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Journalists with the MBC current affairs program ��PD Diary�� tried to
trick patients who donated somatic cells for Hwang Woo-suk��s stem cell
research into testifying against the geneticist, a member of the
research team said Monday. He said journalists told patients Hwang��s
research results would be exposed as a fabrication and he would be
arrested. Through transferring the nuclei from somatic cells of patients
with spinal cord injury, juvenile diabetes and a genetic immune
deficiency, Hwang succeeded in yielding 11 immune-matched human
embryonic stem cell lines. The results were published in Science.
Team members said the ��PD Diary�� crew approached the family of
one donor and tried to confirm that the donation took place. The family
was frightened and asked researchers if anything had gone wrong. Team
members also said the MBC journalists made some 20 calls a day to a
researcher identified as Kim to pressure him to speak to them. At the same time, the ��PD Diary�� crew sowed mistrust in the
team by telling them there was another whistleblower among them. The
resulting insecurity was jeopardizing research, one member said. He
urged MBC to come clean, saying if it was true that there was a mole,
it meant someone within the institute, which has national security
status, could leak important technology abroad. ([email protected] )
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