The
Office of Research Integrity has
penalized another stem cell researcher for misconduct - specifically, falsifying images in an unpublished manuscript. The scientist, Jong-hyuk Park, was working as postdoc under the supervision of
Gerald Schatten at the University of Pittsburgh at the time of the incident, and was a former colleague of South Korea’s Woo-suk Hwang, who has
admitted to falsifying his work on human embryonic stem cells.
Last week, Park was
found guilty of deliberately falsifying photographic images in an unpublished manuscript circulated to his laboratory colleagues, and attempting to destroy the evidence of his misconduct. He has been barred from applying or receiving federal grants, contracts, or loans for three years.
According to the
Federal Register, Park “intentionally and knowingly” falsified different versions of two figures in a paper he was preparing for submission to
Nature, entitled “Rhesus Embryonic Stem Cells Established by Nuclear Transfer: Tetraploid ESCs Differ from Fertilized Ones.” Park “repeatedly misrepresented” the accuracy of one of the figures to a University of Pittsburgh investigative panel, and deleted prior versions of the figures from his laboratory server to eliminate the record of revisions.
