Search Results for: obokata

Finally, Vacanti’s side of STAP cell implosion

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 …

Finally, Vacanti’s side of STAP cell implosion Read More »

New Nature papers debunk STAP cells

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 …

New Nature papers debunk STAP cells Read More »

Kelly Hills interview: human genetic modification & bioethics

Kelly-Hills

Below is a conversation with bioethics commentator Kelly Hills (who BTW has a great blog), tackling some of the key issues surrounding the potential use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to make heritable human genetic modification. I really appreciate her clear and insightful answers to some tough questions that many are grappling with today on this topic. Part …

Kelly Hills interview: human genetic modification & bioethics Read More »

Personal Reflections on STAP Cell Mess On 1-Year Anniversary

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 …

Personal Reflections on STAP Cell Mess On 1-Year Anniversary Read More »

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

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 …

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

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

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 …

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

Harvard STAP cell authors release new protocol, affirm belief in phenomenon

STAP-stem-cells

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 »

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

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 …

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