It seems hard to believe it was a year ago that the STAP cell Nature papers came out to much fanfare on January 29, 2014. These now discredited and retracted papers reported a supposed new method to easily make reprogrammed powerful stem cells, a finding touted as a Nobel Prize-worthy discovery. Now a year later on …
Personal Reflections on STAP Cell Mess On 1-Year Anniversary Read More »
The Japanese research institute RIKEN has come full circle in a way on the STAP cell scandal. Note that the STAP papers included not only authors from RIKEN, but also from Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. With its final report released today (also a powerpoint of images were released including the one showing a …
Perspectives on final RIKEN report on STAP cell scandal & what comes next Read More »
Signaling a nightmare ending to what was originally a fairy tale scientific story, the Japanese press (e.g. here) are reporting that Haruko Obokata has herself been unable to make STAP cells again as part of a RIKEN team testing STAP under watchful supervision. In advance of a scheduled RIKEN press conference tomorrow, newspapers including Asahi Shimbun are …
Did you eventually get sick of the whole STAP mess and all the baggage that came with it? Stay tuned for STAP 2.0 or perhaps I should say STAP junior. Just as STAP is starting to fade a bit from our radar screens, there is unfortunately a new very problematic stem cell paper situation coming soon …
STAP cell 2.0? New stem cell paper controversy ready to erupt Read More »
The STAP cell mess that began in January of this year has in some ways quieted down. In a broader sense, I believe that STAP is now and will be in the future viewed as a scandal that revealed some less than ideal aspects to the world of biomedical science and publishing. Where does this …
STAP Cell Update: STAP-like paper, Real Origin of STAP cells Read More »
Even as everyone was going through the Science and Nature reviews of the rejected STAP papers this week, something else on the STAP front that happened last week. What’s up? Well, the STAP Nature papers are retracted, RIKEN CDB is going to be reorganized, RIKEN CDB has tried at least 22 times to make STAP …
Harvard STAP cell authors release new protocol, affirm belief in phenomenon Read More »
The reviews of a STAP paper submitted to and rejected by the journal Science in 2012 were posted at Retraction Watch yesterday. They filled in some gaps in the puzzle of the series of events that led to such flawed science being published in Nature in January 2014, but the reviews also raised more questions. Today, more STAP paper …
STAP papers blistered by Nature’s own reviewers were then accepted Read More »
Before the two STAP cell papers were published in Nature in January of 2014, much of the same data was reportedly submitted as single papers to other high-profile journals including Science. In these cases, the proto-STAP papers as we might call them were rejected. But why? Until now we largely could only speculate. However, the reviews …
Full Reviews of Rejected STAP Paper Point to Early Signs of Big Trouble Read More »
Nikkei is reporting that the RIKEN internal attempt to replicate so-called STAP (acid bath) cells has failed. Update: apparently, although RIKEN calls the efforts preliminary, the team tried to make STAP an amazing 22 times and 22 times it failed. The rumors for weeks in the stem cell gapevine that RIKEN itself could not get …
RIKEN fails to reproduce STAP, big CDB shake up expected Read More »
What’s the deal with Brigham and Women’s Hospital or Harvard Medical School, where STAP cell senior author works, when it comes to the retracted STAP cell papers? I was just writing yesterday in part about how we haven’t really heard anything (news, statements, etc.) from those places about the whole STAP cell mess. In contrast, in Japan …
STAP News From Harvard? Vacanti Stepping Down as Chair & Going on Sabbatical Read More »