Hwang Woo-suk, South Korea’s most renowned stem cell scientist, on Friday strongly denied claims made by one of his close collaborators that he fabricated parts of his pioneering research on cloning human embryos.

Speaking to a televised news conference, Prof Hwang reaffirmed that his research team created 11 cloned embryonic stem cell lines, which could potentially be used to grow patient-specific cells for sufferers of diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.