CORRECTION OF THE WEEK: STEM CELL REPORT WITHDRAWN
by Hazed
Last month I reported on a new way to create stem cells by dripping blood cells into acid. This was supposed to be a step on the way to revolutionising personalised medicine.
Sadly this may be too good to be true, because the author of the study now says the findings should be withdrawn.
Following the report, questions were raised because other research groups were unable to reproduce the results. There were also doubts about some of the images used in the report.
The study’s author, Prof Teruhiko Wakayama, recently said, "It is no longer clear what is right."
He told Japanese TV that "When conducting the experiment, I believed it was absolutely right. But now that many mistakes have emerged, I think it is best to withdraw the research paper once and, using correct data and correct pictures, to prove once again the paper is right. If it turns out to be wrong, we would need to make it clear why a thing like this happened."
This is how science is supposed to work: somebody proposes a theory, runs experiments to show they are right, then it’s tested by other scientists who either confirm the results or raise questions.
Still, it’s a disappointing setback.