In the Nature paper “Bidirectional developmental potential in reprogrammed cells with acquired pluripotency”, published in 2014 and now retracted, Haruko Obokata et al. described a new methodology for the conversion of somatic cells into pluripotent cells, without genetic manipulation or DNA transfer. Somatic cells were subjected to sublethal stimuli and, therefore, named “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” (STAP). The research consisted in introducing mouse somatic cells into a very acidic solution (low pH) or subjecting the external cell membranes to pressure. These stressful environmental stimuli led the somatic cells to a cell reprogramming. Obokata and colleagues, therefore, presented a fast, simple and cheap method of …show more content…
On June 4, 2014, Obakata accepted the retraction of her 2 publications and Nature retracted the papers on July, 2014.
After the great disappointment, the journal Nature investigated in depth its system of review and publication of articles. They found some inconsistencies in their system, which the worst consequence could be the loss of confidence in science by the citizens. Furthermore, the RIKEN centre also became the target of criticism, which focused on the lack of ethics and the decline of the institution in recent years.
Yoshiki Sasai (co-author of the articles and Obakata’s supervisor), committed suicide in August, 2014 after months of criticism and accusations of fraud which led him to suffer of depression. He was not found guilty of misconduct, but he was seriously responsible for the incorrect verification of the data. In the suicide note that he addressed to Obokata, Sasai asked her to demonstrate the existence of somatic cells that could be easily transformed into stem cells.
Obokata and the other authors recognized the existence of "wide" errors. However, Obokata continues claiming the existence of STAP.
C) In 500 words maximum, write a summary of your views on the ethics and the personal motivation/psychology that drove Obokata to this level of misconduct. Additionally, what is your opinion on the institutional/scientific journal/media handling of this case?
Haruko Obokata completed her master's degree in
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of many changes in world of sciences. Usually the philosophes and researchers of the sciences were either supported or reprimanded by many aspects of life in these centuries. The work of scientists was affected by governments promoting, but also preventing, research of the sciences, religious bodies promoting or condemning the outcomes of experiments and theories and even merging outcomes to religious ideas, and also new relationships between scientists across Europe, but also with a neglect of women.
Embryonic stem-cells may not be the only source of pluripotent cells that science can find. Some of the keys to pluripotency have been discovered, although in a very limited fashion. Steve Mitchell writes about this in “Adult Stem Cells Potential
A discussion with assistance from other students and the Professor, to place the case in the current ethical and legal context. What are the contemporary ethical issues with which the case is now associated? What current cases need to be examined in reference to the “Great Case?” Where does the debate stand today? What is at stake ethically in the debate and what is your position on the issues?
In modern technology, it is possible to reprogram matured somatic cells in pluripotent cells by introducing factors that can induce cell in situ reprogramming. (1) This technique is highly useful in medicine, including acting as a model for drug and clinical testing, development of drugs.
Washington, H. A. (2011). Flacking for Big Pharma: Drugmakers Don't Just Compromise Doctors; They Also Undermine the Top Medical Journals and Skew the Findings of Medical Research. (cover story). American Scholar, 80(3), 22. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Embryonic stem cells (hESC) are pluripotent. They are obtained from the inner mass of a 5-6 day old human blastocyst that consists of approximately 100 cells (Bongso & Lee, 2005, p. 3).
Science plays an integral role in the development and findings of many great things that we can benefit from. Integrity along with a specific set of moral standards must always be followed in order to ensure the end result enables a healthy environment for all whom wish to benefit from such studies. Integrity must always play and be the most essential key role in scientific research. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1831) and Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) one is able to conclude that integrity must be maintained while conducting scientific research as a lack of can result in the creation of monsters.
The "naming, blaming, and shaming" approach to dealing with errors has hindered medical error reduction, yet it is the most commonly used approach to addressing errors in health care (koop,1999).
The story was also covered by relative brief wire-service reports and in a much better story in New Scientist magazine(New). In any event, with such muffled coverage, it is
The creation of induced pluripotent stem cells by direct reprogramming has allowed for the circumvention of using embryonic stem cells while still leaving the cells with the ability to maintain pluripotency. Instead of ES cells which were originally derived from the epiblast of mouse embryos, IPS cells were generated from mouse embryonic fibroblasts. This eliminated both any ethical concerns for whether those cells were a living being or not and the need to destroy embryos at the blastocyst stage. An advantage of IPS cells is that they are derived from human somatic cells which makes them easy to acquire due to the possibility of using skin or blood cells. They can also be grown and differentiated individually for each person that the sample of somatic cells is taken from which eliminates the possibility of having any immune reaction and rejection to the differentiated cells during transplantation. These characteristics of IPS cells are important because they are what enables us to safely and accurately transform these affected cells from patients cells into neurons and confidently study them.
In essence, pluripotent cells are a universal building block within the human body, capable of becoming an eye, an arm, or even a nervous system.
iPSCs are adult stem cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to behave like the pluripotent stem cells found in embryos, i.e. can differentiate into any cell type in the human body. This was first completed successfully in mice in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka and his team (Takahashi et al., 2006), then in humans in 2007 both by Yamanaka (Takahashi et al., 2007), and by James Thomson and his team in America independently (Yu, et al., 2007). Yamanaka and Thomson’s methods were similar. In the report by Yu et
Other phrases throughout the first four pages use words like "nightmare", "destroy", "haunt", and "anguish" to attract readers to how seriously society takes awareness of science. These phrases get readers to feel the urgency of the views against science in society. The dark phrasing successfully shows that society has taken a responsible view against incorrect scientific application.
The world of science, as we know it today, is a difficult subject to grasp. So many new ideas are present and these new ideas are not interchangeable. Some parts do work together although as a whole they don’t fully coincide with each other. The three basic ideas that science is now based upon come from Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. I call these ideas/theories “new” based on what I classify the state of the scientific community of today. After looking at what is going on in science, it is clear to me that the scientific world is in a crisis state. According to Kuhn, a crisis state is when science is in the middle of choosing a particular paradigm to work under. For scientists, there is a general theme
This book, ‘What is this Thing called Science?’ is assigned to write a review on the third edition which was published in the year 1999, 1st February by University of Queensland Press. This book is reflects up to date with day today’s contemporary trend and gives a basic introduction on the philosophy of science. This is a very comprehensive book explaining the nature of science and its historical development. It is very informative and a necessary reference when attempting to understand the how science has evolved throughout time. The book is also well organized, and each chapter is concluded with suggestions for further reading. This book is actually a review on the philosophy of science.