Category Archives: Stem Cell Research

Japanese Research Center Apologises for Stem Cell Paper Controversy Japanese research center Riken apologises for what it calls'grave mistakes' in their stem-cell study published in Nature magazine. Full Story: A Japanese re... By: NTDTV … Continue reading →

A Japanese research institute says a study that promised a revolutionary way to create stem cells should be quashed after claims its data was faulty, dealing a huge blow to what was touted as a game-changing discovery. Riken institute head, Ryoji Noyori, who jointly won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2001, also heaped criticism on lead researcher Haruko Obokata for her 'sloppiness' and warned the controversy could shake the public's faith in research. The findings, published by 30-year-old Obokata along with other Japanese researchers and a US-based scientist in the January edition of British journal 'Nature', outlined a relatively simple way to grow transplant tissue in the lab. But it faced hard questions as the respected institute, which sponsored the study, launched an inquiry last month over the credibility of its data used in the explosive findings. Among key concerns was that researchers used erroneous images - crucial to supporting the study - which resembled those used in Obokata's doctoral dissertation in 2011. 'I apologise that the papers which Riken researchers recently announced in Nature caused an incident that could hurt the credibility of the scientific community,' Noyori told a press briefing. 'This immature researcher handled and collected enormous … Continue reading →

Boston, Massachusetts (PRWEB) March 14, 2014 The Multiple System Atrophy Coalition has awarded a $50,000 grant to Dr. Vikram Khurana of Massachusetts General Hospital to develop a drug discovery platform for MSA using human patient-derived stem cell based models of the disease. The research project, entitled "Stem Cell-Based Therapeutics Platform for MSA" is set to begin in the second quarter of this year. I propose to develop stem cell-based models for MSA to look for signs of alpha-synuclein toxicity, the protein that aggregates in MSA and Parkinsons disease, stated Dr. Khurana. If found, we will assess whether we can reverse such phenotypes by genes and small molecules we uncovered in recent work on Parkinsons disease. I hope this work leads to a novel functional genomics and small molecule discovery platform for MSA. "As I transition to leading my own independent laboratory, I am committed to bringing to bear my training to develop a multidisciplinary clinical and research program focused specifically on MSA, continued Dr. Khurana. The data secured through this seed grant from the MSA Coalition will be critical to attract future federal NIH funding for this endeavor." Multiple system atrophy is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder affecting approximately … Continue reading →

Stem Cell | Skeletal muscle source of stem cells Skeletal muscle stem cells... another alternative? Matsumoto and colleagues, in an article published in Arthritis and Rheumatism, looked at a rat model of os... By: Nathan Wei … Continue reading →

Structural biology, Proteomics Cancer Symposium: 07 Cancer Program of VNU Cancer Program of VNU-Dr. Pham Van Phuc Deputy-Head, Laboratory of Stem Cell Research and Application, HCMUS, VNU-HCM, VN Structural biology, Proteomics Ca... By: Stem Cell Lab HCMUS … Continue reading →

At a lengthy, four-hour press conference in Japan Friday afternoon, officials from the prestigious RIKEN research institute disclosed the interim results of its investigation into controversial stem cell papers, acknowledging serious problems with the research but no evidence so far of outright fraud. Three RIKEN scientists who contributed to the research have now agreed to consider a retraction, in addition to a prominent Japanese scientist and senior author of one of the two papers published in the journal Nature, who earlier this week called for the papers to be withdrawn. It is extremely regrettable that significant discrepancies have been found to have been generated in the process of preparing the Nature articles for publication, Ryoji Noyori, the president of RIKEN and a Nobel laureate, said in a statement. We are investigating these discrepancies, with the understanding that it may become necessary to demand the withdrawal of the articles. The research, coauthored by Boston and Japanese scientists, electrified the scientific world because they reported a shockingly simple way to make stem cells from mature mouse blood cells, by bathing them in a weak acid. If the work is verified by other scientists and reproduced in humans, it could make it easier … Continue reading →

The Nobel Prize-winning head of a Japanese institute whose scientists' work on stem cells was hailed as a game-changer in the field of medical biology called the lead researcher's handling of the data "extremely sloppy" and "irresponsible". Two papers published in the journal Nature in January detailed a simple way to reprogram mature animal cells back into an embryonic-like state that allows them to generate many types of tissue, offering hope for a simpler way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs in humans. But other scientists have been unable to replicate the research's results since then and there have been indications of problems with its data and images. "The problem here is one immature researcher collected a huge amount of research data, and her handling of data was extremely sloppy and irresponsible," president of Japanese research institute RIKEN Ryoji Noyori told a news conference. "I would like to offer my apology for the Nature articles, having brought into question the credibility of the science community," said Noyori, bowing deeply. Noyori, who won a Nobel prize for chemistry in 2001, was referring to Haruko Obokata, 30, a lead author of the papers who became an instant celebrity in Japan … Continue reading →

Riken president Ryoji Noyori (2nd R) speaks during a press conference in Tokyo on March 14, 2014. A Japanese research institute said March 14 it may retract a study that promised a revolutionary way to create stem cells after claims its data was faulty, dealing a huge blow to what was touted as a game-changing discovery. KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images TOKYO -- A Japanese government-funded laboratory said Friday that it has found "inappropriate handling" of data in a widely heralded stem-cell research paper, but has yet to discover anything that amounts to misconduct. In an interim report released Friday, the RIKEN research institute said an investigative committee did not find any misconduct in two of the six parts of the paper it is scrutinizing. RIKEN President Ryoji Noyori, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, said the institute is looking into "significant discrepancies" in the preparation of articles about the research published in January in the scientific journal Nature. "It may become necessary to demand the withdrawal of the articles," he told a packed news conference in Tokyo. RIKEN and Nature are investigating allegations of duplicated images of DNA fragments and partial plagiarism. This image from the January Nature study shows a mouse … Continue reading →

Mar 14, 2014 by Michael Mccarthy Dr. Carol Ware at work in her laboratory at the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. Credit: Bryan Donohue Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully created a line of human embryonic stem cells that have the ability to develop into a far broader range of tissues than most existing cell lines. "These cells will allow us to gain a much greater understanding of normal embryonic development and have the real potential for use in developing ways to grow new tissues and organs for transplantation," said Carol Ware, a professor in the UW Department of Comparative Medicine and lead author of a paper describing the new cell line appearing in the March 10 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The cells, called nave embryonic stem cells, normally appear at the earliest stages of embryonic development and so retain the ability to differentiate in all the different types of cells of the human bodya capacity called pluripotency. Researchers had been able to develop naive cells using mouse embryonic stem cells but to create naive human embryonic stem cells has required inserting a set of genes that force the … Continue reading →

ResearchGate has found itself at the centre of an international debunking of a Japanese paper that claimed to have found a simple way to generate pluripotent stem cells. The social network for scientists launched in 2008 as a push back against traditional academia and the peer review process. It has now launched Open Review as part of that platform, a system that lets users "publish an open and transparent review of any paper that you have read, worked with, or cited" with the central question always being "is this research reproducible?" Professor Kenneth Ka Ho Lee, chief of stem cell research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found the answer was no. "We even repeated it three times -- we're quite confident it doesn't work," Lee told Wired.co.uk. "If we had only repeated it once it would not have been fair on the author." The papers in question were published in Nature and experiments were carried out at the Riken Institute in Japan. It is lead author, 30-year-old Haruko Obokata, who has been in the firing line. The papers describe a technique whereby adult mouse blood cells are transformed into pluripotent stem cells after being submerged in an acid … Continue reading →