An investigative panel on the Hwang Woo-suk cloning scandal is stepping up efforts to determine whether Hwang indeed possesses the core technology to produce patient-specific stem cells.

The investigative panel under Seoul National University said Tuesday that it had additionally requested samples of DNA fingerprinting analysis on a paper Hwang and his team published last year.

Earlier on Monday, school investigators said they had requested three separate agencies to analyze DNA fingerprinting used by Hwang's team in its experiments from this and last year.

The panel added that it is also running a DNA test on blood samples from the cloned dog Snuppy and from a dog whose somatic cells were provided to the clone.

The final results of the panel are due to come out in around two weeks.

Meanwhile, school investigators on Monday grilled Kwon Tae-ki, a key figure of Hwang’s research team and one of the co-authors of a thesis on stem cell research that was published in the U.S. journal Science this year.