The whistle blower in the South Korean stem cell research fraud scandal has today been questioned by prosecutors, Reuters reports.

Roh Sung-il was director of a fertility clinic in Seoul, and together with disgraced Professor Hwang Woo-suk was a co-author of one of the discredited research papers.

Key data was fabricated in work that claimed to have made breakthroughs in human therapeutic cloning.

Once revered as a national hero, Hwang and his team are now the subject of a criminal investigation into the misuse of state funds. The professor has also been accused of ethical misconduct in coercing female employees to donate eggs to his research.

Having claimed he has the victim of a conspiracy, public opinion in South Korea turned against Hwang after television appearances by Roh in December claiming Hwang's work had produced no cloned embryos.

Prosecutors told Korean news agency Yonhap: “We decided that to figure out the truth of the case, we needed to summon Roh.” They plan to question Hwang soon.®

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