Perspectives: RIKEN itself fails to reproduce STAP & big CDB shake up expected soonPosted on
0 y- i7 _$ b+ E5 gAugust 26, 2014
& F4 l0 G. t s7 X! J1 k O3 KNikkei is reporting% A& M; ^9 ]) z/ m8 Z: H* a
that the RIKEN internal attempt to replicate so-called STAP (acid bath) cells has failed. The rumors for weeks in the stem cell gapevine that RIKEN itself could not get STAP to work, even with the help of Dr. Haruko Obokata, have been confirmed by Nikkei. Obokata was first author on both, {% K" M4 X/ j8 M+ |2 U9 l7 @
Nature
- J) x. M" i8 pSTAP papers, which
6 S$ K' \3 a! g, wwere retracted. One of Obokata’s mentors and a STAP paper co-author, Dr. Yoshiki Sasai, recently committed suicide at least in part likely due to issue related to STAP. See a tribute to Dr. Sasai5 B( r$ T! f9 @) ?" B" @6 D5 }# n
here. 
The best that the RIKEN team could get in the replication attempt, according to Nikkei sources, was a “faint” hint of pluripotent markers “nowhere near” to that observed in iPS cells or embryonic stem cells. STAP cells were supposed to be not just pluripotent, but also totipotent, allowing for contribution to an entire embryo (see image at left from the STAP work). Now that claim seems light years from reality.For more background on STAP and a timeline of the events see here. This may be the final straw that pushes RIKEN to formally declare that STAP cells do not exist, a conclusion that I think the world of science has mostly already come to some time ago. This latest twist is no surprise and just adds to the continuing STAP sadness, but hopefully is another step toward an end for the STAP disaster. Unfortunately, however, this could get even worse. Nikkei also reports that tomorrow RIKEN will announce a major shakeup at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB), where much of the original STAP work took place, that could mean as much as half of the scientists at the CDB losing their jobs. That seems grossly unfair as most of the affected people would probably have had nothing to do with STAP. This anticipated personnel cut would be just another level of tragedy to the STAP story. http://www.ipscell.com/2014/08/perspectives-riken-itself-fails-to-reproduce-stap-big-cdb-shake-up-expected-soon/ truth4science on August 26, 2014 at 10:18 pm said:RIKEN has suffered from an acid bath and its CDB will be shaken up by the falling STAP cells. But how could Nature survive this disaster without any damage and, more likely, with an even higher impact factor because of the positive AND negative citations of its even retracted twin STAP cell papers? Nature should open its “stringent” peer review files to let the world know how it picked up a shaky “discovery” for extremely high-profile publication. 2 l/ |0 r5 e9 U
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发表于 2014-8-27 17:12
发表于 2014-8-27 17:42
