A South Korean renowned university announced Friday the formation of a special panel to examine the authenticity of the stem cell research led by its visiting professor Hwang Woo-suk who is in the center of controversy.

Chung Myung-hee, who teaches basic medicine at Seoul National University (SNU), will lead the 9-member committee, Roe Jung-hye, head of the research affairs office at the SNU, said in a press conference.

The special panel will be comprised of seven SNU professors and two experts from other local universities, she said.

She also said a foreign expert could join the panel that will review the authenticity of Hwang's work.

"We have the capability to conduct the verification, but foreign participation can be sought to raise the international credibility of the results," she said in the televised press conference.

Roe also said it will not take long time to verify the authenticity of Hwang's research.

The ad hoc panel will make cooperation during the investigation with international scientific institutions, such as the US-based University of Pittsburgh, according to Roe.

The University of Pittsburgh said it is in the process of conducting its own probe on the suspicious surrounding Hwang's paper published in May in the famous journal of Science.

A professor from the American university, Gerald Schatten, worked closely with Hwang before he severed ties last month.

Roe added that the role of the fact-finding panel is to get to the bottom of the uproar, and, if the need arises, ask any people who made mistakes to take responsibility.

Roe also reiterated the panel will not receive any interview from media during the probing.

The press conference comes amid growing suspicions over the validity of Hwang's paper published in Science magazine in May.

On Thursday, local media widely reported a co-author of Hwang's paper on stem cell research alleged Hwang fabricated partial images of the embryonic stem cells described in Hwang's paper.

In May this year, Hwang's team announced in the paper published in Science that it had successfully cloned 11 different stem cells tailored to individual patients, paving the way for future development of therapies for hard-to-cure diseases.

Source: Xinhua