Scientist Resigns as Stem-Cell Creation Method Is Discredited

Haruko Obakata caused a sensation earlier this year with papers, now discredited and retracted, that claimed a simple method for creating pluripotent stem cells

A mouse embryo injected with cells made pluripotent through stress, tagged with a fluorescent protein. Credit: Haruko Obokata

Haruko Obokata, the stem-cell biologist whose papers caused a sensation earlier this year before being retracted, has resigned from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan.

Her emotional resignation letter was posted on RIKENs website on December 19 alongside results of the organizations own investigation, which failed to confirm her claims of a simple method to create pluripotent stem cells.

Such cells are scientifically valuable because they can develop into most other cells types, from brain to muscle. But they are difficult to make.

Obokatas methodknown as stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAPwas published in Nature in January. However, the results immediately came under suspicion, and the papers were retracted in July. A few weeks later, one of the papers co-authors, Yoshiki Sasai, took his own life.

Obokata wrote she could not find words enough to apologize... for troubling so many people at RIKEN and other places.

In an accompanying statement, RIKEN president Ryoji Noyori wrote that Obokata had been subject to extreme stress over the affair, and that in accepting her resignation he hoped to save her "further mental burden".

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on December 19, 2014.

2014 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.

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Scientist Resigns as Stem-Cell Creation Method Is Discredited