Big Plagiarism?

The credibility of new finding is collapsing. A research institute for science and chemistry, Riken, announced possible withdrawal of the report, which introduced a method of producing Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency cells. Having received a lot of accusation on accuracy of its data, the institute is reviewing data used in the report, while emphasizing firmness of the conclusion. Although it apparently is a battle between chemists and biologists, the impact is spreading to academism in Japan and leading to social disappointment.

The report written by teams of RIKEN, led by Haruko Obokata, and Harvard University was published in Nature magazine in January. According to the report, a lymphocyte extracted from a young mouse can be changed into every kind of cell simply by adding stimulus with weak acidity. That was an extremely shocking conclusion for life science, which had been denying initialization of differentiated cells. The finding was regarded as a hopeful news for regenerative medical care.

Offense on the report began two weeks after it was published. There appeared some opinion on the web that the report has several unreasonable pictures. The pictures were suspected to be those used in Obokata’s doctoral thesis in 2011. Because they were cited as the crucial evidence of changes from STAP cell to muscle or bowel, the report began to be fundamentally suspected. “Is STAP cell really pluripotent cell?” This is the question now.

One of the co-authors explained that it was a simple mistake in using photo. But consecutive findings of misuses of picture blur the credibility of his explanation. He finally said that he would recommend Obokata withdrawing the report.

Obokata has said nothing about misuse of photo. While wasting time for searching good reasoning, a twitter called Report Plagiarism & False Study (@JuuichiJigen) found in Obokata’s doctoral thesis twenty pages of description that was suspected to be copy-and-pasted from a report by a research institute in the United States. It became a suspicion on Obokata herself.

The questions on Obokata report are threatening the status of Riken as the top institution for science in Japan. Riken’s decline may be a decline of Japan as one of the top runners in science and technology. But, biologists are merciless. “The report has many mistakes in terms of data and its conclusion is not sufficiently guaranteed by scientific facts. Most intentional manipulations have gone far beyond the possibility of being innocent mistakes,” stated the Molecular Biologist Society of Japan.

Obokata became a prominent figure of women scientists, moreover women’s social opportunity, in Japan after finding STAP cell. Because her decline may cause broad disappointment of women, Obokata cannot give up easily.