No STAP stem cells
December 19, 2014
A Japanese scientist once hailed a hero resigned Friday (19.12.2014) after acknowledging she could not reproduce the results of her groundbreaking "STAP" stem cell research in a government lab under video camera surveillance.
Haruko Obokata's highly publicized fall from grace led to critiques against the international science journal which published her research, to reforms at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, and contributed to the suicide of co-author and respected stem cell scientist, Yoshiki Sasai.
"Now, I am just exhausted. For the results to end this way is just perplexing," Obokata said in her statement Friday. The researcher, who added she could not find the words for an apology, had refused media appearances since April.
Two science papers written by Obokata and Sasai were published in the international science journal "Nature" in January. The researchers claimed they could create stem cells out of blood cells - albeit in mice - through the use of an acid solution. They called the process Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP).
The STAP process would have greatly simplified the creation of stem cells from other cells.
Researchers believe stem cells will one day be used to treat a range of diseases, from Parkinson's Disease to blindness, since they can regenerate or repair damaged tissues in the human body.
However, scientists quickly discovered mistakes and contradictions in the STAP papers' data and picture captions, and labs around the world were never able to replicate their findings.
In June, Obakata retracted the papers.
In August, co-author Sasai hanged himself.
In September, leaked email correspondence between "Nature" and the two scientists led to questions about the British magazine's publication criteria; other journals, for example, had rejected the papers.
For the last three months, Obokata had been trying to replicate her results in a Kobe lab.
Interest has also been high in the Japanese scientist for non-scientific reasons: Obakata is a photogenic, Harvard-trained scientist known for wearing a housewife's apron instead of a lab coat.
cd/ za (AP, AFP)