(OT) STAP Cell Researcher Says, "I Want to Be Reunited with My Sons from Whom I've Been Separated"

So, the so-called "STAP cells" have undergone gender reassignment - from "princess" cells as Ms. Obokata (lead author of the two Nature papers) once wanted to name them, to "my sons".

There's got to be a better profession for this so-called researcher than being a researcher. A comedienne or a politician comes to mind.

According to Mainichi Shinbun (6/11/2014), Ms. Obokata, who has been staying at a hospital, has been in fact "advising" Riken researchers how to create the so-called STAP cells since last month.

Mainichi also quotes the lead attorney employed by Ms. Obokata (she has four attorneys), who told the press that his client says she wants to look for her sons (STAP cells) whom she has been separated from.

One prominent Japanese scientist (and a mother) who heads a laboratory in a US research institution is furious, and she tweeted, "You have already made a mockery of biology. Stop insulting women and female researchers further. I'm ashamed."

Other net citizens wonder aloud how Ms. Obokata could look for her "sons" when the "sons" may not have been born to begin with.

Nikkei Science and NHK reported today (6/11/2014) that her "sons" may not be STAP cells but ES cells (embryonic stem cells) with a particular genetic defect. That particular defect, "trisomy" (having three copies) of chromosome 8, has been found in almost all cells that were presented as STAP cells which was supposedly made from one-week-old mice.

Trisomy of chromosome 8 results in death of an embryo. In other words, there cannot be any mouse born with trisomy of chromosome 8, and STAP cells cannot be made from cells taken from a mouse with trisomy of chromosome 8.

On the other hand, 20 to 30 percent of cultured ES cells are known to have trisomy of chromosome 8, according to Nikkei Science and NHK who quote both Riken researchers and Tokyo University researchers who analyzed DNA of the STAP cells.

Oh well, minor details for non-scientists or people with little to no interest in science who are the majority of people in Japan and probably elsewhere. Post-Fukushima Japan (and perhaps elsewhere) seems to think that if you cannot 100% prove certain things do not exist - be they STAP cells or acute effect of long-term low-dose radiation exposure - then it is possible, or even highly probable that these things do exist.

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(UPDATED: OT) Nature Magazine Says There Were No STAP Stem Cells, Which May Be Just a Mixture of Two Different Types of Stem Cells According to Latest Analysis

(UPDATE 3) The story gets richer by the day. Now it's been found that Professor Charles Vacanti, head of Anesthesiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the corresponding author of the Nature paper which he finally agreed to retract after just about everything in the paper was found to be more fantasy than reality, has been awarded US$700,000 grant from the Department of Defense via AxoGen, Inc., "the emerging leader of the $1.6 billion U.S. peripheral nerve repair market" according to the PR on June 4, 2014.

“I am excited about the potential to address challenging nerve repair cases through the use of regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies,” said Vacanti

The US taxpayers are thrilled to fund his research, I suppose.

(UPDATE 2) Yomiuri and other papers reported on 6/5/2014 that Ms. Obokata's job application paper for Riken's position ("unit leader" with close to 100,000 dollars salary) was found to contain more copying and pasting - from her doctoral thesis which is itself full of copying and pasting and from patent applications submitted by Harvard University. It would be a surprise if there is anything, anything at all that this so-called researcher has ever produced without copying and pasting someone else's work.

(UPDATE) So it was a pressure exerted by Nature Magazine on Charles Vacanti. According to Asahi Shinbun (6/5/2014), Nature strongly suggested Vacanti agree to withdraw the papers (only Vacanti and Obokata were holding out) instead of Nature doing it without his consent. After Vacanti folded, Obokata folded.

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Fraud through and through, it seems to me.

The latest developments came on June 3, 2014, when NHK reported on two different investigations done on these so-called STAP (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) cells (which was originally to be called "princess cells" - princess woken up by a kiss from a prince, no less - by the lead author of the two papers accepted by Nature).

According to NHK News (6/3/2014):

- Genetic analysis of the cells created from STAP cells shows these cells were from the mice different from those supposedly used in the experiment detailed in the Nature papers.

- The cells were supposed to be created from "F1" mouse according to the Nature papers, but in fact they were from "B6" and "CD1" mouse.

- Cells from "B6" mouse are similar to "ES cells (embryonic stem cells)", and cells from "CD1" mouse are similar to "TS cells (trophoblast stem cells).

Ms. Obokata's secret recipe may have been to mix ES cells and TS cells cleverly. There was no STAP stem cell, there is no STAP stem cell, as even the magazine that published the two papers now admits.

And what is Riken going to do? Nothing. They have said they will continue their effort to recreate the experiment that supposedly created so-called STAP cells. Their best luck would be to mix ES cells and TS cells, just like the lead author (and probably the corresponding author Charles Vacanti) probably did. The top management of Riken seems eager to protect their star scientist Sasai, who was the mentor to Ms. Obokata and the promoter of her and her STAP cells, and shut down the investigation before it ensnares him.

Then today (6/4/21014), Nikkei Shinbun reports that Ms. Obokata has finally agree to retract the Nature paper, as well as the letter. NHK says the corresponding author Professor Charles Vacanti may now be willing to retract the paper.

About time to put this sorry saga to rest, but many net citizens (mostly males) in Japan continue to firmly believe it is some kind of a huge conspiracy by male-dominated research institutions and the national government to monopolize these so-called STAP cells. Poor little girl, they say.

The lead attorney assisting Ms. Obokata in dealing with Riken says she is still hospitalized and too weak (from unspecified illness, like some celebrities or politicians) and says she has probably been pressured by Riken to accept the retraction.

So far, there is no investigation by Harvard University and Nature Magazine. Waseda University, which conferred Obokata her doctoral degree, apparently does not understand what's wrong with copying and pasting without citations in writing a doctoral thesis.

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(OT) "STAP Cell Is Truth, I Have Encountered It Many Times!" 30-Year Old Riken Researcher Pleads in Press Conference

Whatever.

Having already hired not just one or not even three but FOUR attorneys in preparation to fight her employer Riken, the prestigious research institution in Japan who has in fact re-hired her with taxpayers' money ($150,000 a year, I hear) as of April Fools' Day, Ms. Haruko Obokata is holding a press conference in Osaka with more than 200 reporters attending.

The 30-year-old PhD (for now, until Waseda University strips her of the doctoral degree) is fully employing the girl-like charm with blank stares, shifting eyes as if she is about to cry for an effect, well-coiffed old-fashioned hair style, and is speaking like an elementary school girl who is trying hard to make excuse for her bad behavior or missing homework. "Poor me! Look at me I'm suffering!"

"STAP cell phenomenon is truth, I have encountered it many times. Just because my paper was not well-prepared, why should STAP cell be denied?"

Well, a total fiction can be truth, as a female novelist from nearly 1000 years ago in Japan wrote in her phenomenal Tale of Genji.

Your paper, which you wrote with the vice president of Riken and your Harvard University professor (Mr. Charles Vacanti, an anesthesiologist), is full of borrowed and photoshopped photographs and borrowed texts without attribution. The key photograph that was supposed to prove the existence of your STAP cell was copied and photoshopped by you from your own doctoral thesis at Waseda University.

I couldn't stand to watch the press conference (live on USTREAM right now) any longer. It has devolved into tabloid news.

"There is no photograph that shows what does not exist, therefore it is not a fabrication," Obokata just said.

She is no scientist, and the Japanese media is no scientist. They deserve each other.

As to the STAP cell itself, after many attempts to reproduce the result, Professor Ken Lee of Chinese University of Hong Kong has thrown in the towel after all, and has gone back to his own research. He said in his ResearchGate post 5 days ago:

"I don’t think STAP cells exist and it will be a waste of manpower and research funding to carry on with this experiment any further. "

Meanwhile I haven't heard any news about Nature Magazine investigating its "peer-review" system, or about Harvard University investigating Professor Vacanti's lab.

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(OT) "Copy & Paste" Your Way to a PhD, to Peer-Reviewed Nature Magazine

This news, at least on the net in Japan, was probably the most talked-about news on March 11, overshadowing the 3rd anniversary of the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.

From Nature's Newsblog (3/10/2014; emphasis is mine):

Call for acid-bath stem-cell paper to be retracted

Less than 40 days after a team led by Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, presented two stunning papers claiming a method of using a simple acid-bath method to reprogramme mature mammalian cells back to an embryonic state – so called STAP cells – researchers in Japan, including one of the paper’s co-authors, are calling for them to be retracted.

Within weeks of their January 30 publication, the paper was criticized for irregularities and apparent duplicated images. Numerous scientists also had difficulty reproducing the supposedly simple method. The team responded with the promise of corrections and a list of tips to help other scientists to reproduce the results.

Over the weekend, however, two more serious problems surfaced. The Nature paper was found to contain two images apparently duplicated from Obokata’s doctoral dissertation. Her thesis also reported experiments dealing with cells that were supposedly in an embryonic state, but the cells reported in the Nature paper were said to be derived from a different process in an altogether different experiment.

The revelation has led to a flurry of calls – including some from senior scientists in Japan – for the paper to be retracted.

Perhaps the most damning comes from Teruhiko Wakayama, a cloning expert at Yamanashi University and a corresponding author on one of the papers. Interviewed by NHK news, Wakayama said: “I have lost faith in the paper. Overall there are now just too many uncertainties about it. I think we have to wait for some confirmation.” Wakayama calls for an investigation of all the laboratory notebooks and data. He continues: “To check the legitimacy of the paper, we should retract it, prepare proper data and images, and then use those to demonstrate, with confidence, that the paper is correct.” Wakayama reportedly contacted all of the authors requesting that they agree to retract the paper. RIKEN says it is still investigating the case.

The STAP paper by Obokata also contains "copy and paste" from a paper published in 2005, without any citation or reference.

Professor Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, co-author of the paper on STAP cell, says there is no need for retraction. Professor Vacanti also happens to be one of the researchers who reviewed Ms. Obokata's doctoral thesis in 2011 from Waseda University.

In Japan, this doctoral thesis is now being dissected in details. A huge chunk of the 100-page thesis - 22 pages out of 24-page introduction was found to have been taken from the National Institute of Health website. One of the key photographs was found to have been taken from a commercial biotech company's website. Even the references to several chapters of the thesis turned out to be "copy & paste" from other papers. There is now a doubt whether Ms. Obokata did the experiment as she claimed in the thesis at all.

So far, there is no direct evidence to indicate that STAP cell is also made up, a hoax. However, Nikkan Gendai, a Japanese daily tabloid, raises an interesting point that Obokata and her group used old, dated equipment (which was used in the late 1990s) to take the photographs of STAP cells when her employer, RIKEN, no doubt had the most advanced, top-of-the-line equipment for such purpose.

The Japanese media and politicians have been very eager to present a young, female Japanese scientist to the world. Maybe they have been too eager.

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