Stimulus Triggered Acquision of Pluripotency - Controversy and Misconduct

At long last I get to travel back into my TRUE wheelhouse - SCIENCE!.  And not simply talking about how some specific thing works or anything like that, but rather MY science.

I work heavily with stem cells, which most everyone has likely heard of at some point or another.  You may have heard about the controversy in Korea from around 2006 when it was found that a professor (Hwang Woo-suk) falsified data when he claimed to have made human embryonic stem cells from a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).  It got huge media coverage and began to raise a great many questions about how science as a system functions - since it is self-regulating, how can it be trusted if this kind of thing is going on?

Around that same time, Shinya Yamanaka published his groundbreaking work establishing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.  Not only did this hold up to scrutiny, but it gave us the opportunity to further examine the therapeutic potential of pluripotent (i.e. ES) stem cells.  It also represents one of the fastest turnarounds from discovery to awarding of a Nobel Prize (~6 years).  By the way, if you care to see, I've got my old blog post (http://gamingfandomandscience.blogspot.com/2013/02/science-working-and-working-out.html) discussing stem cells, how they work, etc.  It's all in the video, but you can read words if you prefer.

Getting back on track, here in 2014, we see another ENORMOUS issue with misconduct.  The problem?  Another apparently groundbreaking methodology for making ES-like cells that is faster, easier, and more efficient than iPS.  Excellent!  Right?  Wellll...... not so much.  Riddled with issues from image splicing to plagiarism and rocking the very foundation of the institute the work was done at, Stimulus Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency is truly a story not only worth telling, but a sight to behold.  Please enjoy!

If you're interested, you can check out links to most of the news article's in the video's description.  I think this is a real beginning for something major; the idea of peer-review slack, poor running of labs, it's all ridiculous and we have to try and figure out how much blame goes where.  Should the journal(s) be scrutinized for not having more rigorous examination of the data?  What about the PI of the lab (not only for STAP but general lack of organization, as well)?  RIKEN itself is largely independent, with little government oversight; should that stay?  So many questions....

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the video and will see you next time!