Japanese investigation of stem cell research finds errors but no fraud so far

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author of one of the two papers published in the journal Nature, who earlier this week called for the papers to be withdrawn.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 for scientists to produce stem cells, which have the capacity to become any of the numerous cell types in the body and are seen as providing potential therapies for a range of conditions from diabetes to heart failure to paralysis.

But since the papers were published in January, numerous allegations have emerged in online forums about possible problems with images and plagiarism. A spokeswoman for RIKEN said that three scientists have agreed to consider a retractionYoshiki Sasai, Hitoshi Niwa, and Haruko Obokata, who was the lead resesarcher. But, the spokeswoman added, the papers wont be retracted unless all co-authors agree.

The Boston scientist who was the senior author of one of the paper, Dr. Charles Vacanti of Brigham and Womens Hospital, has stood by the core findings and said in a prepared statement that while he awaits the outcome of the complete RIKEN investigation and plans to speak with all of his co-authors, he still believes the results are sound.

I continue to feel that the findings presented in these papers are too significant to disregard based on relatively minor errors or external pressures. In the absence of compelling evidence that the data presented is incorrect, I do not believe that the manuscripts should be retracted, Vacanti said. I firmly believe that the most appropriate course of action at this time is to clarify, in a very specific manner, all of the subtleties associated with the creation of STAP cells by posting specific details of our most effective protocol on our laboratory web site.

STAP cells are the name given the type of stem cells created in the experimentswhich the authors reported behave similarly to embryonic stem cells.

According to a Wall Street Journal live blog of the press conference, Vacantis main contribution to the research was developing the idea for how to create these stem cellsand he did not play a role in reviewing RIKENs data.

RIKEN scientists said they were unaware that any independent scientists had succeeded in replicating the experiments and producing stem cells with the acid-bath technique, according to the blog. A Hong Kong scientist Thursday posted a report of his failed efforts to repeat the experiment on a website called ResearchGate, but such failures can be difficult to interpret because initial difficulty repeating a new technique is not uncommon.

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Japanese investigation of stem cell research finds errors but no fraud so far