Professor Hwang Woo-suk says he will make a statement at the earliest date possible on the recent controversy over how he obtained human eggs for his stem cell research.

Upon returning home from San Francisco early Thursday, the Seoul National University professor told reporters that he would issue a statement shortly after an internal ethics investigation is concluded, but stopped short of giving a specific date.

Hwang visited the U.S. city earlier this week to receive this year's World Technology Award for biotechnology.

Asked if he had met with American scientist Gerald Schatten during his stay in the U.S., Hwang avoided giving a direct answer, saying only that he would release details at a later time.

The Korean stem cell pioneer and his team were thrown into confusion in the wake of Schatten's abrupt termination of his partnership with Hwang last weekend.

Schatten announced earlier on Saturday that he was ending his 20-month collaboration with the Korean team because he had reason to believe the stem cell researchers had misled him regarding the source of some two-hundred-40 eggs used in their experiments.