In January, Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology surprised and excited the world with her publication of stimulus-triggered fate conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency. In the publication, Obokata presented results of the first successful trial of inducing pluripotency, the ability to become a variety of cell types, in adult somatic stem cells by using sublethal doses of acid. If other scientists could reproduce her results, this research would make pluripotent cells easily obtainable for developmental research and disease therapy.
The article immediately became the spotlight in international news, and Obokata instantly became one of the most prominent biological researchers in Japan.
However, almost immediately after the publication of Obokata’s results, scientific doubt raised its inquisitive eyebrow. A number of researchers could not reproduce Obokata’s results. Furthermore, there were some questions about the images and data presented in the original paper.
Last week the RIKEN Center’s investigation committee ruled that the results in Obokata’s study were falsified. Her two articles published in Nature will be retracted. The government-funded RIKEN research laboratory began its investigation into Obokata’s research on March 11 after some accusations were made that the researcher had falsified data and possibly even plagiarized her text. After the investigation, the committee determined that at least two of the six figures and images in Obokata’s article were falsifiable.
According to a statement by the RIKEN Center, Obokata has claimed that the errors discovered in her data were made accidentally. Obokata has applied for an appeal of the investigation committee’s findings. She has not yet made any public statements.
This is not the first time researchers have falsified data for media attention. There was a similar situation in Korea in 2004, when researcher Hwang Woo Suk published groundbreaking research on stem cells. When Seoul National University’s investigative team found that his data was falsified two years later, South Korea banned stem cell research using human embryos for the next three years.
Although Japan will not be taking such drastic steps with this new discovery, the Obokata scandal is a huge setback for the reputation of the scientific community and stem cell research. At the moment, the scientific community is putting a large amount of attention on the first ever clinical trials using induced pluripotent stem cells at the RIKEN Center.
