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发帖数: 21396 | 1 http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/01/stem-cell-scient
Stem cell scientist Haruko Obokata found guilty of misconduct
Committee in Japan says it found evidence of falsification and fabrication
– offences that constitute research misconduct
A young researcher who shot to fame in scientific circles when she published
an apparently radical and simple way to create stem cells has been found
guilty of misconduct by a committee charged with investigating her work.
Haruko Obokata, at the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe,
announced the breakthrough in January in two articles published in the
scientific journal Nature, but the discovery was thrown into doubt after
researchers elsewhere failed to replicate her work.
The ruling has not settled the debate over whether her breakthrough was real
, though. In a bizarre twist in an already convoluted story, the committee's
ruling against Obokata came moments before an independent researcher
claimed to have succeeded in making the cells using a slightly different
procedure.
Much of the scrutiny of Obokata's claims played out on science websites
where researchers pointed to several discrepancies in her work, including
images that looked manipulated, and text that appeared to have been
plagiarised. The doubts led to a split among the authors of the papers, with
one, Teruhiko Wakayama, calling for a retraction until the research had
been thoroughly checked.
Obokata led the studies into so-called Stap (stimulus-triggered activation
of pluripotency) cells, in which she claimed to have made versatile stem
cells that could grow into any tissue by immersing blood cells from mice in
a weak acid solution. But other researchers co-authored the papers,
including Prof Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School in Boston. The
research promised to revolutionise the field of stem cell research because
the procedure was so simple.
The growing storm over Obokata's research prompted Riken to launch an
investigation into her work. At a press conference in Japan on Tuesday, the
committee said it had found evidence of falsification and fabrication –
offences that constitute research misconduct. One image of DNA was spliced
together from two others. "The manipulation was used to improve the
appearance of the results," said the head of the committee, Shunsuke Ishii.
Obokata counters that she only wanted to make the image clearer, and that it
had no bearing on the results. A second offence involved reusing data
apparently from her doctoral thesis.
Obokata did not attend the press conference, but issued a statement in which
she said: "I am filled with feelings of indignation and surprise."
According to Science magazine, she intends to appeal the judgment. The
magazine quoted the committee as saying: "Dr Obokata's actions and sloppy
data management lead us to the conclusion that she sorely lacks, not only a
sense of research ethics, but also integrity and humility as a scientific
researcher."
But the committee's final report came as another scientist seemed to
validate Obokata's work, at least in part. The head of stem cell research at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Kenneth Ka-Ho Lee, posted details of
his success on the ResearchGate website, where he had previously live-
blogged his failure to make the cells. Prof Lee's experiments were based on
an updated procedure drawn up by Vacanti at Harvard.
The investigating committee was not asked to rule on whether Obokata's
procedure worked, nor whether her articles should be withdrawn. But the
president of Riken, Ryoji Noyori, said he wanted the papers retracted if the
committee's judgment was upheld at appeal.
The saga has left some scientists uneasy about the research, but also about
how Obokata has been treated. The director of the Centre for Stem Cells and
Regenerative Medicine at King's College London, Prof Fiona Watt, said: "I'm
outside this field but the whole process of the investigation and the
conclusions have come out very quickly. I don't condone fradulent research
in any way, but I do think that senior scienitsts have a duty of care to
their younger colleagues, and I hope that Dr Obokata will not be treated as
a scapegoat."
A Nature spokesperson said the journal's editors were investigating the
papers for themselves. "Nature has now been provided with the details of the
Riken investigation and is carefully considering them. We cannot comment
while we are doing so, but we do expect to be able to provide a further
comment in the near future," the spokesperson said.
"We don't comment on individual instances but, in general, all retractions
are considered on a case-by-case basis. In cases where not all of the
authors agree on a retraction, Nature evaluates whether the evidence
available supports the main conclusions of the paper. We may decide to
retract in cases where the authors cannot provide evidence to support the
main conclusions of the paper. In such cases, if some authors still disagree
with the retraction, we note the dissenting authors in the retraction
notice." |
