After a three-year trial and international disgrace, South Korean prosecutors have announced that their desired punishment for the Korean stem cell researchers fraud and general discrediting, not just of South Korean stem cell research, but for a time of stem cell research more broadly, would be a four-year prison term, says Reuters.

Of course, no decision has been made yet as to whether Hwang will go to the slammer and his latest business venture of cloning Afghan hounds en masse will go under as a result of his time in the big house.

This news, of course, leaves one asking: what is the appropriate punishment for an unethical researcher who has been firmly discredited in the scientific community, but whom also broke criminal laws in his home country? Do recidivism, psychology, or the reputation of the researcher come into play or is it simply a criminal matter?

For my money, I believe Hwang Woo-suk should be punished to the fullest extent of the South Korean law because of the nature and obvious lack of concern for his crime. Other researchers who violate federal codes or research protections in other nations or the US may not have to be held to such a standard because they clearly “just goofed” or regret their mistake. However, there are some researchers that believe they are “above the law”, that their research comes first, and that they answer to no one.

For those researchers, they must answer to someone–and that someone is likely to be a judge or a jury, and unfortunately, the walls of a jail cell for some period of time.

My prediction is Hwang will do some jail time, and the Snuppies will miss him, but in the end, he will go right back to doing stem cell research in South Korea, unless part of his sentencing prevents him from doing otherwise.

Summer Johnson, PhD