg – meet in fertilisation, combining their chromosomes to  make a new blastocyst, which becomes an embryo, then a fetus and out pops a baby.

All the offspring of organisms that reproduce sexually carry two copies of each chromosome – one from each parent -  and each chromosome carries different alleles – ‘versions’ of each gene. This leads to a great deal of variation and this genetic diversity keeps the the population going.

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What about uses in technology?

Funny you should ask that…

Induced parthenogenesis is being pursued as a method for obtaining embryonic stem cells. Read this New Scientist article to learn more.

The disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk, who shot to infamy after faking stem cell results, was actually and inadvertently pivotal in the use of parthenogenesis as a method to produce human embryonic stem cell lines:

Normally these parthenogenic embryos die after a few days, yet researchers are able to harvest them for stem cells for research. Ethically, these are considered engineered eggs, rather than human embryos. How do you feel about that?

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Questions to think about:

1. How does parthenogenesis differ from binary fission in bacteria, or vegetative reproduction in some plants?

2. How do the XY and ZW gender systems work?

3. How does sexual reproduction lead to genetic variation?

4. What are the costs of parthenogenesis in terms of evolution or resistance to disease?

5. How would the genetic fingerprint of a parthenogen differ from its parent?

6. How would researchers use genetic fingerprinting to determine whether the offspring were parthenogens or were the product of sexual reproduction?

7. What are the ethical considerations of using parthenogenic human ambryonic stem cells?

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References:

Chapman et al. Parthenogenesis in a large-bodied requiem shark, the blacktip <i>Carcharhinus limbatus</i>. Journal of Fish Biology, 2008; 73 (6): 1473 DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8649.2008.02018.x

Chapman et al. Virgin birth in a hammerhead sharkBiol Lett. 2007 August 22; 3(4): 425–427. Published online 2007 May 22. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0189.

24th of April 2005, proved to be the most memorable day for the biomedical scientist Hwang Woo-Suk. On this day he succeeded in producing the world’s first cloned dog. The first cloned dog was called “Snuppy”.

 World’s First Ever Cloned Dog Snuppy   

 

 

How Did the Process Start?  Almost all the species of the animal family were cloned except dog since; maturing of a canine ovum in a non-natural environment was fairly tedious. However, after a number of unsuccessful efforts, Professor Hwang Woo-Suk of Seoul National University with a panel of several other scientists succeeded in producing a clone with the help of a tissue from the ear of a 3 year old Afghan hound. Hundred and twenty three substituted mothers were brought into the play to carry the embryos out of which 1,095 were implanted. The result of the process was:

 ·         Merely three pregnancies

·         Out of these three, one had a miscarriage

·         Two pups were born out of which one died of pneumonia after three weeks of birth and

·         A successful clone was carried by a Golden Labrador retriever which gave birth to the pup Snuppy, the first ever cloned dog of the world.

 Naming Process of the World’s First Cloned Dog:  The dog was named the same as a portmanteau of the initials of the Seoul National University i.e. SNU and the term “Puppy”.

Snuppy as an Adult Dog

 

Cloning Process of the Dog:  A number of complications were associated to the cloning process of a dog like:

• The eggs in a female canine are only fertile they are on the stage of Estrus of the Estrous Cycle
• The eggs could only be produced during a 3-week duration every year
• Taking away of eggs from the canine ovaries that are not there in animals like pigs and sheep, hence, were taken away from the oviduct (opposed to ovaries)
• The nucleus of every egg was replaced with the cell from the ear of the 3 year old dog which was then electrified and fused with the help of a chemical reaction                          

 

 

 Snuppy (right) next to the Afghan

 Hound he was cloned from

• After this the embryos were transferred to the substituted dogs
• Three mothers were pregnant after this amongst which only two puppies took birth out of which only one survived.

 Feats of the Creation:  Snuppy the world’s first cloned dog was titled as the “Most Amazing Invention” of the year in 2005by the Times Magazine. Along with this, the procedures used in the cloning was given due recognition by the magazine stating were “embodied by a history-making puppy”. Not only this, the magazine also stated that though there were several laboratories who were trying their best to clone a dog, still the work of the team of Hwang was same as Snuppy “the extraordinary”.   

  Final Word: Hence, all this stuff proves that the times are not far when human beings will be seeing their magnificent replicas.

The online issue of Science has a news item (you can only see the summary. A subscription is needed to read the full news item) on the findings of the academic misconduct committee set up by the University of Minnesota to investigate Catherine Verfaillie’s case of image alteration.

The committee has said that four of the seven images in the Blood journal where she published her paper had problems. ”The aspects of the figures were altered in such a way that the manipulation misrepresented experimental data and sufficiently altered the original research record to constitute falsification.”

“Eliminiation of bands on blots, altered orientation of bands, introduction of lanes not included in the original figure and covering objects or image density in certain lanes were found,” the report has stated.

But more than the act of falsification, what is even more shocking is that Verfaillie has defended her supervision although Reyes, the student who did the work, says that “for several of images, she merely globally adjusted the brightness and contrast in data images without any intent to deceive.”

One can only wonder how adjusting the contrast and brightness of the images can lead to the introduction of lanes, elimination of bands etc.

And finally Reyes has in an e-mail to Science noted, “These errors were unintentional and were COMMON and ACCEPTED practices at the time.”

Now do we take this as some kind of desperate measure to escape criticism or is she really telling us what is going on in these labs and what kind of ethical practices scientists and researchers follow?

Now I shudder at the thought of “common and accepted practices” researchers employ.

The Edior-in-Chief of Science journal Donald Kennedy had stated in January 2006 following the Hwang Woo Suk’s case: “We are implementing improved methods of detecting image alteration… “  Though no case of image manipulation has surfaced after that in Science, I wonder if they have in place a system to detect it. And if they do have it, other journals need to emulate it. 

The university has forwarded the report of the committee to the federal Office of Research Integrity.  

These reserahcers have to be punished, if it is serious to uphold science and the art of scientific investigation.

It is another Hwang Woo Suk, the infamous stem-cell reseracher of South Korea whose research was found to be a fraud, in the field of stem cell research.  The New Scientist magazine questioned a stem cell research paper published in the Nature journal last year.  Now it has been conclusively proved to be a case of falsifying data.

I wrote a piece in The Hindu last March on how New Scientist found the paper by the American reserachers led by Catherine Verfaillie  appers to be too good to be true. Investigations have now shown that it is nothing but fraud.

Much like in the case of Hwang, the American researchers have resorted to manipulating photographs to make it appear as coming from different experiments. 

What is surprising is that while Hwang had to quit the University and South Korean Governmant even withdrew his licence, the University panel investigating Verfillie’s case did not find “enough evidence” to conclude there was scientific misconduct!

Should stern measures not be taken against such researchers as they have found strong evidence.  WIll it mean that more scientists can indulge in such practices and go scot free even if they found out later.

Is the panel not setting a wrong precedent by not punishing the scientists ?  Or was it forced not to punish them as the research was about how adult stem cells could be as versatile as stem cells taken from embryos?  Was it because the research is in line with Bush’s pro-life stand?

These are very disturbing issues but if science has to progress and if papers published in “reputed” journals are to be taken seriously, then these scientists have to be punished.  If the University cannot do it, then the journals have to by not publishing their papers in future.  Can they do it?

My edit in The Hindu stressed on how reputed journals should take extra care to spot these frauds before the papers are published.

We learned during our orientation that all of us being here in this manner is just slightly ridiculous. Let’s be honest here… What other country would drop millions of dollars bringing in thousands of foreigners, putting them up in tiny apartments, and getting them to teach a subject with no relevant qualification necessary?

I mean, sure, they require a degree from somewhere, anywhere, but if you sit for 30 seconds and think about some of the people you know that have a degree .. well you get what I’m hinting at. EVERYONE has a degree these days. You can get one online during breakfast and have a master’s with your lunchable at noon.

All that said, I have responded to Korea’s English Teacher siren call, and am making the best of it. This week’s blog theme is my teaching style, which I am developing on the fly, as opposed to through several years of rigorous study and training. Let’s be clear though here – speaking english and having a degree in no way qualifies you to be an english teacher. I am sure many of my colleagues are wondering at this point just what they got themselves into. I do 5 days a week.

Lesson #1 I have learned from particularly difficult Grade 9 english classes: follow your students’ brains, not your own. You can plan a brilliant lesson that might even have a cocker spaniel using the past tense, but if your students aren’t having it, you have to adapt on the fly. For instance, during last week’s unit on Science, I recall talking about such scientific topics as gambling (What steals your money? The slot machine!) and Professional wrestling (How do we describe the WWE? Fake!) in some classes, as well as debating the merits and scientific credibility of Dr. Frankenstein. He seemed to receive more respect from the students than did Hwang Woo-Suk. 

These major digressions are good for me too, because I teach the same lesson 13 times per week.

The most brilliant moment from the Science week was in one class when we were listing famous scientists that the students knew.  It went as follows: “I know Einstein”, “I know Edison”, and so on. However, one particularly creative student said “I know Jang Bung” – which was the name of one of his friends in our class. So I added Jang to the list – which got major laughs, especially when we got to listing our scientists’ accomplishments. After determining that Einstein had some theories, and Edison did light, we got back to Jang. After more laughs, someone yelled out “NO COMMENT!” which I wrote down. That REALLY got laughs.

A year on from the indictment of Hwang Woo-Suk for his embezzlement of research funds and faking of stem cell results how has the South Korean biotechnology developed and what prospects are there for biopharmaceutical partnering there today? Signs are that the South Korean biotechnology industry is beginning to recover from the Hwang scandal and its economic slump of the early 2000s. Hwang’s work represented just five percent of the total stem cell research work done in Korea and many continue to be active in the area, with at least 80 patents filed for stem cells at the USPTO by South Korean inventors (1% of the total stem cell related patents filed with the USPTO, just behind the number filed by British and French inventors).

Silico Research’s analysis of biotechnology-related patents filed at the USPTO by inventors from around the world from 1972 to the present shows that South Korean based inventors rank twelfth highest for all biotechnology-related patents, falling just below those from Australia and Switzerland. Between 2000 and 2006 South Korean inventors based in the town of Suwon, 20 miles south of Seoul, ranked second highest, after Tokyo, among non-US inventors listed by town filing patents for monoclonal antibody technology. Many of these patents were assigned to the pharmaceutical company Yuhan Corporation, which, through its Research Institute, has as its core technology humanised antibody engineering and monoclonal antibody production/manufacturing and is active in developing monoclonal antibody therapeutics.

In the same period inventors based in Seoul ranked third highest, after Tokyo and Vancouver, among non-US inventors listed by town filing patents in the field of stem cells. South Korea’s strength in patenting for stem cell technology reflects the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology’s targetting of stem cells for its 21st Century Frontier R&D Program in 2001 and the establishment of the Stem Cell Research Center at Seoul National University in 2002.

Wedged between Japan and China, two of the world’s largest economies, partnering with South Korea companies can provide an important gateway to the Northeast Asian market. Since 1986 at least thirty new drug candidates and related technologies developed by South Korean pharmaceutical firms were licensed to big pharmaceutical companies and their partners overseas. Recent partnerships between South Korea companies and companies internationally include LG Life Science’s research and development partnership with the Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd in March 2007 for anti-obesity drugs and LG Life Sciences and Novartis’s co-marketing partnership for Co-Tareg for the treatment of Hypertension in September 2006. In June 2007 Pfizer announced that it was to spend $300 million in the next five years on research and development in South Korea out of its research and development budget of $7.6 billion. The aim is to build up hub for clinical research in South Korea to access the Asian markets. Pfizer is setting up an office for strategic alliance to share research technology and information with South Korea.