Who have to insist on the first in genomics

SNU and Macrogen team insist on their second Korean genome to be the first one in Korea.

The first full length Korean genome data have been publically available since 4th Dec. 2008 by the national bioinformatics center of Korea (KOBIC). However, medical doctors of Seoul University Medical School and Macrogen Inc. kept insisting on that they were the first to sequence the whole length genome of a Korean. They have been sending press releases and even the president of KOGO (Korean Genome Organization) expressed an opinion that SNU Medical School and Macrogen team's sequencing was the first. The second Korean genome was sequenced by the two Korean teams and analyzed by a US team. Obvsiouly, the Korean teams did not have capability to map and analyze the large short read sequencing data. Also, their sequencing results are not available anywhere in the sites including the URL listed in their Nature Letter paper on 8th July.

Whatever the intension, it is simply wrong and unscientific to insist on such a false claim. Korea has a long way to go toward acceptably scientific since the exposure of falsehood by Prof. Hwang Woo-Suk who was SNU vet. medical school professor and claimed falsely on major achievements in stem cell research.

- Galilei