Search Results for: Haruko Obokata

2nd chances after big misconduct? He Jiankui, James Wilson, others

December 7, 2022 / By / 3 Comments
James Wilson, Gene therapy

There have been rare instances like with scientist James Wilson where researchers were involved in what I would call major misconduct but somehow managed to bounce back. In a sense, they were given second chances in part by regulators but also by other scientists or supporters. However, after extraordinary misconduct, especially contributing to the death …

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Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, & lessons for the stem cell field

January 9, 2022 / By / 9 Comments
Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos

When I read about Elizabeth Holmes and her blood testing startup Theranos I see parallels to hucksters in the arena of stem cells and cell therapy. I’m thinking especially of the unproven stem cell clinics out there. It goes farther than that though too, including people who aren’t hucksters at all but get caught up …

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History tells us to be more skeptical of He Jiankui’s CRISPR baby story

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
Fake-cloning

Could He Jiankui have faked part or all of his CRISPR babies story? If so, how? Why? Or to put it another way, almost everyone seems to be assuming the story is real, but should we be more skeptical? Should we flip things around and assume the story isn’t entirely kosher until proven otherwise? I once …

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Some weird posts: testicle soup, Kim Kardashian, zombies

February 1, 2021 / By
kardashian-vampire-facial

After six and a half years blogging here, I’ve seen so much weird stuff. Not all of it was even “bloggable” due to its crazy, not-safe-for-work nature. For TGIF this week, here are 10 of the weirdest posts from this blog over the years. Where’s the Beef? Reality Check on Stem Cell Test Tube Burger …

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Finally, Vacanti’s side of STAP cell implosion

February 1, 2021 / By / 11 Comments
Obokata_Vacanti

A great new piece in The New Yorker by Dana Goodyear, The Stress Test, gives us a window into Charles Vacanti’s side of the STAP cell mess and includes recent quotes from him. It’s a long, fascinating look inside of STAP, the tangled and ultimately tragic scientific implosion that created and then brought down two Nature …

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New Nature papers debunk STAP cells

January 12, 2024 / By / 6 Comments
STAP-refutation

Today marks nearing the completion of a full circle for one of science’s biggest controversies: the STAP cell fiasco. Today STAP cells are completely refuted with the publication of two new papers in Nature and we know much more–with some notable gaps still–about what went wrong. STAP cells debunked In January of last year, an …

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Personal Reflections on STAP Cell Mess On 1-Year Anniversary

February 1, 2021 / By / 3 Comments
Obokata_Vacanti

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 …

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Perspectives on final RIKEN report on STAP cell scandal & what comes next

February 1, 2021 / By / 18 Comments
STAP-cells-FIgure

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 …

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STAP Cell Update: STAP-like paper, Real Origin of STAP cells

January 12, 2024 / By / 7 Comments
electric-iPSC

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 …

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Holding Institutions Responsible for Research Misconduct: the recent case of a death of stem cell scientist

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments

By Zubin Master Scientist Yoshiki Sasai, age 52, committed suicide and was found dead on August 5, 2014. Sasai was deputy director of the Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) at RIKEN in Kobe, Japan, and coauthor on two recently retracted Nature papers about a reportedly easier way to make induced pluripotent stem cells. The papers …

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