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 »
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 »
Are the Nature STAP stem cell papers compromised? Could Nature‘s investigation conclude with something as serious as retraction or rather a mild slap on the wrist? Somewhere in between? (note you may find this update post from 2020 to be of interest: Whatever happened to the STAP cell scientists including Haruko Obokata?) Why is this question
Are STAP Stem Cell Nature Papers Compromised? Read More »
What’s the latest surprise on the STAP stem 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
Nature Post-Pub Examination of Its Own STAP Stem Cell Papers Breaks New Ground Read More »
In two Nature papers (here and here) published today researchers report the astounding finding of reprogramming differentiated cells back to a pluripotent or even totipotent state simply by exposing the cells to extreme environmental stress, creating cells they called STAP cells. Update: see more thoughts on STAP stem cells here. STAP cells: stressing the cell
Review of Obokata STAP cells Nature papers Read More »
There was a Twitter buzz yesterday about a Science news story on Korean cloning fraud Woo Suk Hwang’s efforts for redemption in the scientific community. What was the big deal? It turns out to be a peculiar situation. The Science Hwang piece by Dennis Normile, entitled “After Fraud, Korean Cloner Seeks Redemption”, was eerily similar in
Did Clone-Like Nature & Science Pieces Boost Hwang Redemption PR Effort? Read More »
One of the big stem cell-related stories of 2013 was the controversy over the Stamina Foundation in Italy and its potential use of largely untested stem cell products on patients, including mostly children. The winner of my 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award was Dr. Elena Cattaneo and one reason she won was the courage
Nature Slams Controversial Stamina Foundation: A Dangerous Situation Continues Read More »
What if you could reprogram cells inside of an organism to a different fate and, for instance, make IPS cells? We can, right? But when most of us think about making induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, we imagine it all happening in a little plastic dish in our labs or in our colleague’s labs, not
Stem cell journal club: dishing on Nature paper on making iPS cells inside mice Read More »
One of my inspirations as a stem cell blogger was the pioneering Nature blog, the Niche. I was disappointed when it ended in 2009, but it still is a model of what excellence in science blogging is all about. In this piece today, I interview the co-Founder of the Niche, Dr. Natalie DeWitt. DeWitt now
Interview with Natalie DeWitt, Founder of Nature’s pioneering stem cell blog, the Niche Read More »
I’ve already talked with science writer Ed Yong about the new Nature paper Araki, et al. (you can read Ed’s well-written piece here and you can another one on it by another one of my favorite writers, Monya Baker here), which suggests that iPS cells don’t trigger much in the way of an immune response. I
Some thoughts on the Araki Nature iPS cell paper: an advance, but a few key caveats Read More »