Embattled stem cell scientist Haruko Obokata from the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Japan has agreed, albeit reluctantly, to retract one of the two Nature papers that describes a controversial technique for generating pluripotent stem cells by stressing adult cells with acid or pressure.
Obokata and her colleagues pioneered the STAP protocol that generates Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency or STAP cells in two papers that were published in the international journal Nature in January, 2014. When these papers appeared, they were regarded as a revolutionary finding in the field of stem cells. Nevertheless, these papers also generated more than a fair share of suspicions, and rightly so. After all, these papers challenged many previous observations. Therefore, many laboratories tried to repeat Obokata’s results, without any success. While in and of itself this was not a definitive refutation of these papers, further mining of the data in these papers revealed discrepancies and inconsistencies. Again, while this is not a definitive refutation of the results in the paper, it was enough to implement further investigation. Therefore an internal investigation by the Riken Center was conducted.
In their investigation, Riken found evidence of misconduct. According to the Riken report, two pictures of electrophroresis gels were spliced together, and that data from Obokata’s doctoral thesis was reused in two images despite that fact that these data came from experiments that had been conducted under different conditions.
Obokata apologized for her errors, but insisted that these mistakes were unintentional and that they did not detract from the validity of her work in general. She also said she would be appealing the findings. That appeal, however, was rejected earlier this month.
Now, Obokata has agreed to retract one, but not both, of two Nature papers. According to the Nature News Blog, which is editorially independent of the research editorial team, the “Bidirectional developmental potential in reprogrammed cells with acquired pluripotency” paper is to be retracted. Riken told the Nature News Blog that each co-author either agreed to the retraction or did not oppose it. According to the Japan Times:
Of the three researchers, her lawyer said University of Yamanashi professor Teruhiko Wakayama is responsible for the paper Obokata has agreed to retract. He was engaged in all experiments, and Obokata wrote the paper under his guidance, lawyer Hideo Miki said.
She e-mailed the other main co-author, Yoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, that she would have no problem if Wakayama wants to retract it, Miki said.
Both papers were published in the Jan. 30 edition of the journal, one as a “letter” and the other as an “article.”
However, the journal Nature couldn’t confirm the request. “Nature does not comment on corrections or retractions that may or may not be under consideration, nor does it comment on correspondence with authors, which is confidential,” a spokesperson tells the Nature News Blog. “We are currently conducting our own evaluation and we hope that we are close to reaching a conclusion and taking action.”
According to the Japan Times, Obokata has said that she will not retract the other paper.
Beyond the Dish 