TOKYO: A researcher embroiled in a fabrication scandal that has rocked Japan’s scientific establishment said yesterday she would resign after failing to reproduce results of what was once billed as a ground-breaking study on stem cells.
Haruko Obokata said she was dismayed that new laboratory tests have not been able to repeat her experiments, which she had claimed showed the successful conversion of an adult cell into a stem cell-like state.
Her resignation came as Japan’s Riken Institute formally announced that so-called “STAP” cells cannot be recreated, apparently drawing a line under the controversial study.
“We have conducted verification experiments but can’t repeat the STAP phenomenon,” team leader Shinichi Aizawa told a nationally broadcast news conference.AFP
