Integrity of acid-bath stem cell paper questioned — possible retraction

Oh folks. I am sorry about this. Six weeks ago, I published this guest post from Michael Zhang, an MD-PhD candidate at the University of Louisville, on what I felt were two pioneering papers in biology. Michael did a great job reviewing and explaining the papers, which described a simple method of reprogramming mature mammalian cells. I felt safe in writing about these remarkable studies because they were published in the prestigious journal Nature. I assumed the work survived a rigorous vetting and editorial process. Now, a co-author of one of the papers, as well as other researchers have questioned the scientific integrity of the work. The news blog at the journal Nature reported on March 10 that “within weeks of their January 30 publication, the paper was criticized for irregularities and apparent duplicated images.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Dr Ryoji Noyori, a Nobel laureate and head of Japan’s government-funded research Riken Institute, has apologized for serious errors in the paper. In a news conference, he called for the work to be retracted. The senior Japanese researcher did not mince words: (from the WSJ piece) Dr. Noyori repeatedly referred to Haruko Obokata, the 30-year-old lead author of the papers, as “immature” and “sloppy.” He said an investigation was continuing into the most serious allegations—in particular, the question of why three images in the papers were nearly identical to three images included ...
Source: Dr John M - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs