Gerald P. Schatten, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who was one of the co-authors of a fabricated article on stem cell cloning that was published and later withdrawn from the U.S. journal Science, has agreed to an e-mail investigation request by Korean prosecutors.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said yesterday that Dr. Schatten’s lawyer told them he would not visit Korea but would answer questions through e-mail.
Dr. Schatten’s lawyer was responding to an e-mail that prosecutors had sent to Dr. Schatten on Thursday. The e-mail contained 136 questions concerning what the scientist knew of a stem cell contamination incident in January last year, and why he severed ties with Hwang Woo-suk last autumn.
“In recent investigations, Seoul National University Professor Kang Sung-keun testified that Dr. Schatten advised Dr. Hwang to continue publishing the article even after he was informed of the damaged stem cells. This is slightly different from a statement released by the University of Pittsburgh last week, which said that Dr. Schatten was not directly involved in the fraud,” said Park Han-cheol, a prosecutor.

by Wohn Dong-hee, Moon Byung-joo for JoongAng Daily