All language subtitles for King.of.Clones.2023.KOREAN.720p1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]-English

[mysterious music]

[beeping]

[dogs barking]

[murmurs]

Our care facility.

They are all

cloned... cloned dogs.

[Dr. Wolpe] You don't get any more
of a story of success

all the way to miracle healing
than Dr. Hwang.

[David] It was not only
a scientific breakthrough,

but it was a political one,

and that is what caught the attention
of both the scientists and the world.

[man 1] South Korea will be

an economic power
100 years faster than planned.

[Dr. Wolpe] The promise was that people
who were paralyzed would walk again,

and people who are dying from diseases
would have those diseases in remission.

[Prof. Chin] At that time, it was huge.

"Finally, Koreans are the world's best!"

[dogs barking]

[enigmatic synth music]

[male reporter 1] First, we have
shocking and devastating news.

[female reporter 1] Disgraced
stem cell researcher, Hwang Woo-suk,

has been sentenced
to one year and six months in prison

and two years of probation.

[male reporter 2] The scientist has gone
from Jesus to Lucifer.

[female reporter 2] When science is seen
as this thing that can save us,

what are the consequences of scientists
taking advantage of that?

[Dr. Wolpe] The story becomes
a really important one to tell,

in the understanding of both

the heights that a misguided attention
to the wrong things

like fame and money can bring you to

and then the depths that profound
ethical violations can drop you to.

[music swells, fades]

[rhythmic Arabic music]

[singing in Arabic] ♪ The audience's hopes
And ambitions are high ♪

[Dr. Wolpe in English] We started
selectively breeding animals

many, many thousands of years ago.

But something much, much more powerful
is happening now.

For the first time
in the history of this planet,

we are able to directly design organisms.

We can manipulate the plasms of life
with unprecedented power.

It's not science fiction.

It is theoretically possible
that before too long,

we will be biotechnologically capable
of creating human beings

that glow in the dark.

How many camels
have you cloned from these?

Uh...

More than 150.

[Dr. Wolpe] Science often gallops
way ahead of the ethics.

Good intentions is never an excuse
for bad behavior.

Look what happened to Dr. Hwang.

The fact that he was trying to do
something for the good of everybody

does not excuse such profound misbehavior.

He's sitting on top of the world,

he's done something
no other human being has done,

and then he takes
the complete fall and collapse.

I mean, it is a story
for the ages in some ways.

Humans made to order.

Mothers giving birth to themselves.

Babies conceived just so
their body parts can be transplanted.

Come with me
into the scary new world of cloning.

["Morning Dew" by Yang Hee-eun playing]

[in Korean]
♪ When sorrows form in my heart ♪

♪ Drop by drop ♪

♪ In the morning, I climb up a hill... ♪

[Dr. Hwang in English] Living here,
in the middle of this desert,

day to day,

month to month,

listening to this type of music,

it gives me a lot of meaning

to each aspect of my life.

[song continues in Korean]
♪ The sweltering midday heat ♪

♪ Is a trial for me ♪

♪ I am going now ♪

♪ Going into the barren wilderness ♪

♪ Leaving my sorrows behind ♪

♪ I am going now ♪

[in English]
And perhaps in the eyes of others,

there's just as much pain
as there is glory

in the history of Korea.

Uh...

And in what I chose to do

throughout my career in my past.

[Dr. Hwang] But unfortunately,

those things cannot be erased.

That was who I was.

[soft music]

[Dr. Hwang] This is the...

reception area of the main building.

The portraits you are looking at
are of the key leaders of the UAE.

[Dr. Hwang] Sheikh Zayed,

the current president is Sheikh Khalifa,

uh...

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed,

our big boss, Sheikh Mansour.

- [Dr. Hwang] Welcome!
- [man 2] Hello!

- [Dr. Hwang] How are you?
- Fine, how are you?

Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

- [Dr. Hwang] Thank you for coming.
- How are you?

- [Dr. Hwang] Okay, I'm good.
- [man 2] Very good. Thanks.

[Dr. Hwang] I suppose you could say I had...

a lot of nicknames.

I was once called the best lecturer

at Seoul National University.

At one point,

I was also considered

a national embarrassment.

And I was treated as such.

I'm sure they are
fully aware of everything I've done

in this country as well.

But even after everything,

they are still ready to fully support me.

When we get

one cell from your camel...

So you start to work with the skin only?

- [Dr. Hwang] Mainly, not only.
- [man 2] That's...

[Dr. Hwang]
But the best portion is the skin.

[rumbling]

Quite a good scene, isn't it?

One man crazy,

three very sane spectators.

[thunder roars]

[Dr. Wolpe] First, we have to understand
what cloning actually is.

You take an egg,

and you take the nucleus out of the egg.

Then you take a body cell
from the individual you want to clone.

It could be a skin cell, it could be
a liver cell, it could be any cell,

and you take the nucleus out of that cell,

and you put it into the egg.

And now what you have is an egg
that looks a lot like a fertilized egg,

because our body cells have all the DNA
we need to be an individual.

Now the question is,
can you get that egg to start reproducing?

[rumbling]

[Dr. Wolpe] When we use electricity,
just like in Frankenstein,

we give it a little jolt of electricity,

and it begins to split

and become an organism.

That's cloning at its most basic.

It's alive.

It's alive.

It's alive! It's alive!

It's alive!

[enigmatic music]

[Dr. Hwang]
Actually, today is the due day.

Night, huh? Tonight, huh?

God willing.

In this place, we have a total of

six cloned baby camels.

Amongst them,

the black ones are beauty camels.

Next, the baby that was born yesterday,

and the white camel over there
are both racing camels.

And, uh... today,

or possibly sometime tonight,

a third racing camel will be born.

[Dr. Hwang] The baby is coming now.

[Dr. Hwang] Among those criticizing
cloning technology,

some say that cloning is wrong,

that it is interfering with
the will of God,

and with the process of natural creation.

Some even say it's an attempt to play God.

Cloning is not that kind of technology.

No. What cloning is... is a genetic copy.

We cannot simply create DNA
out of a vacuum.

One might say
that history has already proved it.

In this world,

has there ever been a Frankenstein?

No, not yet, right?

[Dr. Hwang]
Every time I see such a creature,

I feel the greatness
of science and technology.

It is a sense of awe at how much
science and technology

have contributed to humanity.

I take pride in
our science and technology.

This is what I feel.

[brays]

- So only one embryo, yeah? Not two.
- [female researcher] Just one.

[Dr. Tinson] Alex Tinson's my name.

I'm an Australian veterinarian
who started out

wanting to be a zoo vet
and ended up being a camel specialist.

[brays]

I was working at one of these
old-fashioned lion safari sort of places.

♪ It's the African Lion Safari... ♪

[Dr. Tinson] Believe it or not,
we had a few, sort of, disasters there

in terms of the lions and tigers
eating people.

♪ It's scary, but nobody cares! ♪

I nearly got eaten
a couple of times myself, I must say.

And in the end, the place got closed down.

Going, single embryo.

[Dr. Tinson] In those days,
after you've been a vet for a year or two,

you literally went and knocked up
your shingle somewhere and said,

"Right, I'm a vet, come and see me,"
you know?

These days, there's a lot more regulation.

I came to the Middle East for two years,

and 35 years later, I'm still here.

My daughter's married to an Emirati whose...
a lot of the relatives

are camel racers,
so I look after my relatives' camels.

But I guess pretty much from day one,

I always felt that my personal interest
was the breeding side.

We had a camel called Mabrukan.

He was a show camel,

and he was big, he was black.

People laugh at me about beauty camels.

How do you rate a good-looking bulldog?

How do you rate, uh, you know,
best in show and crafts?

It's the same thing. You got a committee.

They judge the height,
the color, the ease, position,

how it walks.

[indistinct announcement]

Mabrukan was just the biggest,

most amazing, expensive camel we ever had.

He was the first camel to get
a 10 out of 10 beauty score.

Never happened before.

He was literally the size of a dinosaur.

When I was standing
next to him to take blood,

his head was like this, you know.

You felt like you were
taking blood from a T-Rex.

He was magnificent,
but he was also very dangerous, you know?

Because he was
ridiculously big and strong.

He had teeth the size of a lion,

and he was a bit grumpy.

He was just a logistical nightmare

because of his size,

because of his value.

I mean, he was five million US dollars
when he was bought.

One of the other ruling families
from another country

offered, I think, in excess of
20 million dollars for the camel.

And His Highness refused.
He said, "No, not for sale."

We were trying to breed him a bit.

And he was a real headache

because you'd bring
the best-looking camels to him,

he wasn't interested in those.
He liked the scrubbers.

The ones that didn't look that...
I don't know. It was bloody hopeless.

Anyhow, one day,
I was with a whole lot of friends in Rome,

- and we went to this restaurant.
- [phone rings]

So I get the phone call.

The bloke on the other end says,
"Mabrukan's dead."

And I'm just...

I'm sitting there, dead silent.

And then I stood up and I said,

"Cut out his testicles!

Get some skin! Put them in the fridge!

I'll be back tonight."

And then we forgot about it for ten years.

[upbeat music]

[Dr. Ruebben] Some people say
cloning is only for rich people.

It is no doubt expensive.

But I will take my last money

to clone my dog.

Csillo is a French bulldog,

and they've got a special geometry
of the face, more like a human.

Csillo comes from the name Csillag.

It's Hungarian for "star."

And he was, for me,
the star of my life, actually.

So that's why I called him Csillo.

[dog barking]

[Dr. Ruebben]
It is a very deep relationship

because we interact very much.

And he took part in the family.

He put me, for example, to bed.

So when I was looking TV in the night,

and he thought,
"Oh, it's too late, I must sleep,"

he came to me to bring me to, to the bed.

So that's why I think
he's like an older brother.

He really gives me support, I think,
and the laugh.

The laugh, I think, is the biggest thing
he gave me because

when I went away, he was crying.

His mood changed.

The more days I was away,

the more he got nervous,
the more he got sad.

And when I saw that he had
this lymph nodule at his neck,

I understood it was something serious.

You could see that his life was
in a bad shape.

He was suffering a lot.

I knew cloning is possible.

And then I was thinking,
"Yes, I want to clone Csillo."

It would be a wonderful thing to see.

I started to do research,

where I could contact, who was doing it.

There are some companies
who can do some steps,

but not further processing.

And the Americans were quite easygoing.

They'd say, "We do cloning.
Quite good success rate."

But when I was researching
about Dr. Hwang,

I found out that
he had got a huge experience

and that he was like a pioneer in this.

[male reporter 3] Let us now introduce
the cloned calf.

This is "super calf."

[female reporter 3] The cry
of the cloned calf was

healthy and strong when it was born.

[mooing]

[mooing]

[female reporter 3] After eight years
of research, Professor Hwang's team

created the cloned calf
using cell nuclear transfer techniques

in his lab at Seoul National University.

When it's ready to be applied
to domestic livestock farms in Korea,

there will be huge savings on imports
of about 700 billion won,

creating added value
of about 1,500 billion won per year.

[Prof. Ryu] At the time,
the public did not know who he was.

He was merely a simple professor
from Seoul National University.

Since calves were expensive,
it was breaking news

when Hwang Woo-suk succeeded in cloning.

So government officials arranged a meeting

between the president at the time
and Hwang Woo-suk.

Hwang Woo-suk, a professor
at Seoul National University,

was allowed to meet him.

This was a special occasion

as regular citizens could never meet
the president.

Not even if they were
distinguished scientists.

[applause]

He had numbers in the hundreds of,
of cows that he was cloning

and, uh, other, other animals.

He, he wanted to clone a, um,
a Korean tiger.

And the Korean tiger is very symbolic.

He was describing it as a way to get
North Korea and South Korea

to come together
because it was their common heritage.

They had this endangered species,
and he wanted to be able to clone it.

He thought that

if a North Korean tiger,
a gift from the north,

could be cloned using
South Korean technology,

there would be
no greater scientific event.

Hwang did not hesitate.

He grasped the opportunity.

Hearing about the process
to clone a Korean tiger,

it sounds technically complicated.

Could a tiger be successfully cloned?

Yes, I am hoping that by the year 2000.

I will succeed
in cloning the Korean tiger.

[anchor] Thank you.

With this claim,

he knew he could garner
the attention of the public,

and raise research funds.

At that time,

there were no "Korean tigers"
in South Korea.

They had gone extinct,
as the last remaining tigers,

the breeding tigers, had failed,
so to speak.

From the Pyongyang Zoo in North Korea,

the last two Korean tigers who were
still alive,

one male and one female,

were sent to South Korea

in a sort of animal exchange program.

In the beginning,

the easiest egg to, uh, to obtain
was the pig egg.

Compared to other animal eggs,

it's easy to use them for surrogates.

So at first,

we used the Korean tiger donor cell

and injected it right into the pig egg.

Afterwards, we took it to the next level,

which was to use the cow egg.

And after that,

once we'd confirmed
that initial development was possible

using the pig and the cow,

we moved on to using domestic cats.

At this time, we used, um,

the tiger and the lion.

We used each of the animals
as surrogate mothers.

One of the lions developed a... a hernia.

So after the implantation,
the wound didn't heal,

and there were complications.

We observed that the intestines...

The innards came out and ultimately,
the animal perished.

That is when we stopped the experiment.

This is what science is.

And some might think it reckless,

but in science, you can't ignore a path
just because it's reckless.

Through the process,

there are trials.

But again, we obtain scientific data,

so nothing goes to waste.
We make sure of it.

[male reporter 2] Scientists
in South Korea have, for the first time,

successfully cloned a dog.

[female reporter 1] It is an Afghan Hound,
and as of today, it is 101 days old.

Dr. Hwang's team has declared
the dog's cloning a success

and it is seen as the peak
of animal cloning research.

The name of
the world's first cloned dog is Snuppy.

The name is Seoul National University's
English acronym

and the word "puppy" put together.

[male reporter 4] Researchers say
the puppy is healthy and normal.

American researchers
had tried for a long time

to take on the difficult task
of cloning a puppy

named Missy.

But they had repeatedly failed.

[Dr. Wolpe] We bred dogs so much

that their genomes
were very fragile in certain ways.

That made them difficult to clone.

He was a very skilled scientist.

So it wasn't a surprise to
the scientific community that he did it.

I mean, people were surprised only because
they didn't know who would be first.

It was a race.

I believe that in this case,

our success sends a...

message to others
in the bioengineering world

and cloning field.

And it is not a small one.

The fact that we can successfully
clone dogs is not a small feat.

Because it means
if we are given the opportunity,

and the necessary conditions required,

we can believe that cloning
almost any other animal is possible.

Dr. Hwang had a lot of funding.

He had a lot of fancy machines

and micromanipulators
that are used to manipulate the eggs.

He had technicians who he claimed
had special training with their hands.

"Chopstick-trained hands."

[male reporter 5] About 30 researchers
in Professor Hwang's team work,

on average, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The "chopstick technique"

which involves removing the nucleus
from an egg in a split second,

is a technique that is mindboggling
to bioengineers around the world.

Foreigners have slower hands, so...

Let's say we do 100 an hour,
they manage fewer than us.

One day,

I heard from the UAE government

that there used to be a symbolic camel
in their country named Mabrukan,

but 10 years ago, it suddenly died.

They asked me

what the possibility
of cloning Mabrukan was.

So I told them,

"The probability is
less than one percent."

One day, we were told literally
to come to the conference room.

In walked Prof. Hwang with his team.

And, if I'm really honest,

did I really think
we were gonna clone him? No.

I thought we could get
some individual sperm

into sperm injection and get an offspring.

[mysterious music]

[Dr. Hwang] At last,

11 years after its death,

11 cloned Mabrukans were born
from this science.

[Dr. Tinson] Ten Mabrukans.

[camels braying]

They are now living here in the UAE

as extremely treasured subjects.

When the brain function...

and the heartbeat come to a halt,

those are considered to be
some of the early signs of death,

but we think otherwise.

Forget about medical death.

We do not think
an organism is totally dead

until the body cell
no longer has the potential

to be cultured as a cell line.

In this line of work,

that is our definition of death.

Our research has proved to us
time and time again,

that a single cell itself is, in fact,
a living thing.

[Dr. Tinson] I must say, the first time,

I was just standing there,
holding this animal.

And I thought to myself,
"This thing was dead for 10 years."

"I used to look after it,
and here it is back."

And I've got to say
I cannot explain the feeling.

Does it feel like a God complex?

Yes, unfortunately, it does.

At that moment, you suddenly thought,

"God, what have we done?
Isn't this just incredible?"

And then you just think,
"God, what have we done?"

[tense music]

The last day of Csillo,
actually, he was in, in this room.

[Dr. Ruebben] He came back from the vet.

He was sleeping here on my arms,
and he knew he would die.

And that's why he was a bit shaking.
He wanted to be with us.

And this point, we, uh, he was, he's,

he died here, actually.

Here, he died.

Yes.

[Dr. Ruebben] Here, he still had hope.

You see, his eyes still wanted to live.

But the last day,
he could not live anymore.

We were shocked.
Csillo was dead after 12 years.

Because you must know, the shock is...

That's why it was so strong.

He did not age, actually.

He was always playful,
he was always young, always full of power.

[dog barking]

[Dr. Ruebben] He was in a completely
good shape. He was in super shape.

Although French bulldogs live only 12,

if he did not have this leukemia,
he would live for maybe 20 years.

And because of this, it was very shocking
that it happened to him.

From one day to the other,
everything turned out bad.

I tried to put the sadness of losing him

into the happiness of recreating him.

I guess one way to look at it is...

grief is the catalyst.

It's where our...

cloning process really begins.

I started to buy a cloning kit.

How to take the sample,
how to store the samples,

and we took the samples from the ear.

Because the ear, the fibroblasts are
more easily to let them grow after.

We sent to England.
There's cell storage for animals.

From England, they went to Korea.

Because it was in the transition time
when he went from Korea to Abu Dhabi.

[Dr. Hwang] Although
we can't guarantee success,

we told them to send the tissues quickly.

[Dr. Ruebben] Dr. Hwang was so nice.

Once he had cells growing,

he made pictures.
Then he sent me pictures of it.

And he had two teams working on it.

But when they clone dogs,
it's quite difficult to achieve,

so they make more dogs.

And I cloned Csillo
because I wanted to have Csillo back.

Not a sea dog, not a,
a playing football dog.

I wanted Csillo, Csillo back.

The problem in the cloning process is
that there could be many failures.

So what they're doing,
they make multiple trials,

so it can be that you get five dogs back,
or four dogs back, or three.

So we had two cloned Csillo,
actually, at this time.

We had... The first clone of Csillo
was born in November,

and I thought, "Look, I have a cloned dog!

It's fantastic!"

And then the assistant
of Dr. Hwang called me.

"We have got another Csillo."

The first of these two brothers died,
very early afterwards,

because of the malformation.

He starved to death, actually.
We couldn't do nothing. It was too young.

I can tell you now,

Csillo two, he's one year
and a half old now,

and he's a happy dog.

And that's why I know
I did everything right.

[dog barking]

[continues barking]

[Dr. Hwang] This cloning is...

not about... copying 100%.

We are copying genetically,
we're copying the DNA.

We are not copying the phenotype.

Therefore, there might be
a slight difference

from the original.
So this is what we say to people.

[Dr. Ruebben] We didn't know what to do
with Csillo's body.

We didn't know if we should bury him or...

What are we doing with him?

Some people are putting it, you know,
stuff it or do something.

So we put him in the fridge.

[tense music]

[Dr. Ruebben] Our idea is that
we'll find a place where Csillo can be.

We did not want to put him
in a cemetery here in Hungary.

We wanted to be next to him.

And we want to find a place
where he would be happy

and where we connect always with him.

That's what we, we find now.

A place in a garden where we can go

and where we can cherish him,
and it will be his place.

[Dr. Hwang] At this time,

in the genus of dogs,

I think we have...

I think we have cloned roughly 1,600 dogs.

We've also cloned cows,

pigs, wolves, coyotes,

cats, horses.

[bleats]

[Dr. Wolpe]
When Dolly the sheep was cloned,

there were no rules or laws against it.

There still aren't to this day,
as far as animals are concerned.

But the majority of Americans said
they thought cloning animals was wrong.

And it took another
eight to ten months to a year

for scientists and the media to say,

"You're not getting
what cloning really is.

Here's what it is." And then slowly,
those numbers went down, down, down

until you had Americans saying,

"Well, okay, things like
cloning sheep are fine."

Once you get to cloning primates
and then to human beings, though,

it's an entirely different
kind of conversation.

Now, a major development in human cloning,

health correspondent,
Susan Dentzer begins.

[Susan] Other scientists
have previously cloned

small numbers of human embryos

that live for a short time.

By contrast,

the South Koreans who announced
their work today in the journal, Science,

apparently succeeded on a scale

that far outstripped
earlier human cloning efforts.

It was earth-shattering in the sense that

this was the first step towards
the world of regenerative medicine

when we were actually going to be able
to start using these cells

for all kinds of therapeutic uses.

[Susan] The researchers began
with a group of 16 women,

who were given
hormone treatments to produce

large numbers of reproductive egg cells.

Then the scientists used
innovative techniques

to strip out the nucleus
from each of the egg cells.

The scientists next took body cells

from the same women
who had donated the egg cells.

The body cells have
two sets of chromosomes,

the full genetic blueprint needed
to create a human being.

The scientists then removed
these body cells' nuclear material

and placed it into the egg cells.

The result was 66 cloned eggs,

in effect, human embryos,

with the exact genetic makeup
of the original females.

[Dr. Chan]
There was this tremendous interest

from the point of view
of regenerative medicine.

Because if you can take a cell
and you can make it

into any of the cells in the body,

you know, could we make new livers?

Could we grow new organs?

Could we regenerate damaged nerve cells?

And so there was this huge, sort of,
therapeutic interest as well.

You had some pretty prominent scientists
talking about this

as, as car parts that we'd be replacing.

Embryonic stem cells
are the building block cells

that ultimately develop into almost
all the cells and tissues of the body.

The South Korean researchers extracted
these primordial cells from the embryos,

destroying the embryos in the process.

They then grew entire colonies
of genetically identical stem cells.

You need to recognize
that the primary American contribution

to the work in Seoul has been Coca-Cola.

- [laughs]
- Woo-suk lives on caffeine and sugar.

[laughs]

This was the biological dream.

Dr. Hwang became a world-famous scientist.

He was very much being hailed
as a scientific superstar

in South Korea.

There will come a time
when I can share information with you.

[Dr. Wolpe] It is reputation.

It is money.

It is your place
in the pantheon of science for all time

so that the textbooks a hundred years
from now are going to mention your name.

[Prof. Schatten] It's absolutely stunning

how brilliant
the scientific advances have been

and how important
the medical implications are.

[David] His accomplishment here is...
is fantastic,

but what people are most amazed by
is not his scientific ability,

but by his ability to get these eggs.

The crucial resource was getting eggs
to grow in the clone cells.

You need eggs to grow these things.

And it's not easy to get human eggs.

[female reporter 4] During
the monthly menstrual cycle,

one of the ovaries releases an egg.

After ovulation,
the egg enters the fallopian tube.

A woman is most likely to become pregnant
if she has sex in the days just before,

during, or right after ovulation.

[Dr. Wolpe] Dr. Hwang claimed
he used 242 eggs.

That means that he had to ask women

to take a drug
to hyperstimulate their ovaries,

and then use a needle

to aspirate from their ovaries,
one at a time, to use in research.

[Dr. Chan] I think one thing that is
often obscured

by the scientific language is

the bodily burden on women
that's involved in,

you know, the biological labor
of producing eggs

and the kind of biomedical reality
of women going through

cycles of ovarian hyperstimulation
and harvesting.

[Dr. Wolpe] There were different rules
in different countries

about how you might access ova.

But in every case,
there is only one way to do it,

and that is to get consent from a woman.

[David] He claimed that he had 16 women

that gave 242 eggs.

And he claimed
that these were all volunteers

that had done this
just out of the good of their heart

because they believed in his research.

We were thinking,
"Well, this is amazing that he did this."

So when I was in his office, I'd ask him,

"How did you get these eggs?
Where did they come from?"

Once again, I would like to express

my deepest gratitude
to the many dignified women

who were willing

to provide their eggs for this study.

I was working for Nature,

which is a very well-known
international science magazine,

and I was the Asia-Pacific correspondent.

And I was trying to find out more about

biomedical science in Korea,
stem cell research in Korea,

and I really didn't think
that I was going to uncover something.

I didn't think that he had done anything
demonstrably wrong.

I was just getting
some weird vibes from him.

I mean, he was giving me answers
that weren't complete,

and he looked uncomfortable
when I asked these questions.

So I decided just to call
everybody on the paper.

There were 15 co-authors,
and the first author

is usually the person
who does all the work.

The last author was the senior professor
who has kind of designed the experiment,

and I just started calling each of them,
hoping that I could find

one person who could say,

"Yes, I was in charge of the process.
This is how we did it."

Several of them said,
"Just talk to Dr. Hwang.

I don't want to talk to you."

But finally, I had a woman on the phone,

and she said,

"I can't tell you about
the egg donation process in general.

I can only tell you
about my own procedure."

It took me a second.

"So you donated your eggs
for the experiment?"

She said, "Yes, I donated my eggs."

And then it hit me that this was...

this was something...
this was something big.

So I asked her about all of the procedures

that she went through,
where she did it, why she did it.

She said she had already had children,

she wasn't worried even if it made her
unable to have children.

She said, "There are so many people
with spinal cord injuries in Korea.

I want to help them out any way I can."

She basically said Dr. Hwang
was going to be a savior to people,

and she wanted to be a part of it.

At that time,

we had many female researchers in the lab.

All the female researchers were called
into his office.

Hwang Woo-suk showed them the papers,

and personally explained all the details
of his contents,

then asked them to sign it.

The majority of the female researchers
in the lab signed the papers

without a second thought,

and Professor Hwang collected them.

I think it's fairly likely that
if you were a junior female researcher

working in a lab at this time
and you thought that giving your eggs

was a way that you could make
this breakthrough happen,

you would do it, willingly.

You might not even need to be asked.

But was it really voluntary?
Did they have any choice?

Um, I think, in the matter,

did the well-respected, senior scientist
coming into the lab and saying,

"Well, we need some eggs.
Where on Earth can we get them from?"

Is that a form of coercion?

[David] The article I wrote
was basically about

there being ethical problems
with the research

that Dr. Hwang did not want to recognize.

And the title of the article was,

"Korean cloners
dogged by ethical problems,"

and I told Dr. Hwang this.

And he said, "If you do that,
you're going to have very big problems."

[ominous music]

It has been revealed that the funding
provided to Professor Hwang's team

by the government
and private organizations

amount to over 100 billion won.

[reporter 1] Do you feel powerful,
Professor Hwang?

Power? What power?

It just means
there is greater responsibility.

I thought that the article
would lead to further investigation

and that they would find
what I wrote was true

and that there would be
more reflection on this,

and probably some headaches
for Dr. Hwang, but...

I was surprised that there was
only negative reaction to my article,

to the integrity of my article.

And among the scientific community,
there was very little said.

And this is the star

of embryonic stem cell research,
of cloning research.

This is the guy at the center of it all,

and if he has serious
bioethical problems in his research,

then we should be talking about it.

But no one wanted to talk about it.

And then Dr. Hwang's
second human cloning paper

came out in May of 2005,
so just over a year after his first.

This report brings science
a giant step forward toward the day

when some of humankind's
most devastating diseases and injuries

can be effectively treated
through the use of therapeutic stem cells.

That 2005 paper
was a step towards the ability

to be able to use a patient's own cells

to create therapies for that patient.

The work that you do in Korea
doesn't occur anywhere else in the world.

[man 3] Therapeutic cloning offers
the hope of understanding

treatment and cures for millions
and millions of people around the world.

[female reporter 5] Scientists say it's
the greatest discovery of our lifetime.

[Dr. Wolpe] Dr. Hwang claimed
that he took a fertilized egg

that has managed to divide
into a certain number of cells.

Each one of those cells
are what we call pluripotent stem cells,

which means that every one of those cells

can turn into a kidney cell,
or a lung cell, or a skin cell.

And the goal here
was to take this cloned, fertilized egg

and be able to clone it into many

so that you could get stem cells

that all would actually be identical
to that original,

which, in a uterus,
would develop into a full human being.

And so that's basically what he did.

He created stem cells that were cloned
from the original human being.

At that time, stem cell science
was going to revolutionize medicine.

It was going to be transformative.

And so, in some ways, for any country,

achieving that level
of breakthrough science

would have been something to strive for.

2002 FIFA WORLD CUP KOREA/JAPAN

[upbeat percussive music]

[crowd cheering]

[screaming and cheering]

[Prof. Chin] At the time, South Korea
was transitioning

from being a developing country
to a developed country.

So naturally, there was a strong pride.

"Now, we're not following others,
that time is done.

Instead, we're the ones leading
with something new.

We're among the world's best.

It's time that we have
the best technology,

the best science, and so on."

This mindset was very strong
during that period.

[female reporter 6]
The World Stem Cell Hub,

which will reposition Korea into the mecca

for life science research worldwide,
opened its doors today.

We now have hope
that human being sufferings

might someday be alleviated
by the breakthroughs

enabled by patient-specific
embryonic stem cells.

In the past, I was not a big help.

But now, I am helping out a little bit.

From this moment onwards,
I will provide full support.

[applause]

Basically, the world was divided
into two camps at that point.

There was a group that supported
embryonic stem cell research,

and there was a group that said
embryos are humans

and they shouldn't be torn apart
to use their cells

for embryonic stem cell research.

Tonight, I ask you to pass legislation

to prohibit the most egregious abuses
of medical research.

Human cloning in all its forms,

creating or implanting embryos
for experiments,

creating human-animal hybrids,

and buying, selling,
or patenting human embryos.

[female reporter 7]
As early as next month,

the hub will be registering patients
with incurable diseases.

I've dreamed that I can get up
and throw away the wheelchair.

Maybe get some walkers.

At that time,

most of the public was still unfamiliar

with the concept of stem cells.

When the notion of stem cells was
finally introduced to the public,

it was presented as a medical advance
that could do anything

and cure all diseases.

So almost all patients,
almost all people with disabilities,

they began having big dreams
and came to depend on them.

[whimsical music]

Hallelujah,
my beloved disciples of Christ.

Have you been well this week?

"Who am I?

And where did I come from?"

Throughout history,

all humans have looked for answers
to these difficult questions.

And through the 19th and 20th centuries,

humans found those answers in science.

Therefore,

humans have effectively replaced God
with science.

- [Pastor Kim] Could it be true?
- [rings]

My child was involved
in a car accident in 2002.

He woke up after 24 days

from a coma state.

And after that,

his lower body from the chest down was...

completely paralyzed.

In that time period,

I think Dr. Hwang had requested help
from the Gil Medical Center.

He was looking for a patient.

A patient that would volunteer and

participate in the stem cell research

that he was conducting.

The doctor at the Gil Medical Center

who was in charge of caring for my son,

Hyeon-yi,

asked if we would be interested

in taking part in this research.

Later, we ended up visiting the laboratory
of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk

upon his generous invitation.

And I realized just how incredible
this technology was

and I started to have some hope.

[upbeat pop music]

[Prof. Ryu] Kang Won-rae was a member
of a successful two-man dance group.

He was well-known
for his excellent dancing skills,

and in the past,

he had built his career as a backup dancer
for a very famous singer.

They were even called "Clon."

[crowd cheering]

I hope that...

Mr. Kang Won-rae will...

stand again and show us
his sharp dancing skills

we remember from his past.

[Prof. Chin] They staged the whole scene.

I mean, he told a man sitting,
a man in a wheelchair

that he will make him walk again.
That's something Jesus said.

So he told a pastor's son
that he would make him walk.

Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?
What is this?

[Superman theme song]

You know, there was an American actor
named Christopher Reeve,

who starred as Superman.

He said that he knew about the work
that Dr. Hwang was doing.

Therapeutic cloning, also known

as somatic cell nuclear transfer,

offers real hope.

The post stamp. They released
a commemorative post stamp.

Someone sitting in a wheelchair
and getting up

and starting to walk
is depicted continuously on these stamps.

Wow.

It's crazy.

How can a scientist say things like,
"I can make you walk"?

You can't say that as a scientist.

At the time, the most famous person
in our country was Park Ji-sung.

[crowd cheering]

If I were to compare it to today,
how should I explain this?

If we were to think of it
in cultural terms...

BTS? Or Son Heung-min?

Combine their fame?

That was the public sentiment
towards Professor Hwang Woo-suk.

That was his power.

[female reporter 7]
Seoul National University professor,

Hwang Woo-suk, has been selected
as its top scientist.

At the Palace Hotel Seoul this morning,

the Ministry of Science and Technology
has appointed Hwang Woo-suk

as the chief scientist
with a unanimous vote.

Professor Hwang will receive
three billion won

in research funding
for each of the next five years.

[Dr. Chan] Hwang was getting all of this

scientific and medical
and public interest,

but at the same time,
these cells are coming from human embryos,

and that's obviously
controversial for some

because they regard human embryos
as sacred or deserving of protection.

You know, they're the start of human life.

So there was a lot of debate
about this at the time.

[PD Note theme music]

PD NOTE

These people have come to PD Note
with heavy hearts.

They have shared their stories,

requesting that they remain anonymous
for protection.

I worked at PD Note around 2005.

It's an investigative program
that most Koreans know

and among all the investigative programs,
it was ranked number one.

[knocking]

[Hak-soo] When I first received the tip,
the first thing I thought was,

"Ah, this could be..."

Because this was about Dr. Hwang,
a university professor,

I thought it would be about
sexual harassment.

The informant used the expression,

"Riding on the back of a tiger
that I can no longer get off of."

So he made up his mind to tip PD Note.

"I was on
Dr. Hwang Woo-suk's research team, and...

and I have information...

to share with you regarding
an important issue.

I'd like to meet to talk about it."

As a producer, as a PD,

as someone who makes documentaries,

no matter how uncomfortable the truth is,

it is the journalist's duty to reveal it.

So I thought I would go
and listen to the informant

and find out
what this personal information was,

and if it was serious enough.

[mysterious music]

[knocking]

But the person who showed up

was Han Hak-soo,
whom I hadn't known before.

At the time, I had my guard up.

So when he first arrived,

I immediately began to gauge
whether I could trust this person or not.

When I got there, Mr. Ryu Young-joon, um,

took me to a quiet room
and before he said anything to me,

the very first question
he asked me was this.

"Producer Han,
what's more important to you?

The truth or national interest?"

Producer Han Hak-soo replied,

without a second of hesitation,

"Truth itself is the national interest."

That was when I knew,
"Ah, I could trust him."

He made illegal transactions
with regards to the eggs.

Those eggs were illegally traded.

[Prof. Ryu] When we were preparing for
our 2004 research paper,

Dr. Hwang and I didn't know
how to procure the eggs.

We had no idea where to get them.

I reached out to all the labs
in the country

that frequently used eggs
as part of their research,

and subsequently visited them myself
to follow up.

I asked them if they could provide us
with eggs for our experiment,

but they all refused.

They said there were no more eggs left.

And that they wouldn't help us
because what we were trying to do

was ethically problematic.
And that was the conclusion.

Dr. Hwang was extremely upset.

From that moment on,
he started visiting hospitals in person

and noted the ones willing to help.

He concluded that it had to be Mizmedi,

a maternity hospital
specializing in infertility treatment.

Whenever the ethical problem of the eggs
used in research came up,

Professor Hwang Woo-suk has emphasized
that he has only used eggs

donated by dignified women.

I have already communicated
to the foreign press and media

just how grateful I am...

to all of these women.

I haven't had the chance
to meet all of them personally,

but it is true
that they have each volunteered

to donate their precious eggs for research

to assist in this scientific experiment.

However, through our
PD Note investigation,

we found that this claim was untrue.

Over the past few months,

we have secured evidence showing
that more than 600 eggs

were provided through trade.

[PD Note host] This woman,

who visited an egg brokerage company
she found on the Internet,

seemed to have no idea
that her eggs had been used

in Professor Hwang's research.

A woman, who provided eggs
to Professor Hwang's research twice,

also admitted to selling her eggs
through brokers.

RECENT APPOINTMENTS
MATERNITY CLINIC

They recruited these young women
to provide their eggs for up to, um,

three million won
or two million five hundred thousand won.

[reporter 2] Are there any ethical issues

when it comes
to the eggs used in the experiment?

[Dr. Hwang] Well...

Were the eggs bought?

We don't have any such cases.

[reporter 2] Thank you, Professor Hwang,
have a good day.

Thank you.

The number of eggs they illegally procured
by recruiting these women

is really beyond our imagination.

So when I first started reporting on the...

glaring ethical issues regarding

Dr. Hwang's eggs and how he obtained them?

The whole country turned upside down.

[man 4] Save Professor Hwang Woo-suk...

[Hak-soo] After that,

supporters of Hwang Woo-suk surrounded
our MBC building 24/7.

At night, they held candles.

They had candlelight vigils.

"Please don't broadcast PD Note."

"Please stop the reports
on Dr. Hwang Woo-suk on PD Note."

At the rally,
people with disabilities came,

famous people came,

as well as regular civilians
who supported Hwang Woo-suk.

PEOPLE IN SUPPORT OF HWANG WOO-SUK
JANUARY 11TH, GWANGHWAMUN, SEOUL

[Jea-suk] At that time,
we'd go to Seoul every week.

My daughter was young,
she was six years old.

We'd go there,
and she'd be fine during the day.

But she'd get sleepy at night,
and she would whine.

So then we'd have to get back to the car.

I would carry her on my back.

Then the police would escort me
all the way back to the car.

They would ask me where I was from,

and I said I was from Cheongju.

Then they would cheer me on,

saying I was doing
something impressive, secretly.

That's what the police said.

[supporter in English]
The citizens are watching!

[all in Korean]
The citizens are watching!

[supporter in English]
Give him another chance!

[all in Korean]
Give him another chance!

[in English]
My fellow Koreans, whom I respect,

the research we are conducting

is the world's first
at every level and step.

[Dr. Hwang] To repay...

the warm support
that the citizens have shown,

and for the hopes
of patients around the world

suffering from incurable diseases,

I will continue on my path
with only the purest...

of scientific interests.

Dr. Hwang really understood

the mood of society at that time,

as well as the national patriotism.

That's why, two days
after we aired the report on the eggs,

he invited so many, so many journalists

and he hosted a live press conference.

If I were a woman,

it's true that I would have

wanted to extract my own eggs
to conduct my scientific experiments.

This case shows how Korean society
hastily acts to put out results first

and pushes all other things
to the periphery.

And how the truth can
so easily be overlooked

for the sake of the country as a whole,

all wrapped up in such a dogma,
in such fascist beliefs.

"Why are you undermining
a promising scientist?

You should keep your mouth shut
for the sake of the country.

They're developing technology
for the advancement of our country

and instead of helping,
you're complaining."

♪ Our pride, our hero ♪

♪ Our biotechnology amazed the world ♪

♪ Dr. Hwang, stay strong ♪

♪ Dr. Hwang, we love you ♪

DR. HWANG IS KOREA'S HOPE AND FUTURE

Those women were volunteering
their eggs and I...

I was completely shocked.

It was the first time I felt
that our nation had gone mad.

Because usually, it goes like this.

Lots of eggs are needed for experiments,

and those eggs were extracted
from young women.

I heard that it's an excruciating process
to extract eggs.

I felt for the first time
that we were like Germany in the 1930s.

The number of voluntary egg donors
for Dr. Hwang's research

has now reached 1,000.

The protesters said that if there were
so many issues with the eggs,

then they would voluntarily donate
their own eggs for research.

So the fan club would actually hold events
for voluntary egg donor patients.

[male reporter 6] Many women,
along with relatives of people

with incurable diseases and disabilities

have gathered today to create
a foundation for the donation of eggs.

If women understand the purpose
and use of their egg donation,

for research and treatment,

they will participate with their own will
and judgment.

We are all human beings

and we feel that sharing the pain
with others who are less fortunate

is the best path.

It wasn't easy.

It wasn't, but I...

I mean, it was for research
and it couldn't be done without eggs.

So, I gladly...

I, I took it out from my body.

I saw it as a seed of life.

I wanted to donate it, with pleasure.

I didn't do it for the individual,
Dr. Hwang,

but rather for humankind
and for a greater purpose.

That was my thinking.

[girl] Doctor, come to Daegu!

[supporter 2] Please stay well,
Dr. Hwang! Please stay well!

Please stay strong! We will support you!

[Prof. Ryu] But the reporters
and Professor Hwang's supporters

were camping outside my place.

It would've been a disaster
if I went there.

I would've been beaten to death.

I've received
too many death threats to count.

"I'm going to kill you," things like that.

They made a lot of threats.

I lived on the 13th floor
of a 15-story building.

And two reporters
from a broadcasting company

rappelled off the rooftop
and came into my place through the window.

They took videos of my place,

and it was broadcasted
on the evening news.

Usually, people criticized me.

"How could you betray
a father-like figure?"

In South Korea,

officiating somebody's wedding has
great importance.

It means...

that you will be present for the couple

throughout the rest of their lives.

He asked me to be their officiant,
and I willingly did.

And one day, he called me and said,

"Our first child is born.

Would you be the godfather
of our first child?"

So I paid a visit to them in the hospital

to meet their baby,
and I became the godfather.

The godfather to the newborn child.

It was only later that I found out

that throughout this time period,

he had been constantly exchanging
emails about me

with MBC's producer, Han Hak-soo.

It's not right for people to say
I betrayed my mentor

by exposing his lies,
especially given that we're not family.

That is not my definition of betrayal.

The word "betrayal"...

as understood among scientists,

applies only when we betray the truth.

I think there is an image of scientists
as kind of pure, truth seekers.

And for a lot of scientists,
I think that's true.

It fits. Like,
that's why they went into it.

Maybe they're smart people.

They probably could've made money...
more money doing something else.

But a lot of them
are curious and interested,

and they just want to follow
that curiosity.

But there's also your career
to worry about,

and scientists, like anybody else,
they have to produce results.

All scientists face pressure.

There's a huge amount of hope and hype
around lots of areas of science,

and not every scientist
in Hwang's position

would have done what he did.

[male reporter 7]
According to the research paper

published in the Science journal,

all 11 stem cells have been
successfully cultured by the team.

However, doubts have been raised

within the research team
that the cells may have been damaged

or were not even stem cells to begin with.

A scientist called Anonymous...

Well, he's not a scientist anymore.

He's a potato farmer now.

[chuckles]

He's someone who loves science.

So at the time, he read Dr. Hwang's paper.

When he read it the second time,
he came to the realization

that the picture Dr. Hwang claimed
to be a stem cell

was, in fact, manipulated.

[woman] The additional cell lines,

which Professor Hwang and his team
have claimed to have established,

will undergo DNA analysis to confirm

if they are patient-specific somatic cell
cloned stem cells.

[cameras clicking]

[Dr. Wolpe]
That paper, it had implications

for the science
of every advanced country on Earth,

for the careers
of hundreds of thousands of scientists,

of graduate students, and postdocs,

all of whom would have used that paper

as the basis of their own work,
and then fail.

23 SAMPLES ANALYZED
AT 3 RESEARCH INSTITUTES

[male reporter 8]
The Seoul National University

investigation committee,

who is reevaluating
the professor's stem cell research,

will be making an announcement shortly.

I was the leader of
the human research team back then,

so I had access to all of the raw data.

I was also in charge of drafting

our submission
to Science academic journal.

When I finished it, I passed it along
to Dr. Hwang for final approval.

He changed the raw data figures
as he saw fit, right in front of me,

as if he was exercising his authority.

He changed the numbers, just like that.

He lowered the failure rate

and increased the success rate
with his red pen.

Once he had the figures he wanted,

he instructed me to go back
and make the formal changes

according to his made-up numbers.

[dark music]

The 2005 research paper reported

that 11 patient-specific stem cell lines

were created from somatic cell cloning.

However, the truth is that
the data of these 11 stem cells

was fabricated from only two stem cells.

[male reporter 9] First of all,
we have news

that is both shocking and devastating.

There was a testimony that

out of 11 of Professor Hwang Woo-suk's
embryonic stem cells,

at least nine of them are fake.

[woman 2] Please give us a comment.

- [man 5] Please give us just one comment.
- [woman 2] Just one word, please.

[male reporter 10] Good evening.
We kept hoping it wouldn't be the case,

but the first findings
from the SNU Internal Review Board

regarding Professor Hwang Woo-suk

has left the whole nation
feeling devastated.

[Pastor Kim] Back then,

I thought that whatever happened,

Dr. Hwang's stem cell research

was going to yield
some definitive results.

I'm not entirely sure
what went wrong in the process...

But if it is true that he never worked
on creating my son's stem cells

at all from the very beginning...

If he never did the research
from the beginning,

then he is a terrible person.

Science is based on a trust system.

And when that trust system breaks down,

it must be severely punished,

because if it's not,
all of science collapses.

[male reporter 11] The moment of downfall
for a giant of modern science.

For his staff, it was a day of mourning.

[people sobbing]

We have just charged Dr. Hwang Woo-suk
without detainment

for fraud, embezzlement, and for violating
the safety of bioethics law.

[screams and wails]

[male reporter 11] This office has turned
into a wailing venue.

The police mobilized three units
to block access to the building

in case Dr. Hwang's supporters,
dissatisfied with the announcement,

show extreme behavior.

[Pastor Kim] Then later,
the PD Note episode finally aired.

I watched PD Note together
with my son and my wife.

After the show,

my son turned to his left,

looking directly into my eyes,

and then he asked me,

"Daddy, does that mean
I'll never be able to walk again?"

And I said...

[exhales]

"God will...

definitely help you

achieve it.

It's just...

we must believe in God,
not ordinary people.

So there is no need to despair
because of this."

Then my son said this.

"I know, Dad.

I feel the same."

And then he cried.

After the PD Note episode,

regarding Dr. Hwang,

not long after...

[voice breaking]
...my child, uh...

passed away.

These guys lied, and they, you know,
they do, they have to go to jail.

But of course, that's not what happens.

I mean, scientific fraud is not a crime.

There's no real way
to put someone in jail for that.

You can go on with your career.

- [indistinct clamoring]
- [cameras clicking]

[David] Dr. Hwang did get in trouble
for embezzling grant money that he had.

But for scientific fraud?

There's no real, uh, way
to put someone in jail for that.

[Dr. Hwang] I ask for forgiveness.

I am feeling so ashamed

to the point where it is hard
to even apologize.

[Dr. Hwang] Thinking back
on the amount of love,

all the support,

and expectations you had for me,

I have no right to be here.

[over TV] I admit to everything,

and once again, I give my apologies.

[somber music]

Looking back at all of this,

the incident taught me a hard lesson

and became a milestone not only for me,

but for
the entire Korean scientific society,

and moreover,
for the world's scientific circles.

It would be cowardly of me to use pressure

as an excuse to justify my actions.

No one
in the world could have pressured me.

No one could make me do
something like this.

That is just... a cowardly excuse.

This happened
because of my excessive greed.

There's no one...

no one else that can be blamed but me.

However, if I were to be born again,

if I were to get the chance
to choose the path of my life again,

I would choose
to take the exact same path.

I have very few regrets.

I stand behind
my contributions to science.

I think there are real structural problems

in how we have set science up.

And I think we often,

in the guise of trying to do
the best science,

encourage misbehavior.

I think it's profoundly important
that scientists think about ethics,

and I've spent my career

trying to teach scientists
how to think about ethics.

All of us,

whether we're a scientist,
or a plumber, or a baseball player,

have to take responsibility
for the ethics of our work

and the implications
of our work on others.

[Dr. Lena] Thank you so much
for the invitation.

You've done so much for the development
of paleontology,

especially molecular.

We really appreciate everything
that you have done

for us,

and for molecular science
of the entire Russia.

[Dr. Hwang] Back in the summer of 2012,

I traveled to an excavation site

found deep in the Kazachye region,

which is in the northeastern area
of Siberia.

At this time,

I felt that I was...

the most disgraced that I've ever been

in my entire scientific career.

After a lot of work,

I was recommended for this expedition.

If I didn't produce
any results from this expedition,

I knew that I would never get
a second chance.

There was a lot of pressure on me.

See, all the walls are covered
in ice crystals.

This is where we found
the elbow bone of the young mammoth.

[Dr. Hwang] This cave is not
a naturally occurring cave.

It is man-made.

The mammoth hunters would...
How can I explain it?

They would spray water towards the rock
in high pressure

and slowly but surely,

the cave was formed
into what you're looking at today.

The hunters were only interested

in obtaining the mammoth's ivory.

But we entered the cave
because we wanted the cells.

Not the ivory.

We were told that the cave was
potentially dangerous.

That it could collapse.

[Dr. Hwang] Okay.

[exhales]

- [Dr. Hwang] I did it.
- [man 6] Sir, we need to go.

- [Dr. Hwang] What? Why?
- We have to leave.

- Now.
- [man 7] Why do we have to retract?

Why?

[man 6] We have to retract
because the entrance...

The entrance is collapsing right now.

- [Dr. Hwang] Oh, really?
- [man 6] Yes.

- [Dr. Hwang] Okay.
- [man 7] Do we have to...

Do we have to go this way?

Okay, let's go out.

[Dr. Hwang] Let's go. Okay.

My... My sample.

My sample, my sample.

Okay.

[Dr. Hwang] If the cave had collapsed,

everyone on the inside
would have been stuck.

There would have been
no possibility of rescue.

Everyone would've died.

At that specific time,

I was ready to give my life.

To sacrifice everything for my work.

I was... I was very committed to that.

I have lived enough for a lifetime.

If I went there for the purpose
of fulfilling a scientific goal,

and my life was cut short
due to an accident?

Then I think it would've been meaningful.

I am dedicated to this cause

and I can't see myself
shying away from danger.

[female reporter 8] This small room
has enough high-precision equipment

to complete the first steps
toward the creation of a mammoth clone.

Overseeing the process was a professor

at Sooam Korean Biomedical
Technology Foundation, Hwang Woo-suk.

[drill whirring]

[Dr. Hwang] Among the samples we obtained,

we found muscle samples
with traces of blood.

This was the moment where we thought,

"We might finally be realizing our dream."

These were some of the pictures
from that time.

From there, as long as we can find
one single living cell, that's it.

Confidentially speaking,
we already have the live cells.

If the mammoth project is successful

and if the Russian government agrees,

I want to put a few mammoths
between South Korea

and North Korea.

It would be a symbol of
how science and technology

can bring people together.

It would be the initiation
of the reunification

of the two countries.

Using cloning for species preservation
or conservation,

or de-extinction, as they call it.

There are many problems with it.
One is that it's very resource intensive.

Another is that if you're cloning,

you're going to have
this kind of, inbreeding.

By definition, you're going to have
genetically identical animals

which doesn't help with the kind of
long-term sustainability of that species.

[Dr. Wolpe] A creature brought back
through cloning

isn't really what that creature is.

That creature existed
in an ecosystem and in a time

that gave all kinds of familial

and territorial and coexistence

with other animals' context to its life.

And now, you're just bringing it back
outside of that context.

What is a Tyrannosaurus Rex
outside of the Jurassic period?

It's just some simulacrum,

some pretend of a, of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

[lively music]

Here we go. Csillo, come! Time to go.

Let's put your...

your first body in the Earth.

[Dr. Ruebben] Clone my dog is
the best thing, what I did to my life.

People are writing,

"Oh, you're playing God"
or "It's not the same dog."

They're all negative.

Everybody asks the same question.

"It is genetically the same,

but its character must be different."

And actually, I would always answer
that it's the same dog.

Because cloning a dog

and putting it in the same environment,
the same family,

with the same kids around,

he will be behaving exactly the same
as the first one.

[Dr. Ruebben] I don't see I cloned him.
He is Csillo, he came back.

He actually survived death.

This cloning process is very powerful
and can help a lot of people.

Cloning is really only reincarnation.

Reproduces the body which is gone.

Yes, I think it is very, very useful
to do this.

Here lays your first body.

And...

you'll take over his role.

[Dr. Ruebben] It's very strange for me
because Csillo is now big.

I feel he's really
replacing him completely,

so actually, for me, it's like saying,

"You, you take now over, his role."

And we finally found a place
where he can rest in peace.

[ominous music]

[female reporter 9] In a world first,

Chinese researchers
have cloned two healthy monkeys

by using the same technique that
produced Dolly the sheep two decades ago.

The barrier of cloning primate species
is now overcome.

In principle, any primate,
including humans, can be cloned.

[Dr. Tinson] Let's face it,
technology's controversial all the time.

I'm sure the motorcar was controversial.

They were upset
it was scaring horses, you know.

I think everything... everything we do
is controversial at some stage.

I lost two daughters
when they were very young.

And the first one, Anya...

Basically though, I mean,
I'll never forget how it affected me.

I mean, it affects me to this day.

And I actually held her in my arms
when they disconnected her.

And if somebody turned around
and said to me,

"Hey, we can clone her
and we'll get her back."

She hadn't really had a chance
to develop a personality.

She was going to be identically,
genetically the same.

She was going to be my daughter.

Would I say yes?

And...

I'd have to say I would.

There's nothing worse than small coffins.

So is there a role for cloning in humans?

I might argue, in very select cases.

Now, if somebody said to me,

"Would you like to be cloned?"
I'm going to be cremated.

No one's bringing me back from nowhere.

No one's playing with my DNA.

Science often gallops
way ahead of the ethics.

And ethics plays catch-up

because scientists are out there
doing these experiments

and then occasionally,
they come up with something,

and we have to say,
"Whoa, whoa, wait a second.

We need to talk about this."

Unfortunately, often it's just
the ethicists saying that.

No one listens to us.

But, um, sometimes,
that conversation becomes very serious.

Sometimes, we manage
to get people to listen and say,

"This is coming down the pike,

and we really need
to pay attention to it."

[soft music]

[Dr. Hwang] Korea is the country
where I was born.

So...

I feel at ease
every time I come back from abroad,

even if it is only once or twice a year.

[Dr. Hwang] Pastor.

[chuckling]
Welcome.

- How have you been?
- [Dr. Hwang] Oh, goodness.

Pastor.

Your face has not changed one bit.

You're also the same, Pastor.

My goodness. Let's head in.
You look even younger.

[Dr. Hwang] Yes, Pastor,
I've been really wanting to see you.

[Dr. Hwang] Hyeon-yi is someone
I can never forget.

The noble promises I made with Hyeon-yi.

I hope that

you will continue to keep

the promise you made with Hyeon-yi

in your heart as you've done so far.

There are so many
Hyeon-yi situations out there, right?

Yes, there are so many
in the same predicament.

I believe you have...

been given the mission to help them.

Among those people

who criticize
the use of cloning technology...

some say that cloning is
against the will of God,

against Mother Nature,

and natural creation.

Some say it's an extravagant attempt
to play God.

But,

how can

anyone definitively claim that this...

that this really is God's realm?

[choral music]