The National Committee on Bioethics Deliberation will review the stem cell research of cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk to see if legal or ethical violations were committed.

Committee chairman Yang Sam-seung on Tuesday said the state body will ask for documents and opinions from Hwang's research team, MizMedi Hospital, which provided human eggs to him, and the institutional review boards of the hospitals at Hanyang and Seoul National universities.

The review will conclude on December 13th with a plenary session.

Hwang last week admitted to using ova donated from his staff and resigned from all of his official posts.

The Seoul daily Joongang Ilbo on Tuesday also reported that American researcher Gerald Schatten might have broken off ties with Hwang after being refused half of the patent rights in joint stem cell research.

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