WASHINGTON – The highly regarded journal that published the South Korean stem-cell research now exposed as a sham is considering ways to improve safeguards against scientific fraud.
"We are determined to do everything in our power to evaluate our own procedures for detecting research misconduct," Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, said Tuesday.
The journal will formally retract two studies published in 2004 and 2005, in which South Korea's Hwang Woo-suk claimed to have extracted stem cells from a cloned human embryo and to have created stem cells genetically matched to specific patients. A Seoul National University probe has concluded the blockbuster papers were elaborate frauds.
Before research is published in top-tier journals such as Science, experts in a particular field review the papers for signs that the work was properly conducted. Science is considering ways to make that review process more rigorous.
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