STAP-cellen artikelen teruggetrokken

Origineel gepubliceerd op de site van Agentschap NL

Samenvatting

Op 2 juli maakte het tijdschrift Nature bekend dat een artikel en een ingezonden brief over STAP (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) cellen met dr. Haruko Obokata van het onderzoeksinstituut RIKEN, als eerste auteur, zijn teruggetrokken. Het artikel werd gepubliceerd op 30 januari 2014. Als reden voor het terugtrekken noemt Nature de verschillende fouten die de essentie van de resultaten van het onderzoek aantasten en problemen met de onderzoekethiek. Momenteel doet RIKEN experimenten om de STAP cellen te reproduceren in een poging alsnog het bestaan van deze cellen aan te tonen en te achterhalen wat er in het laboratorium nu precies gebeurd is. De Japanse overheid heeft een start gemaakt met richtlijnen voor de ethische aspecten van het doen van onderzoek.

Two papers on STAP cells were retracted

Summary

On July 2, 2014, Nature published retractions about one article and one letter regarding　stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cells (STAP cells) that Dr. Haruko Obokata of RIKEN, as a first author, published on January 30, 2014. The reasons for the retractions were multiple critical errors in the article and the letter. Between the press release of creation of STAP cells and this time retraction, various issues regarding the research ethics such as falsification and fabrication emerged. Currently, RIKEN is conducting the experiments for replication of STAP cells to clarify the existence of STAP cells as well as the truth what happened in the lab. Japanese government started to prepare a guideline for research ethics.

Details

Nature published online (July 3, 2014) retractions of one article and one letter about pluripotent cells created by giving stress such as exposure to weak acid to somatic cells. Dr. Haruko Obokata of RIKEN Institute was the first author of these two papers published on January 30, 2014 and was found guilty of misconduct (falsification and fabrication of figures) by a RIKEN investigation team on April 1 2014. Nature stated “Several critical errors have been found in our Article and Letter, which led to an in-depth investigation by the RIKEN Institute.” Nature pointed out additional errors in the papers besides issues found in RIKEN’s report.

After the publication of article and letter in January, many doubts on figures and methods emerged on Internet in February. To respond to such questions and failures of reproduction by other research teams, RIKEN published the protocol. However, the protocol mentioned as “IMPORTANT” that rearranged TCR allele was not observed in any STAP stem cell lines from STAP cells derived from CD45⁺ haematopoietic cells*. Rearrangement of TCR allele was one of the most important indications of creation of pluripotent cells from somatic cells in their papers.

The replication of experiments of creation of STAP cells at RIKEN has been attempted since April by Dr. Shinichi Aizawa and Dr. Hitoshi Niwa. Dr. Obokata was also invited to proof the existence of STAP cells from July 1, 2014 because she claimed a lot of special care in handling and culture conditions are involved in the protocol. Her experiments will be monitored by a camera.

On July 3, 2014, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology stated it will prepare guidelines to prevent misconduct and to impose investigations into the issues pointed out even in Internet as it happened in the case of STAP cells. The guidelines define that mistakes based on the extreme lack of fundamental attention to duties is misconduct. This definition was set to react to the statement that Dr. Obokata made mistakes in her papers without any malicious intention. The guidelines also suggest deployment of persons in charge of research ethics at research institutes. The guideline would be effective in April of 2015.

The controversial article and letter brought a lot of issues to light, including improper employment procedures at RIKEN, lack of ethics of researchers, inadequate system by the research institute for checking data and records, and questions on academic degree conferment. Fair employment, a new system for prevention of research misconduct and education on research ethics are expected to bring better and healthy environment for research in Japan and to prevent this turmoil again.

*CD45

Sources