OKAY, SO MAYBE CHRISTOPHER REEVE WON'T WALK THIS YEAR....:

Collaborator says Korean cloning pioneer admitted faking stem cell results (Burt Herman, 12/15/05, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a broadcast Thursday that the South Korean scientist agreed to withdraw a key research paper because most of the stem cells produced for the article were faked.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

In a separate report, a former researcher told MBC that Hwang ordered him to fabricate photos to make it appear there were 11 separate colonies from only three.

"This is something I shouldn't have done," said the researcher, who was identified only by his last name, Kim, and whose face was not shown. "I had no choice but to do it."

Nine of the embryonic stem cell lines Hwang claimed were cloned in the paper were faked, Roh said, and the authenticity of the other two was unknown.