11-yr-old victim of stem cell research’s biggest scandal

The boy who became known as ‘Donor 2’ was propped up in a wheelchair when a team of scientists strolled into his hospital room nea...

The boy who became known as ‘Donor 2’ was propped up in a wheelchair when a team of scientists strolled into his hospital room nearly three years ago. The boy, 9-year-old Kim Hyeoni, had been hit by a car the previous year and was now paralysed from the neck. ‘‘Sir, will I be able to walk again?’’ he asked the leader of the team, a South Korean veterinarian named Hwang Woo Suk, according to an account by his father. ‘‘I will make you walk. I promise,’’ replied Hwang, who would soon afterward announce a breakthrough in the cloning of human stem cells.

With that meeting in April 2003, Hyeoni became a poster boy in the quest to use cloned stem cells for treatments of spinal injuries. His father, a Methodist minister, defied the beliefs of his fellow church members and faced abuse for allowing Hwang to cut skin samples from his son’s abdomen for the research. His mother, a nurse, volunteered to have her eggs extracted to donate to Hwang’s laboratory. Now the family is faced with the realisation that ‘‘it was all a big lie,’’ said Kim Je Eon, the boy’s 43-year-old father.

The family’s saga—becoming victims in one of the biggest science scandals of all time—captures at its most vivid the disappointment felt by millions around the world. Not only has much of Hwang’s work proved to be a fabrication, the scandal surrounding him is believed to have set back legitimate research for years.

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Before his accident, Hyeoni was something of a troublemaker, but an excellent student just the same. As is common for many South Korean children, he was sent to cram schools late at night and on weekends to further his academic performance. On August 26, 2002, at 11 pm, Hyeoni was crossing the street on his way home from cram school when he was hit by a car.

The following year, doctors at Gil Medical Center in nearby Incheon informed Kim that his son had been chosen from a group of paralysed patients as a participant in Hwang’s research into creating the first cloned human embryo for therapeutic purposes.

‘‘With this man’s help, you will be able to go back to school,’’ Kim recalled telling his son. Hwang was apparently moved as well. ‘‘Something about that boy stabbed me in the heart,’’ Hwang told Jeong Ha Gyun, the president of the Korean Spinal Cord Injury Association.

Hyeoni’s case appeared in a now-discredited paper published last May in the US-based Science magazine in which Hwang claimed to have produced genetically matching stem cell lines from 11 patients. Hyeoni is the only one whose name has been made public. Hwang, who was fond of displaying a photo of him and Hyeoni, told people the boy would be the first in line when his research was advanced for stem cells to be injected into a human.

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Seoul National University reported last month that Hwang had not created stem cells for the boy or for any other patients and that his May 2005 report was an ‘‘intentional fabrication.’’ On Tuesday, the university is to release its finding on Hwang’s earlier claims of creating the first cloned human embryo and the first cloned dog.

Kim says he will forgive Hwang if he continues his research, toiling away in poverty and obscurity to find treatments for incurable diseases. ‘‘That would be the appropriate penance,’’ he said. — LAT-WP

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