By Kim Tae-gyu The once-wild popularity of Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk is showing signs of fizzling out with people becoming reluctant to donate money to the renowned cloning scientist. An official organization geared toward financially backing Hwang's research said recently it collected just 116 million won during the first three months of this year. The figure is less than the average monthly amount of 122 million won raised last year as the organization amassed 1.1 billion won since its inauguration last April. In February 2004, Hwang stormed into the global limelight as his team extracted embryonic stem cells, touted as having extraordinary medical potential, for the first time in history. After announcing the epoch-making feat, Hwang became an icon in Korea's scientific community and both public and private supporters have coughed up. The monthly funds peaked at 607 million won last December, but have since plunged to 10 million won in January and a mere 1.3 million won, the lowest monthly collection ever, in February. At first glance, things appears to have changed last month as the funds jumped to 104 million won. But a closer look reveals a different story. The nation's dominant fixed-line carrier KT accounted for most of the March collection as the company contributed 100 million won in the month. On a more negative note, KT actually did not donate the amount to the organization of Hwang's supporters. As a part of efforts to underpin the country's promising scientists, the company gave the funds to the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation without designating Hwang and the state-backed institute relayed them to the organization for Hwang. In a nutshell, Koreans actually contributed just 16 million won to Hwang this year, indicating enthusiasm for the stem cell scientist is disappearing. Furthermore, membership subscription for the organization is heading south as just 304 participated during the first quarter, less than December 2004 alone. After reaching an all time-high 328 last December, the number of subscribers halved to 150 in January and continued to backpedal to 108 in February and a paltry 46 last month. Regarding the reason why the craze for Hwang is ebbing, some point to incorrect information about his research. In December 2004, support for Hwang erupted when a local newspaper reported he lacked money to apply for international patents on his cloning technologies. A chief executive of a Seoul-based company even contributed 600 million won at the time due to news that as much money was needed for the application of the international patents. However, the article proved to be false as the state-owned Seoul National University holds the rights for technologies developed by university professors. As a result of this mishap or not, monthly membership subscription and funds began free-falling thereafter.