WASHINGTON, March 6 (Xinhua) -- An internal investigation by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) indicates that two high-profile papers by KAIST scientist Tae KookKim, including one published in the journal Science, contained serious scientific misconduct, a Science report said.

    The investigation is not yet complete, but the chair of the investigation committee wrote to Science stating that "our initial investigative results are strong enough to convince us that the two papers do not contain any scientific truth," the report posted on Science's official website said Wednesday.

    Kim's paper in Science appeared in 2005 and the other was published in Nature Chemical Biology in 2006. The Science paper described the use of nanoparticles to probe molecular behavior inside cells and ultimately to identify novel drug targets. The Nature Chemical Biology paper reported that a cell's aging clock could be reset by modulating certain proteins identified by the technique described in Science.

    Kim formed a company to commercialize technology related to the studies, said Yeonsoo Seo, a member of the KAIST investigative committee. But on Feb. 12, the president of the company contacted KAIST officials, saying they could not reproduce some of Kim's results.

    KAIST launched a departmental investigation on Feb.13, following a protocol it had developed in the wake of a notorious scandal over fraudulent stem cell research by Seoul National University professor Woo-Suk Hwang.

    Investigators immediately approached Kim, who could not provide notebooks or original data for the experiments. The task force interviewed other members of Kim's team, meeting twice with the lead author of both studies, Jaejoon Won. Several days after the second interview, Won sent a written statement to the task force that admitted "serious scientific misconduct in both papers."

    After this correspondence, the investigation committee reported its preliminary findings regarding suspicion of misconduct to KAIST President Nam Pyo Suh on Feb. 28. The school suspended Kim the same day and notified the two journals of the doubts raised about the papers.

    Science posted an Editorial Expression of Concern about the paper on its website Monday and expects the authors to be in touch with them shortly to retract it.

    KAIST is not releasing details of the discrepancies found in the papers until the investigation is complete. The investigators have to establish who bears responsibility for the misconduct among the many authors, some of them affiliated to other institutions, Science's report said.