TOKYO -- All parties involved in publishing research papers on a groundbreaking method of creating stem cells were so fixated on producing results that they failed to be scientifically rigorous.
Japan's Riken research institute said Friday that it was unable to verify the stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP, a phenomenon described in papers published by Haruko Obokata and her colleagues. The institute said it will end the experiments, which were initially slated to continue until next March. Obokata herself was unable to reproduce the results she claims to have achieved earlier.
