That’ll Leave a Mark

I haven’t been terribly interested in this story, but this caught my attention:

The downfall of Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean scientist vilified for faking his papers, holds a lesson for developing countries rushing into cutting-edge life science: Do not try to clone human cells the way you churn out cars and computer chips, experts in science regulation said Wednesday.
. . . .

In hindsight, analysts say, it is clear that a hard-driven researcher used – and was used by – a government desperate to generate a vision for a nation whose chronic insecurity among big neighbors was deepening in economic doldrums and a North Korean nuclear crisis.

The reporter is the IHT’s Choe Sang Hun.