The Science and Technology Ministry will look into the controversy over how the research team of cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk obtained human eggs for experiments.

The ministry on Monday said it will find out what really happened in his lab.

The ministry's move comes after leading American researcher Gerald Schatten announced Sunday that he was ending his partnership with Hwang, citing ethical violations in how the team obtained human eggs.

A ministry official, however, said Hwang's research involved nothing illegal, citing the findings of an internal ethics committee before a law banning the buying and selling of human eggs went into effect on January 1st.