Stem cell scientist gets award

The Ministry of Science and Technology announced yesterday that it chose Seoul National University geneticist Hwang Woo-suk as Korea’s top scientist. Mr. Hwang is the first to be honored under a new Science Ministry program that selects up to 10 of the nation’s most accomplished scientists and provides them with additional research funding. The award grants him 3 billion won ($3 million) annually for his research over the next five years. Mr. Hwang, a veterinary professor, re-entered the international spotlight in May after developing a method of obtaining stem cells from cloned human embryos, an achievement widely hailed as a major step toward patient-specific therapeutic uses of stem cells. Other candidates this year included Shin Hee-sup, a researcher at Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and Seoul National physics professors Kim Jihn-eui and Noh Tae-won. by Park Bang-ju