I’m a seismologist at the University of Tokyo, where I’ve been since 1984. I was the first tenured foreign faculty member in the history of our university. If you look at my publication list on the Researcher ID site you can see that my main research recent interests are modeling seismic wave propagation and analyzing […]
Seismologist from Japan looks at the STAP cells mess Read More »
A host of problems have emerged related to the two Nature papers on STAP cells and other publications by some of the same authors. It’s only been just shy of 6 weeks since these papers came out, but doesn’t it feel like about 5 years? Where will this all end? (update in 2020: closer to
Beginning of End for STAP Cell Story? Possible Outcomes Read More »
A small group of the STAP authors via RIKEN have now released a detailed protocol also available at Nature Protocol Exchange for making STAP stem cells entitled “Essential technical tips for STAP cell conversion culture from somatic cells”. This comes about 5 weeks after publication of their Nature STAP stem cell papers. 2020 update: With the 4th and
Reactions to RIKEN’s STAP cell protocol Read More »
I’ve been doing a weekly-ish poll on people’s sentiments about STAP cells. It’s not scientific but many people have told me they find it interesting. Week 4’s poll is done with more than 500 votes and it is even more discouraging than week 3. See the purple line in the graph as that is the
Week 4 poll: few hopeful about STAP cells anymore Read More »
What’s the latest surprise on the STAP cell front? There have been many unexpected turn along the way in the past few weeks of the rollercoaster ride the stem cell field is on related to STAP stem cells, the super powerful stem cells reportedly (in two papers in Nature) made “simply” by exposing cells to
Nature Post-Pub Examination of Its Own STAP Cell Papers Breaks New Ground Read More »
Today may be a turning point for STAP cells. Nature itself opened up in a newsy piece about the events that have occurred in the past couple weeks since they published two related papers on acid/other stimulus-induced powerful pluripotent or totipotent stem cells (aka STAP stem cells). Update: Science also published a news piece on
STAP cells update 2.0: method isn’t working so far, investigations & more Read More »
I’m tracking opinion in the world of stem cells on STAP cells, those acid-induced stem cells reported in Nature. I’m hoping to capture potential dynamic changes in people’s views as the STAP stem cell situation evolves. Even if you’ve voted in my past polls, this is a new one so you can (and please do)
Do You Believe in STAP Cells: Poll Week 3 Read More »
I’ve been doing polling on people’s views about STAP stem cells. You can see the week 1 poll results here. I’ve just closed the week 2 polling and the results are above. In week 1 while there was a significant split between respondents, the polling leaned clearly toward people being more positive about STAP stem
STAP cells week 2 poll results: more uncertainty Read More »
It is important for the stem cell field to gain clarity on STAP cells. For this reason it is reasonable and at times helpful to critically discuss the data, past findings, concerns about elements of publications, and such. However, it is not helpful and is in fact against the policy of this blog to engage
Note on policy on commenting and how it relates to STAP cells situation Read More »
Acid-induced pluripotent or even totipotent stem cells, called STAP cells, have thrown the stem cell field for a bit of a loop. For more background see my interview with the key public face of STAP, Dr. Charles Vacanti, as well as my review of their paper, my top 5 reasons for skepticism, and some other thoughts. Do you believe in STAP?
Latest developments and scoops on STAP cells Read More »