It came as a shock last year when former Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo Suk's claims that he had created stem cells by cloning human embryos turned out to be fraudulent. A recent case at Waseda University in Tokyo is no less surprising, although it mainly concerns the irregular use of research funds.
At the center of the scandal is professor Kazuko Matsumoto, 56, a member of the department of chemistry at the university's School of Science and Engineering. The irregularities are related to research funds totaling 360 million yen that the government gave her over a five-year period through fiscal 2003 for gene analysis and other projects.
Waseda's investigation committee has found that Ms. Matsumoto had the university transfer more than 30 million yen to the bank accounts of students who she said worked part-time on her projects. She then had the students transfer 14.72 million yen of this money to her bank account. Next she placed 9 million yen of this money in an investment trust. No records exist showing that the students had actually been employed by her.