Authors Of Acid-Bath Stem Cell Study Release Methods For Scrutiny

Honest mistake or research misconduct? STAP cell researchers assert the former, publishing their detailed methods to allow other scientists to duplicate their results.

AsianScientist (Mar. 7, 2014) – The group behind the controversial “acid stem cell” article has just released their detailed methods in response to criticisms of non-reproducibility in their results.

The news that stem cells could be generated by simply placing them in acid for 30 minutes was an unintuitive finding that caught the scientific community off guard. Much simpler and safer than other existing methods, it was hoped that aforementioned stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells would make it easy to obtain stem cells, thereby spurring stem cell research.

However, weeks after the publication of the two initial papers, questions began to arise. Although the doubts over images in each of the papers do not undermine the findings on the study, they have made other scientists wary of the results. More worryingly, the results have not been reproducible, casting further doubts on the findings.

In response to these concerns, the authors have published a detailed methodology on Nature Protocol Exchange. In the report, the authors highlight 28 “important tips”, including the need to use primary cells rather than cultured cells, the importance of ensuring the complete dissociation of clumps into single cells, and key variables such as the adhesiveness of the culture plates and cell density.

Aside from these specifics, there were a number of quirks to the protocol, such as the requirement that donor mice be one month old or younger, and how male mice were easier to transform than female mice. These raise interesting questions about the mechanism behind STAP, but may also restrict the range of potential applications.

The article can be found at: Obokata et al. (2014) Essential technical tips for STAP cell conversion culture from somatic cells.

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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine. Photo: kaibara87/Flickr/CC.

Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Rebecca did her PhD at the National University of Singapore where she studied how macrophages integrate multiple signals from the toll-like receptor system. She was formerly the editor-in-chief of Asian Scientist Magazine.

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