Japan lab weighing retraction of stem cell paper

[Coligny]

It's ok, i was told the movie adaptation stayed true to the book...

1bksp264pl.jpg

[yanpa]

Wait, so a so-called STAP cell is a pixellated block?

[Russell]

Wait, so a so-called STAP cell is a pixellated block?

According to her Nature paper it is...

[Coligny]

Moar like a FAP cell amirite !!!!

[Takechanpoo]

who should be blamed equal to or greater than Obo is this bald Teruhiko Wakayama.

AS20140130004048_comm.jpg

[Russell]

Another candidate for an AV career...



Theranos was supposed to revolutionize blood tests. Now its CEO faces an industry ban.

Elizabeth Holmes once promised to disrupt the multibillion-dollar blood testing industry with her revolutionary finger-prick tests.

Now the 31-year-old founder of biotech startup Theranos may be on the brink of being banned from the industry entirely.

According to a March 18 letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal — the latest revelation in the newspaper's impressive investigation into Holmes's crumbling empire — US health regulators are threatening to close down Theranos because the company failed to address deficiencies that pose a threat to patient health and safety.

In the letter, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it plans to revoke Theranos’s lab license and prohibit its owners — including Holmes and company president Sunny Balwani — "from owning or running any other lab for at least two years," the Journal reported.

CMS will reconsider these actions if the Theranos executives can provide good evidence for why they shouldn't be shut down. The company has already responded, and CMS has not yet reached a final decision.

"If the sanctions are imposed," reporters John Carreyrou and Christopher Weaver write in the Journal, "some would take effect within eight days. Others would take longer, including revoking the California lab’s license, which could occur in 60 days." The company could also appeal the decision, which could delay any regulatory sanctions.

[...]

Theranos's current set of problems started with an October Wall Street Journal published investigation. In it, Carreyrou showed that the company's claims of a health care revolution were overblown. Contrary to Holmes's public statements, Theranos had allegedly been collecting blood samples using the traditional way and then diluting them so they could be run on machines made by other companies — not their much-hyped Edison technology.

What's more, the Journal's investigation, as well as a follow-up story, suggested there were major concerns about the accuracy of Theranos's test results.

Theranos had claimed it had the technology to take blood from a simple painless prick and run multiple tests on that tiny, raindrop-size sample rather than the multiple vials usually required. The sample would be sent to a lab in a "nanotainer" and tested on Theranos’s proprietary technology, known as "Edison machines." Theranos also promised to deliver results in a few hours, to eliminate anxiety-inducing waits. Holmes said the tests would cost about half of current Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates for tests.

It seemed promising. In 2013, Theranos opened 42 "wellness centers" in Walgreens pharmacies in Arizona, two in California, and one in Pennsylvania. Holmes had also started lobbying state governments to allow patients to order Theranos tests without having to go through the cumbersome annoyance of getting a doctor's note — a step that, in theory, would further cut down on time and cost to patients.

By 2015, Holmes had persuaded Arizona's legislature to pass a law allowing patients to skip right to her labs and order up whatever menu of testing they wanted, without doctors' approval.

So not only was Holmes trying to upend the way blood testing is done, she was also trying to change how people interact with the health care system. Considering that every person gets blood tests at some point, the change she promised was a big deal.

Many of Theranos's claims were never validated, raising suspicions

More recently, however, critics had begun asking for proof that Theranos's technology actually works, and that its results are accurate. After all, the evidence on this wasn't public: The Food and Drug Administration hadn't cleared Theranos's tests. And Holmes had never published her claims in peer-reviewed journals.

Holmes and Theranos's PR team deflected these critics by citing intellectual property concerns and suggesting that any complaints were being planted by rival testing companies, such as Quest and Laboratory Corporation.

More

[kurogane]

She is totally Dogfartable. She reminds me a bit of Loan Officer Sterling, a ghetto based bank employee who leaves no hole unfilled in her efforts to promote interracial harmony.

[matsuki]

Sickening...white collar scams with credentials. Hope she's guzzling cum from test tubes on video by the end of the year.

[Coligny]

She is totally Dogfartable. She reminds me a bit of Loan Officer Sterling, a ghetto based bank employee who leaves no hole unfilled in her efforts to promote interracial harmony.

You are into horsefaces ?
The wonders never cease with you, Mulder...

[legion]

The sample would be sent to a lab in a "nanotainer" and tested on Theranos’s proprietary technology, known as "Edison machines."

Beep beep beep danger Will Robinson

Sounds more like a kinmirai movie script than a pharma company business plan

[Taro Toporific]

basically Riken tried to rip off some American guy's idea and fucked up

Princess Haruko!!

In first interview since ’14, scandal-hit Obokata says she has received job offers from U.S., Germany
The Japan Times | May 24, 2016
Disgraced scientist Haruko Obokata, who was accused of research misconduct after her high-profile work on so-called STAP stem cells was debunked in 2014, says she has received offers from American and German scientists to continue her research...
...“I have received encouraging letters from researchers overseas I have never met,” Obokata told Setouchi. “They say I should leave Japan by all means. It’s amazing, but I get letters of invitation from research institutions abroad, including ones in America and Germany"...
...Obokata, who said she rarely goes out except to visit her doctor for depression treatment, showed reservations when nudged to explore her options, saying she “does not feel qualified” to continue in the research field...
...In the seven-page magazine interview, Obokata refers to the ferocity of “male jealousy” in the field of science, where major research posts are often occupied by men.
"I might be bashed again if I mention ‘male jealousy,’ but the attacks from men were completely different in nature from ‘bullying’ by women. It was extremely violent, and I thought I would be killed," she said without elaborating.
More...

almost-phd.jpg

[Takechanpoo]

in 4.22. this year,Brigham and Women's Hospital, which belongs to Harverd univ, applied for patents of the making method of STAP all over the world.
http://biz-journal.jp/2016/05/post_15184.html

[Russell]

Maybe they should just let her trying to rebuild her life.

It would help her if she wouldn't give all those interviews, and wouldn't write those books.

[matsuki]

Nonspecific foreign job offers, violent "male jealousy," I think she's just trying to sell more books....

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

basically Riken tried to rip off some American guy's idea and fucked up

Princess Haruko!!

In first interview since ’14, scandal-hit Obokata says she has received job offers from U.S., Germany
The Japan Times | May 24, 2016
Disgraced scientist Haruko Obokata, who was accused of research misconduct after her high-profile work on so-called STAP stem cells was debunked in 2014, says she has received offers from American and German scientists to continue her research...
...“I have received encouraging letters from researchers overseas I have never met,” Obokata told Setouchi. “They say I should leave Japan by all means. It’s amazing, but I get letters of invitation from research institutions abroad, including ones in America and Germany"...
...Obokata, who said she rarely goes out except to visit her doctor for depression treatment, showed reservations when nudged to explore her options, saying she “does not feel qualified” to continue in the research field...
...In the seven-page magazine interview, Obokata refers to the ferocity of “male jealousy” in the field of science, where major research posts are often occupied by men.
"I might be bashed again if I mention ‘male jealousy,’ but the attacks from men were completely different in nature from ‘bullying’ by women. It was extremely violent, and I thought I would be killed," she said without elaborating.
More...

almost-phd.jpg

Her persecution complex and sense of entitlement would ensure she'd feel right at home in the U.S. at least, certainly across the Anglosphere (if any of those cuntries actually scienced) and probably the Vaterland, too.

[Taro Toporific]

a newly found chemical element to be officially authorized as "Japanium"
http://www.sankei.com/life/news/151226/ ... 05-n2.html
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrl ... ntrium-113

Nihonium.jpg

Element 113 is now officially ニホニウム / ｎｉｈｏｎｉｕｍ !!
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/201 ... fp/060000c

DORKYium.jpg

[matsuki]

...still better than Nipponium...or is that next in line?

[Takechanpoo]

Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatment Gives Stroke Victims Stunning Recovery

These stem cells are created by bio-tech company, SanBio.

SanBio is japanese company. this article didnt refer to it though.
http://www.sanbio.jp/corporate/overview.html

[kurogane]

Let's hope this time it's good news.
So, any word on whether Miss Obokata will be expanding her research frontiers and getting her cells stemmed?

[Coligny]

Dib'

[kurogane]

Toats. Like we used to say in Boy Scouts: DYB DYB DOB DOB DOOOOOOOOOOO
I'd almost give up my lifetime ban on being filmed whilst partaking for a crack at that.

解禁！！　小保方元博士の全穴実験　ー　研究室同僚のシテームセルがこぼれまくり

[matsuki]

Still no STAP cells? I thought it was already accepted that stem cells would be able to do this?

[kurogane]

I would totally STAP her stem and her cells.

[dimwit]

Son, you are not yet at an age where you are permitted to resort to Ojiisan humor.

[kurogane]

:bows:

[Takechanpoo]

https://plus.maths.org/content/easy-abc
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/84039916 ... ber-theory

[Taro Toporific]

Todai biomedical research fraud probe seen pointing to wider misconduct
The Japan Times | Oct. 12, 2016
The so-called STAP scandal of 2014 ... [of] stem cell research by the Riken institute and brought down its star scientist, Haruko Obokata...
...This time, suspicions have been raised over research at the University of Tokyo, Japan’s venerable academic and research institution known as Todai.
On Sept. 20, the university announced it would launch a full-fledged investigation into six professors at its medical school and the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, saying a preliminary probe found that allegations of misconduct warranted further scrutiny...
...The probe is unprecedented in that it simultaneously covers six top professors in biomedical fields. It was triggered by two sets of documents mailed by an anonymous source to the university -- on Aug. 14 and Aug. 29. -- that pointed to alleged data fabrication in 22 papers co-authored and supervised by the professors.
The university has refused to name the six researchers, saying in a press release that “the launch of the investigation does not confirm acts of misconduct by the accused.”
More...

Todai-spirit.jpg

[kurogane]

Interesting that they are seeking to stem a tide that itself stemmed from earlier issues raised about stem cell research.

Well, okay, maybe not that interesting but it does provide the seed of a bad pun
:bashful apology:

[Mike Oxlong]

Stem cells: Japan’s scientific ‘moonshot’
A push to exploit the country’s lead in the sector risks being
tripped up by regulation, sparking fears it could lose out to a rival

In mid-2008, when every headline was screaming market meltdown and the end of financial life as the world knew it, Hiromitsu Nakauchi spotted an old friend at a school reunion.

Dr Nakauchi, professor of stem cell therapy at the Tokyo University Institute of Medical Science, had not seen much of Genjiro Miwa since the two left Azabu High decades earlier. But he knew his old friend’s career had something to do with investment. “Look at what is happening! You finance people have done so many terrible things,” the regenerative medicine pioneer told him. “It’s time you finally did something to make the world better.”

Almost a decade later, the company that the two men agreed to set up just a few weeks after that conversation is claiming a breakthrough that could transform the lives of millions across the world who have no access to reliable supplies of blood platelets — an essential treatment for some cancer patients and accident victims. It could also rescue Japan from a health crisis as it runs out of younger blood donors.

Megakaryon, the company that they formally founded in 2011, sits at the heart of a spiralling Japanese obsession with stem-cell based regenerative medicine. Almost 12 per cent, and rising, of the state’s ¥126bn ($1.15bn) discretionary medical research budget is now channelled into the area amid fears that the country could lose its leading edge to the US or another rival...https://www.ft.com/content/254853b2-8f2 ... c17942ba93

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

...at the heart of a spiralling Japanese obsession with stem-cell based regenerative medicine. Almost 12 per cent, and rising, of the state’s ¥126bn ($1.15bn) discretionary medical research budget is now channelled into the area amid fears that the country could lose its leading edge to the US or another rival...

They can always just make it up again....like they did before and do with their history and archeology and law.