Sometimes when we Google things we can find out surprising things about specific topics including the whole STAP cell train wreck. When I recently searched for STAP, here was my reaction: What the heck? A recent Google search for STAP cells yielded these two adjacent, completely contradictory results sourced from two Obokata mentors (see image […]
Google Shows Us Crazy STAP Cell Dichotomy Read More »
The ultimate fate of the two Nature STAP cell papers remains in troubled limbo. One of the senior STAP cell authors, Dr. Sasai, held a news conference yesterday in Japan that included a call for the papers to be retracted. He was variously quoted as believing in STAP cells or alternatively as just thinking it
Lessons from STAP cell fiasco so far Read More »
What’s going on with the STAP cell situation now that it is into its third month? It’s getting worse instead of better or clearer, at least in part due to RIKEN’s incomplete investigation. What’s going on with STAP? New RIKEN Press Conference RIKEN reportedly held an odd sort of limited press conference today that TJO
STAP April Update: Super Stressful on All Fronts Read More »
Very small embryonic-like stem cells aka VSELs are reported to be tiny adult stem cells that are pluripotent or non-existent depending on whom you talk to most recently or which paper you just read. These very controversial cells (which I once compared to the Sasquatch) have a wildly fluctuating history with their existence on multiple occasions
Wild History of VSELs Predicts Future of STAP Cells? Read More »
Yesterday was a crazy day for the STAP cell situation. We had RIKEN releasing a scathing internal investigatory report and then some folks in the media got all worked up about a single PCR assay result that Dr. Ken Lee posted on ResearchGate. Some of the reporters/science writers hyped their headlines/articles on this situation as though
Dr. Lee STAP Result, Hyped by Media, in Proper Context Read More »
RIKEN Institute in Japan has formally announced the complete findings of its investigation into the STAP cell research, Haruko Obokata, and Nature papers. RIKEN almost entirely blamed Obokata for the STAP mess in this report and they didn’t mince words. The RIKEN report alleged that Obokata had engaged in two instances of “research misconduct” as
RIKEN Report Is Virtual Acid Bath of Criticism for Obokata Read More »
What next for STAP? Is retraction of the two papers on the near horizon? It has been two months now since Nature published the two papers on STAP cells and STAP stem cells. There has been a storm of controversy surrounding these papers and the claims they made to easily produce the most powerful of
STAP Cell Nature Papers: Cases For & Against Retraction Read More »
I don’t really hear from almost anyone who fully believes in the STAP cell thing anymore. The most common thing I do hear is from people assuming STAP is largely or entirely wrong and asking, “what really happened?” There’s still a chance that STAP is real, but if I were in Vegas or at the
Clues as to the real STAP cell scoop: a trio of biosci traps Read More »
Dr. Ken Lee’s lab has done some very important validation attempts on STAP cells and has posted them on ResearchGate. To my knowledge, his lab’s STAP experiments are the ones in the public domain that most closely matched the methods of the Nature STAP papers. Dr. Lee submitted the work to Nature Brief Communications Arising
Nature Rejects Paper Reporting that STAP Does Not Work Read More »
The Vacanti Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School has now posted online their own version of the STAP cell production protocol. The thing that first struck me most strongly about this published protocol is that it is not the same protocol reported in the Nature papers and it also is not the same
Reactions to New On-Line Vacanti Lab STAP Cell Protocol Read More »