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Stem Cell Fraudster May Have Actually Made Breakthrough
Journal written by Otter (3800) and posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 03, 2007 03:12 PM
from the a-little-comeuppance dept.
from the a-little-comeuppance dept.
Otter writes "Woo Suk Hwang's career swung from fame over his lab's claim of the first stem cells from a cloned human embryo to humiliation when the results were found to be fake. Research at Harvard on Hwang's cells has found that they are actually parthenogenic lines derived from eggs -- perhaps a more important and difficult achievement than what he had been claiming! 'Researchers said that the distinct "genetic fingerprint" of the stem cells means they may be the first in the world to be extracted from embryos produced by the so-called "virgin birth" method, or parthenogenesis. This happens when eggs are stimulated into becoming embryos without ever being fertilised by sperm, and has been achieved in animals. However, before Hwang, no one had managed to produce a human embryo using parthenogenesis which lived long enough to allow the extraction of viable stem cells.'"
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Prime Human Cloning Researcher Humiliated 252 comments
Starker_Kull writes "Today, the first scientist to clone human egg cells, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, was forced to resign from his post for 'breaches of ethics'. It appears that the ethical breaches consisted of overzealous assistants who volunteered their own eggs for use. After Dr. Hwang declined the offer, the assistants secretly donated their eggs under false names. After Dr. Hwang discovered the deception, he tried to cover it up to protect his researchers - but the news eventually leaked out."
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Original paper (Score:5, Informative)
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Those darn feminists (Score:5, Funny)
Then all those parallel parking spaces across the world will fall into disuse....wasted real estate....
Parent
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"Soon they will not need men to reproduce, and will begin eliminating us."
You can be sure that someone will try to patent it ... now that they've managed to get the original researcher out of the picture ...
In a related story... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In a related story... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the probabilities are approaching miraculous.
Of course, that would mean that Jesus was genetically Mary's twin brother.
Parent
Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry. You say Chimera and I think FMA.
But seriously, that's a very interesting question. Would that I still had mod points for the day.
Parent
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(so obligatory)
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So that's how Jesus' midi-chlorian level was so high!
Of course, that would mean that Jesus was genetically Mary's twin brother.
So hers were the same level? Now I'm confused.
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Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the perspective of science, parthenogenesis has long been known to be a possible physical explanation for a real-life virgin birth. It's just that up until now, there has been no solid proof that it could happen in humans.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. You can find physical explanations for everything that happens in the universe. That's not the point. If you believe in God, then you must believe that it's his Universe that follows his Laws. Which means that everything that happens has an explanation inside the universe. The only question is, did it happen because an extra-universal God made it happen (some of these events have pretty freaky odds) or because it was simply a big coincidence? That's an answer that science can't provide (at least yet) and where theology comes into play.
Parent
Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Precisely. Which is why it makes *far* more sense to believe the obvious: Mary got pregnant out of wedlock, then came up with a clever little tale so she wouldn't be ostracized.
Honestly, why people turn to magic when simple human behaviour can explain such things, I'll never know.
Parent
Re:Um, sorry to correct the writer but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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I wouldn't be at all surprised. Either way, calling on parthogenesis as possible explanation, given the odds involved, is pretty ridiculous.
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The Jewish scholars who translated and compiled the Hebrew scriptures into a Greek version of the Old Testament, translated almah in Isaiah 7:14 as parthenos, which almost always means "virgin". Since these Jewish scholars were well acquainted with the meaning of the old Hebrew words as well as the Greek, their interpretation (developed hundreds of years before Jesus) should be given special weight.
You can
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Eh? When did Jesus sin? He was tempted by sin, but never gave into it. The Bible is very clear on the fact that he was "a man without blame".
Not a waste of research (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a waste of research (Score:5, Funny)
Then I should publish the 7376528 pickup lines that I know don't work....
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Re:Not a waste of research (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
basically (Score:5, Funny)
cl-0wned!
Woo Suk Hwang Haters... (Score:5, Funny)
have egg on their face now?
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Cruelest...Parents...Evar
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Cruelest...Parents...Evar
Parent
A Better Link (Score:3, Informative)
He was not the first one. (Score:4, Funny)
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Quote from Woo Suk Hwang (Score:5, Funny)
Simple language version (Score:5, Informative)
I'm shooting for the non-geneticist version:
Basic Version:
a normal human cell has 2 copies of 22 non-sex chromosomes, and 2 sex chromosomes. The "copies" are almost certainly NOT identical to one another, but basically similar. These cells are "diploid" (having 2 of each chromosome) and are considered "somatic cells".
During normal reproduction, each person will contribute a "germline cell", an ova or a sperm, in which only 1 copy of each chromosome exists ("haploid"). These germline cells merge to create a "zygote" (which is diploid), which eventually becomes an embryo.
Parthenogenetic reproduction takes a germline cell, and duplicates the genetic material, making a diploid out of a haploid. Such replication happens with normal cells during the process of cell division ("mitosis"), so the real trick is (1) convincing the cell to do this duplication outside the cell division process and (2) convincing the cell that it is no longer a differentiated (specialized) cell, but instead a stem cell.
One interesting result here is that the parthenogenetic cell is NOT a clone of the parent cell - it will have two copies each of ONE of the copies of each chromosome from the parent, determined effectively at random. In some ways this means a parthenogenetic stem cell is less valuable than a cloned stem cell - it will not be a 100% match, though it will not contain any DNA foreign to the donor. In other ways it opens up all sorts of new areas of study.
One particular result is that it opens the opportunity for recessives to be studied. (Chromosomes have genes, each that code various proteins that run the bodies mechanics. Most people will therefore have two copies of every gene (having two copies of the chromosomes). Those genes may not be identical. Some genes only have their effects seen ("express") if there isn't another, different, copy of the gene present, and are called recessives. (blue eyes are a common example: A blue-eyed person has both genes as expressing "blue". Two blue eyed parents, having only the "blue" gene (hah!) to pass on to a child, will have a blue-eyed child (barring mutation). (Of course, the body is a big nasty mess of self-referencing code with lots of gotos, so examples tend to be oversimplified). Anyway, most recessives tend to be fairly rare in expressing, since any dominant gene will cover them up. Many recessives are bad. (Cystic Fibrosis is the most common example: 1 bad gene, okay. 2 bad genes: You die) A parthenogenetic process would allow for the study of recessives because you can take ova from a carrier (someone who has 1 copy of the bad gene), find one with the defective gene, put it through the parthenogenesis process, and bam, able to study the effects free of the presence of any other (different) copy of the gene.
Fun Fact: For 22 Chromosomes, people have two copies of most genes. Sex Chromosomes are not created equal. The X chromosome (every human has 1) has valuable and nifty genes. The Y chromosome (only in men) has very few genes (relatively). As a result, on Men X chromosomes express all recessives, and not on women. (The common example here is red-green colorblindness. Men with a defective gene are out of luck: Color-blind. Women with a defective gene get by if the other copy of the X chromosome has a functioning one. Result: Men are much more likely to be red-green color-blind.
Some papers a few months ago got some press for exploring the possible effects of this. (Men can serve as a "testing ground" for new mutations on the X chromosome, while women can serve as a judge of whether they are valuable without taking on the extra risk. Practiced through natural selection.)
Fun Fact #2: Women's cells don't just function with twice the number of X chromosomes though (We tend to react poorly to extra copies
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Her daughters will only carry a defective gene, but unless the father is also color-blind, the daughters will not be color-blind.
Re:ignorance in need of a cure (Score:5, Informative)
You mean parthenogenic. It means conception of an egg into an embryo without the male sperm (or any other male fertilization).
Yes, in some species, this occurs in nature.
(See? We men aren't useful for much except for fixing cars and hauling around heavy objects.
Because it wasn't previously thought possible.
Parent
Re:ignorance in need of a cure (Score:5, Funny)
(See? We men aren't useful for much except for fixing cars and hauling around heavy objects. ;)
It's a standing joke between my Beloved and I.... "If only cucumbers could mow the grass...."
I hope it's a joke, at least.
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Re:ignorance in need of a cure (Score:5, Funny)
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Unfortunately, they dont even need us for cars [beyondhollywood.com] or lifting [canalblog.com] anymore.
And since us average slashdot readers [jeffpidgeon.com] weren't good for either anyway. what are we gonna do???
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
But seriously. Am I to understand that this guy did something thats amazingly hard to do, and fraudulently claimed he did something else that was easier than what he really did. And if that's so, what is wrong with this guy? Does
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Re:ignorance in need of a cure (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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> Is there a way to derive them other than using eggs?
As a Slashdot reader, I am sure that what you really want to ask is: "can we reproduce without women?". And Dr.Hwang's research has sadly failed to produce an answer to that question so far. Perhaps we should set up a donation site to prod him to research in that direction instead of trying to get women to conceive without men. I am sure that millions of Slashdot readers, and, of course, China, would be immensely gratef
Re:Jesus? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe, but only if Mary had a Y chromosome.
Parent
Re:Jesus? (Score:5, Funny)
"He" did have awfully long hair.
Parent
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Yes, now you too can have your own personal Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares, someone whos there...
(Strangely, I now feel like I have a Depeche Mode beating in my immediate future)
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I think that's the funniest use of that joke I've seen.
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>>Hwang achieves parthogenesis...
>>There's a joke in there, but I just can't put my finger on it...
I've got it! - Normally, you don't NEED a hwang to achieve parthenogenesis!
Re:Doom (Score:4, Insightful)
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