Phoney “cloning pioneer” plans a cloning animal factory
Seoul (AsiaNews) – After trying to clone the extinct mammoth and fabricating evidence to claim that he could clone human embryonic stem cells, “cloning pioneer” Hwang Woo-suk is at it again.
Together with the Chinese bioengineering company Yingke Boya Gene Technology Ltd., his new adventure entails building the world’s largest cloning factory in the Chinese city of Tianjin.
The complex is expected to open next year, and include a cloning laboratory, a cloned animal centre, and a gene bank. For the Chinese partner, the price tag comes at 200 million yuan (US$ 33 million).
“The biggest goal of this project is to supply large quantities of high-quality beef from cloned cattle to Chinese consumers,” said Boyalife Group chairman Xu Xiaochun, who added that other cloning activities would include “cloning of police dogs for explosive and drug detection and rescue operations”.
Hwang Woo-suk is famous for deceiving the international scientific community with claims that he had cloned human stem cells.
Once considered a "national hero" in his native South Korea, he fell out of favour in 2005 when the international scientific community and Seoul National University (SNU) exposed his research on embryonic stem cells as a fraud, based on fabricated evidence suggesting that healthy cells from people suffering from diseases currently incurable could be cloned.
In 2006, during his trial, the "cloning pioneer" admitted to using state funds to buy tissue samples of mammoth from the Russian mafia.
In 2012, the veterinarian worked with Russian researchers in an attempt to clone the extinct mammal, using cells taken from frozen carcasses discovered in Russia’s Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. However, this proved a fiasco with the "scientist" even filing a complaint against his collaborators.
Many experts are unconvinced by Hwang’s work.
SNU veterinary medicine professor Woo Hee-jong noted that cloned animals suffer from various side effects, including faster aging and greater disease susceptibility than ordinary animals.
“Since we haven’t tested the safety of having people eat them, the European Parliament banned the sale of meat from cloned livestock,” he noted.
Woo also questioned the economic feasibility of the plan. “Animal cloning is tremendously expensive, with one pet costing around 100 million won (US,300),” he said. “Who’s going to buy cattle that are that expensive?”
Ryu Young-joon agrees. A professor at the Kangwon National University medical school, Ryu noteda that cloning is “extremely expensive because almost everything has to be done by hand, from the extraction of eggs by trained staff to the development of fertilized eggs and implantation in the womb.”
“Beyond any question of the side effects from eating it, it just doesn’t make economic sense,” Ryu said.
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