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The article informs that Korean stem cell scientist Woo Suk Hwang and his university have bowed to pressure for an investigation into a growing list of questions about a landmark paper he and colleagues published in the journal "Science," in June 2005. On 12 December, Seoul National University (SNU), where Hwang works, announced it will conduct an investigation at the scientist's request. This follows a 7 December petition for an investigation from 30 SNU faculty members to university president Un Chan Chung.

The article reports that the cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang has admitted that his team made "human errors," and has asked Science to retract his celebrated paper reporting the creation of patient specific embryonic stem (ES) cells. In the 2005 paper, the group reported that they had established 11 ES cell lines from embryos cloned from patients. Meanwhile, other scientists expressed dismay and confusion at the latest developments but said other labs will continue the work. Further, observers are now questioning other papers by Hwang and his group, including the 2004 paper in Science reporting the first cloned ES cells and a report in Nature this year describing the first cloned dog

The article informs that cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang has asked the periodical to retract his celebrated paper reporting the creation of patient specific embryonic stem cells admitting that his team made human errors but he stood by results. At a packed press conference December 16, 2005 at Seoul, South Korea, National University, a defiant Hwang said that he and his colleagues did succeed in creating such cells, and he intends to replicate his results. Pressure on Hwang and his group has been growing as scientists and the press raised questions about the evidence presented in the paper.