Mr. Ryoji Noyori, President of “Riken”, the
Japan's largest comprehensive research institution is said to resign within
this month. Riken has been struggled with “STAP cell (Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition
of Pluripotency cell)” scandals since Ms. Haruko Obokata, former stem-cell
biologist and the former Research Unit Leader of the Laboratory for Cellular
Reprogramming at RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology claimed she had
developed a radical and remarkably easy way to make the STAP cells.
She manipulated the images used for the
papers published in Nature. In addition, it was found impossible to reproduce
STAP cells according to her methods. She tried to reproduce the STAP cell
herself but could not make it after all. She resigned Riken and her boss committed
suicide. It now becomes a most well-known scandal related to science.
Though Riken denies that the reason of
resignation is due to the scandals, it is quite obvious that Riken wants to
wipe out the dirty images painted by the scandals.
No comments:
Post a Comment