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| Dr. Haruko Obokata |
Pictured above is a Japanese scientist named Dr. Haruko Obokata. She became famous for supposedly discovering that subjecting normal mouse cells to a week acid bath for 30 minutes would cause them to revert back into stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells are "non differentiated" which means they can be transformed into any sort of cell and used to repair damaged organs and body parts. Adult stem cells also serve a regenerative function but have a more specific role in adult tissues.
The only problem was that no one was able to duplicate her results in subsequent lab tests and people began to assume she had faked her results.
According to TIME:
"Peer-review websites accused her of falsifying data and doctoring images, and supervisors were accused of lax management. Obokata, 30, was forced to retract her scientific papers, and the government-sponsored research center where she worked launched a formal investigation."
Sadly, Obokata's supervisor and mentor, Yoshiki Sashai, committed suicide over the scandal.
I was excited when I first read this story because women in the STEM fields are still underrepresented.
Even thought this story does not have a happy ending, I know there have been, are and will be more fantastic women in science and I can't wait to learn about their work.
Well Kelly, you are wrong. Obokata faked everything and now people are killing themselves of shame over this
ReplyDeleteI updated the post to reflect this.
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