Gerald Schatten

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Gerald P. Schatten is a stem cell researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. His research during the last years has mainly focused on human reproduction and development and on the potential molecular medical therapies that use stem cell and gene therapy.

In 2005, Gerald Schatten came to widespread media attention when he broke off his 20 month collaboration with Hwang Woo-suk, a Korean stem cell researcher. In an interview, Schatten commented that "my decision is grounded solely on concerns regarding oocyte (egg) donations in Dr. Hwang's research reported in 2004."

This event led to a chain reaction of events, which has culminated in close scrutiny of the scientific validity of his joint work with Hwang. He has requested that the editors of Science remove his name from a joint paper he wrote with Hwang (and 23 other co-authors) in June 2005. While the journal normally requires requests from all the authors of a paper, the article will be retracted in any case, because of the situation. [1]

He had previously run afoul of controversy twice before in the1990s when it was found out that he had used eggs obtained illegally by University of California researchers and at the University of Wisconsin. [2].

In 2003 Gerald Schatten and Ian Wilmut wrote a short comment in the Science (journal), entitled: "Cloning claim is science not science fiction", volume 299, page 344, in which they warned others to "provide evidence (of cloning) or keep silent".

They had prefaced this warning with their own claim that "legitimate (themselves) scientists submit evidence, sufficiently substantial to withstand rigorous review" and emphasized how the protocols used in cloning experiment should be described in detail.

This comment now seems hypocritical as Gerald Schatten has admitted being on a scientific paper without contributing any scientific input whatsoever and Ian Wilmut has admitted, under oath, that the bulk of the credit for cloning should go to a Keith Campbell. [3].

Because the controversies surrounding his collaboration with Hwang Woo-Suk, Dr. Schatten was the subject of an investigation by his university, which was finished in February 2006. The investigation committee concluded that Gerald Schatten was not guilty of scientific misconduct because he had not known of the fraudulent data in their 2005 paper and because he reacted swiftly when he discovered the severe problems with the paper. The committee, however, thought it was troublesome that Dr. Schatten was not more familiar with the data in both the 2005 Science paper and the paper describing cloning of the dog Snuppy, of which he also was a co-author. In the first case, Dr. Schatten may have become suspіcious of the data had he paid more attention and in the second case, his only contribution (according to himself) was the suggestion that a professional photographer be hired to photograph the cloned dog. Because Dr. Schatten apparently took significant credit (being a co-author on these high impact papers) for only small contribtions, the committee did accuse him of scientific misbehavior. Whether or not Dr. Schatten will face any discplinary actions is up to the board of the University and is currently unknown.

Sought by Seoul prosecution

It was reported in the Seoul Times that Gerald Schatten is being sought by the prosecution in the case of Hwang Woo-Suk and the fabrication of stem cell results. According to this report Gerald Schatten had failed to reply to the prosecution's request made as long as as January 2006. [4]