Posted on behalf of David Cyranoski

On Monday 8 June, the Jang Yeong-sil Memorial Foundation wanted to give cloning expert Woo Suk Hwang an award for scientific excellence. But according to The Korea Herald, Hwang had another appointment – with the Seoul district court that is still, after more than 3 years, trying to figure out if his scientific fraud is legally actionable.

An official from the foundation said, “Even though he is on trial, we have made our decision by considering his achievements in the embryonic stem-cell development and his success in cloning dogs.” One might contest both those points. Investigation into Hwang’s embryonic stem-cell research left little to believe in after picking away the layers of fabrication.

And the successful dog cloning is largely credited to another scientist, Byeong Chun Lee, who was also at the hearing and, like Hwang, is under investigation for fraud related to their previous experiments.

Lee and Hwang have since ended up on opposite sides of another court case – over the patents related to dog cloning.