Japan lab weighing retraction of stem cell paper

[matsuki]

BN-BH405_stap_G_20140129202715[1].jpg

TOKYO — A Japanese government-funded laboratory said Tuesday it is considering retracting a research paper describing a simple way of turning ordinary cells from mice into stem cells. The RIKEN Center for Development Biology in Kobe, Japan, has been looking into questions raised over images and wording in the paper, co-authored by lab scientist Haruko Obokata. RIKEN said Tuesday that it may retract the paper because of credibility and ethics issues, even though an investigation is continuing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi ... story.html

[kurogane]

I think I have seen her in one of those Genyaku Joshi-kagakusha dickumentaries.

Not as penetrating as Marina Isshiki's recent experiments, but certainly worth a healthy pop.

[matsuki]

I think I have seen her in one of those Genyaku Joshi-kagakusha dickumentaries.

Not as penetrating as Marina Isshiki's recent experiments, but certainly worth a healthy pop.

That's more my are of expertise as well but who knows, she might end up in that workforce soon enough. Who does this kind of lame copy and paste job and thinks they won't get caught?

Irregularities in images:

1) In one of the two papers in Nature describing the research, images of two placentas from supposedly separate experiments look similar. This allegation, made in science blogs including PubPeer, was among the first to be raised and prompted Riken to open an investigation Feb. 13.

2) Images used in Nature look strikingly similar to images used in Dr. Obokata’s 2011 doctoral dissertation but come from a different experiment at a different time, according to Teruhiko Wakayama of Yamanashi University, a co-author of the papers. Dr. Wakayama said this discovery prompted him to call this week for a retraction. Japan’s national broadcaster NHK aired a segment comparing the two sets of images.

Charles Vacanti of Harvard Medical School, a co-author of both papers, said some mistakes were made in the papers but they don’t affect the conclusions.

Allegations of copied material:

3) A portion of the Nature paper describing how the researchers viewed chromosomes under a microscope was nearly identical to a section from a separate paper titled “Multicolor Karyotype Analyses of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells” published in 2005 by researchers from a German university.

4) A Japanese blogger who has been tracking suspicions over the stem-cell studies posted what he said was the 2011 Obokata dissertation submitted to Waseda University. Large portions of the document were identical to a U.S. National Institutes of Health website on stem cells. A Waseda spokesman said he believed the document was indeed Dr. Obokata’s dissertation and said the university was investigating the allegations.

Inconsistencies between Nature paper and authors’ subsequent explanation:

5) On March 5, Riken released new tips on methods Dr. Obokata and fellow Riken scientists used to create stem cells. But blogs like the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog, run by Paul Knoepfler, a stem-cell researcher at the University of California, Davis, pointed out inconsistencies between the new description of the methods and the original paper. In particular, Dr. Knoepfler said the new description suggested that the stem cells didn’t derive from white blood cells as the original paper said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014 ... -in-japan/

[kurogane]

As a general impression, I was always rather shocked at how casually Japanese academics seem to view professional academic plagiarism. Not that it is rampant or anything, but the attitude seemed rather nonchalant, and their citation protocols can be quite lax to say the least. I once requested proper citation of my quoted work and was told I should be proud such an esteemed researcher had deigned to read and use my work.

Told by the man himself, who was an infamous douche, to be sure.

Again, I am not saying its widespread or chronic, but the attitude towards it did strike me as very different, and usually lax. The only time I ever saw anybody get agitated about it was when it was their work being copied, which seems to be how Japanese morality and ethics work anyways.

[Yokohammer]

What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine.

BTW, this discussion has already been underway for a couple of days, here:
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28548

Starting at about the tenth post.

[kurogane]

What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine. .

That and: It's okay if I do it or if I don't care, but if I do care it's a crime against humanity.

In a totally different realm, we see that every August 6.

PS I had already mixed up the 2 threads in my little head

[matsuki]

What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine.

BTW, this discussion has already been underway for a couple of days, here:
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28548

Starting at about the tenth post.

Damn, I totally missed that. Can someone combine them?

[Yokohammer]

"Tokyo Tech" posts are still not showing up in "Hot Topics," so it's no surprise that y'all missed the other thread.

They show up in "View unread posts" though.

[yanpa]

I'll have the IT staff taken out and shot.

Anyway, soon to be in a situation where I can tidy things up around here a bit more.

[kurogane]

I'll have the IT staff taken out and shot.

That seems a touch drastic in MYHOMO. What about 40 lashes of the cat o' nine tails at 15 paces, and 500 lines of some obscure code he or she can barely remember from his or her Commodore64 days????

The punishment should fit the crime, non?

[Yokohammer]

I'll have the IT staff taken out and shot.

I should certainly hope so!

And while you're at it, take a 50% pay cut for yourself.

[kurogane]

Wouldn't the shooting constitute a 100% pay cut?

[Yokohammer]

Wouldn't the shooting constitute a 100% pay cut?

Bullets cost money, you know.

Besides, that's just the IT team. The 50% pay cut is for the administration.
That'll reduce their income from negative something to half of negative something.

[kurogane]

Aaaah, gotcha. A cost cutting measure Ford and Chevy would be proud of.

Have you considered a career in management consultancy???

[Russell]

This starts to look worse and worse...

New doubts, over mice used in trials, further cloud STAP cell research by Riken

The Japanese researcher and lead author of two recent papers on groundbreaking stem cell research that have been called into question gave a co-author stem cells produced from mice of different genetic lines than originally asked for, officials with the government-backed Riken institute said.

The episode raises further questions about the quality of research conducted by Haruko Obokata, a unit leader at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology who claimed her team had found a new, simple way to produce stem cells — called STAP cells (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) — that can transform into any type of body tissue.

The papers, which appeared in the journal Nature in late January, have come under scrutiny due to a litany of problems, including images resembling those used in Obokata’s doctoral dissertation in 2011. The revelations have prompted Obokata and other co-authors at Riken to agree to have the papers retracted.

Before the papers were published, Teruhiko Wakayama, a co-author of the papers who is no longer at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology and is currently a professor at the University of Yamanashi, asked Obokata to create STAP stem cells using “129″ mice, according to officials.

The purpose of Wakayama’s request was to see whether STAP cells could be produced regardless of mouse genetic lines. Obokata later provided two clusters of cells to Wakayama.

When Wakayama examined the genes of the two cell clusters, he discovered that they had come from “B6″ and “F1″ mice, not “129″ mice, the officials said.

More

The best claim Obokata now can make is that her techniques are able to create stem cells from mice of a specific genetic line. That in itself would not be a bad result (if it can be corroborated), but it would be necessary to figure out why it only works for that cell line. Looks like she has been very sloppy, or even deceiving...

[matsuki]

Looks like she has been very sloppy, or even deceiving...

burn the bitch!

[Wibble]

This starts to look worse and worse...

New doubts, over mice used in trials, further cloud STAP cell research by Riken

The Japanese researcher and lead author of two recent papers on groundbreaking stem cell research that have been called into question gave a co-author stem cells produced from mice of different genetic lines than originally asked for, officials with the government-backed Riken institute said.

The episode raises further questions about the quality of research conducted by Haruko Obokata, a unit leader at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology who claimed her team had found a new, simple way to produce stem cells — called STAP cells (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) — that can transform into any type of body tissue.

The papers, which appeared in the journal Nature in late January, have come under scrutiny due to a litany of problems, including images resembling those used in Obokata’s doctoral dissertation in 2011. The revelations have prompted Obokata and other co-authors at Riken to agree to have the papers retracted.

Before the papers were published, Teruhiko Wakayama, a co-author of the papers who is no longer at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology and is currently a professor at the University of Yamanashi, asked Obokata to create STAP stem cells using “129″ mice, according to officials.

The purpose of Wakayama’s request was to see whether STAP cells could be produced regardless of mouse genetic lines. Obokata later provided two clusters of cells to Wakayama.

When Wakayama examined the genes of the two cell clusters, he discovered that they had come from “B6″ and “F1″ mice, not “129″ mice, the officials said.

More

The best claim Obokata now can make is that her techniques are able to create stem cells from mice of a specific genetic line. That in itself would not be a bad result (if it can be corroborated), but it would be necessary to figure out why it only works for that cell line. Looks like she has been very sloppy, or even deceiving...

It's not likely to be an animal house fuckup as 129 mice and B6 mice look really different, and it's hard to see how this could be from sloppy labelling. F1 usually mean a first generation cross, so probably is from B6 x 129 mice and in this paper, B6 x 129 ES stem cells were used controls for stem cell character. If it turns out she sent ES cells to her colleague labelled as STAP to confirm stem cell markers, that would be pretty outrageous and far worse than sloppy. Added to the apparent bizarre dishonesty about her dissertation examiners (come on, it can't be that hard to get a PhD in Japan), I think it will be hard to believe any of her work.

[matsuki]

Where there's smoke....and lighter fluid...and what appears to be matches...

[kurogane]

I didn't get even a whiff of that mice stuff (good on ya, though), but this is starting to smell like a JSPS Affirmative Action clusterfuck. As brilliant a programme as it is, the cronyism of it struck me as very odd indeed. I, of course, earned mine the honest way............

What was Obokata's dissertation examiners issue (in shorthand, if you pleez)?

[Wibble]

I didn't get even a whiff of that mice stuff (good on ya, though), but this is starting to smell like a JSPS Affirmative Action clusterfuck. As brilliant a programme as it is, the cronyism of it struck me as very odd indeed. I, of course, earned mine the honest way............

What was Obokata's dissertation examiners issue (in shorthand, if you pleez)?

She listed her Harvard Prof. (Senior author on this paper, and a pretty famous scientist) as being on her examiner's board. He says that he wasn't and had never even seen her thesis, let alone approved it. A bit of an odd claim for her to make up. (unless the Prof. is trying to cover his arse on why he didn't notice that she had reused a picture in this paper from that thesis).

[kurogane]

Ahhh. Wow. Resume padding from an obviously able enough researcher. Of the sort so easily disproved it's actually frighteningly stupid. I saw a fair bit of that on both the Monbusho and the JSPS, but always from Other Asians. Hard to believe the Harvard guy would even feel the need to cover his bum on that; examiners aren't responsible for the integrity of the content in any place I have ever been.

That is weird. I wonder if all the pressure didn't get to her. Sort of a shame, really.

Anyways, I strongly object to the idea that she should be burned at the stake. I think that is simply typical of the current bloodlust for extreme punishments, and it would be like throwing out the baby because she pee'd in the bathwater. I would think she should get off with a light spit roast.

Jury duty, anyone?

[matsuki]

Why not burn her though? Seems like she's faking the funk and making shit up as she goes...while name dropping without approval. In most circles, that's worth good pounding at least.

[kurogane]

Why not burn her though? .

Like I said, from looking at her picture there and despite her nefarious deeds against science I would suggest she would benefit more from a spit roasting than a burning.

[matsuki]

So J-trail or bukakke fest...collect all the cell samples she wants, with her...

[kurogane]

In my few but memorable experiences of random crazed OL sex I seem to remember those tight little wiggle skirt wrapped rumps being a miraculous source for the rapid regeneration of my stem cell.

Oh, Random Word Order Girl where art thee now????

[Taro Toporific]

new-fraud-standards.png

RIKEN Adopts New Ethical Standards - Researchers Must Change Colors on All Plagiarized Images -- @DailyGomiuri™ (@DailyGomiuri) April 1, 2014

[Taro Toporific]

Wild-n-Crazy New Idea: Japanese research needs to be reviewed! Wow!!

nhk_screen_shot_2014-05-05_at_1.23.14_pm.png

RIKEN instructs researchers to review their papers
NHK WORLD English | May 4, 2014
Japan's RIKEN institute has instructed all its researchers to review their papers following the revelation of controversial papers on stem cell research by one of its researchers.
RIKEN President Ryoji Noyori issued the order on April 25th. He asked researchers to check voluntarily whether plagiarism is involved in their papers.
The order is said to target papers written in the last 10 years, totaling more than 20,000.
Obokata led high-profile studies on a new type of stem cell, the so-called STAP...more...

[Taro Toporific]

Inaccurate imagery found again in STAP cell papers
Mainichi.jp | May 22, 2014
Inaccurate imagery has been found again in one of the papers on controversial stem cell research led by Japanese scientist Haruko Obokata, officials of her government-backed Riken institute said Wednesday.
The images of two mice presented as each showing the outcome of a different experiment related to so-called STAP cells, or stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cells, turned out to be those of just one mouse photographed separately...more...

[Russell]

The imagery in question purported to show two types of "chimeric" mice -- one created using STAP cells and the other using embryonic stem cells -- and the difference between the two types of cells regarding their versatility, or ability to develop into any type of tissue.

The image purportedly showing an embryonic mouse created with STAP cells also shows a placenta, giving some credence to the researchers' claim that their STAP cells are more versatile, because embryonic stem cells are known to lack the ability to develop into certain parts of a placenta.

This starts to look more and more like scientific misconduct, rather than a simple mistake.

Riken learned of the inaccurate imagery through a tip, according to the officials.

The two images were captured with a camera that automatically records the time and date of each image photographed. They were captured the same day, and Obokata kept them in the same folder on a computer, according to the officials.

Other allegations have also emerged over the STAP cell papers. But a Riken representative said the institute does not intend to look into them because they have not been provided as a tip related to misconduct but merely as "information."

[matsuki]

Riken learned of the inaccurate imagery through a tip, according to the officials.

The two images were captured with a camera that automatically records the time and date of each image photographed. They were captured the same day, and Obokata kept them in the same folder on a computer, according to the officials.

Other allegations have also emerged over the STAP cell papers. But a Riken representative said the institute does not intend to look into them because they have not been provided as a tip related to misconduct but merely as "information."

There is simple ignorance and then there is straight up negligence.