While Professor Hwang is clearly recognized in coverage of this event as the team leader and the person most responsible (and deserving of credit) for this achievement,
Gerald P. Schatten, Ph.D., is clearly running a close second in the race for prominence in this story.
According to his
bio on the "Our Experts" page of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center News Bureau:
"One of the country’s leading reproductive and developmental scientists, Dr. Gerald Schatten is vice chair for research development and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and cell biology and physiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and deputy director for biotechnology development at the university-affiliated Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI).
"He leads the Pittsburgh Development Center (PDC), which focuses on developmental, reproductive and molecular medicine research from preconception through birth."
When Professor Hwang Woo-suk's team announced its claim about successful human cloning in February, 2004, Dr. Schatten was quoted in the
New Scientist article about that announcement:
"This is a spectacular discovery. This group deserves tremendous credit for this heroic achievement," says Gerald Schatten, director of the Pittsburgh Development Center at the Magee-Womens Research Institute. His team had published a widely cited article arguing that primates would be extremely hard to clone."
In an article in today's
Korea Times entitled
"Hwang Clones Patient-Specific Stem Cells", staff reporter Kim Tae-gyu writes:
"Professor Hwang said: 'We are bringing science a step forward towards the day when some of humankind’s most devastating diseases and injuries can be treated through the use of therapeutic stem cells.'
"His colleague, Professor Gerry Schatten, of the University of Pittsburgh, said: 'Now that Professor Hwang is able to derive cells from patients, we can understand the root cause of their diseases. The implication of this is extraordinary.'"
In an article published today on the
Richmond Times-Dispatch's
TimesDispatch.com web site, its staff writer A.J. Hostetler writes, in reference to the scientific paper prepared by Professor Hwang's research team announcing their latest breakthrough:
"'We think this paper adds tremendously to the scientific foundation,' said Gerald Schatten, a University of Pittsburgh cloning researcher who served as an adviser for the paper."
Dr. Schatten was prominently featured in tonight's segment, reported by
NBC Nightly News' Chief Health and Science Correspondent Robert Bazell about Dr. Hwang's work.
An April 11, 2003 article in
ScienceDaily entitled
"Failures In Primate Cloning May Signal Impossibility Of Human Reproductive Cloning" reported:
"Fundamental flaws in embryonic development may make therapeutic cloning of nonhuman primates difficult, and reproductive cloning of primates – nonhuman and human alike – impossible, a team of researchers from the Pittsburgh Development Center reports in this week's issue of the journal Science. Basic molecular obstacles were observed that blocked normal cell development despite using four different techniques of nuclear transfer, according to Gerald P. Schatten, Ph.D., senior author of the study and director of the Pittsburgh Development Center at the Magee-Womens Research Institute."
But in an October 21, 2004, article in
news@nature.com entitled
"Biologists come close to cloning primates—cloned monkey embryos transferred into mothers," by Helen Pearson, the reporter writes:
"US biologists have created cloned monkey embryos, and successfully transferred them into monkey mothers. Although none of the resulting pregnancies lasted more than a month, this is by far the closest scientists have come to cloning a primate.
"The study was unveiled yesterday by reproductive biologist Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Philadelphia. Schatten's group copied a technique used earlier this year to clone a human embryo and extract embryonic stem cells."
The article says that the change in fortune in Dr. Schatten's lab came "by adopting the Koreans' technique," as reported above.
