Posted on 08/03/2007 5:49:23 PM PDT by Coleus
As I write this, this is breaking news. A study that appeared to have important implications for embryonic stem cell research was retracted from the journal Science after scientists found that photos in it had been faked. The headline in Live Mint reads: “Photos found to be fake, Science retracts embryonic cell study.” Not only is this shameful for any scientist, but in this case, it turns out that he is an Indian. This is not yet reported by Reuters, AP, or any other news agency.
Live Mint requires a (free) registration, so I’m reproducing (edited) content here:
A probe by the University of Missouri at Columbia found that the paper’s first author, Kaushik Deb, doctored images from one cell to make it appear they had come from several different cells, said R. Michael Roberts, an animal science professor and Deb’s supervisor, in a letter to the journal. Science said in October that Deb’s results, published in February 2006, might not be reliable, and it waited for the author’s retraction after the university finished investigating. Science, Nature and other journals have been on guard against retouched pictures since the faked stem cell results of South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk were exposed last year.
Deb was studying which embryonic cells become stem cells and which implant the embryo into the placenta. His studies suggested that a protein, called cdx2, marked cells involved in implantation, suggesting that unmarked cells might be fated to become stem cells. Other scientists, wary of doctored images after Hwang’s fakery, scrutinized the work closely and determined that a series of photos had been altered to look as though they had come from distinct cells, Roberts said.
Roberts said he didn’t expect to have to ferret out fraud while he was overseeing Deb’s work. “He was relatively independent; I never looked over his shoulder,” Roberts said in a telephone interview. “Science is based on trust. If you’re going to mentor people, it’s almost impossible to look over their shoulders the whole time.” Deb has resigned from the university, and Roberts said he believes the young scientist has returned to his home in India. Deb hasn’t returned telephone calls, letters or emails, Roberts said.
Given that stem cell research is already in so much controversy thanks to the religious right, is it wise to create further controversy through fake research? Don’t these scientists have any morals or ethics or a general understanding of what’s happening in society around them? And why does it have to be an Indian?!
BTTT
There are only two reasons I can see for producing fake research. One is to advance a political cause. The other is to advance one's own career. Has motive #1 been ruled out?
Hey, get off their backs, they didn’t think they’d be caught. /sarc
Newsweek Disgrace: “Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine”
NewsBusters | August 5, 2007 | Noel Sheppard
Posted on 08/05/2007 11:45:46 PM EDT by CedarDave
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1876892/posts
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Dan Rather would be proud.
Really,Wow,Thanks Coleus,Bump.
The primary motive for the enthusiasm about embryonic stem cell research is to create just one more legitimation for treating pre-born people as garbage. Also, it creates a great stick with which to beat the “religious right”—as people who don’t want to cure diseases, who want “religion” to interfere with “science,” etc., etc.
Where I'm not clear is the significance of Deb being from India.
The good news is that the scientific review process does work. Science is retracting (all of these Science and Nature articles are behind a paywall) an article that has been proven to include forged photographs, due to the questions about these photographs from other researchers. Although the actual research and premise of the research my have some validity, it needs to be replicated and validated in other labs, by other researchers.
The bad news, I'm afraid, is that the reason that the article came under scrutiny in the first place (and the reason we will hear about it over and over and over) is that the findings were hailed as further proof from a study of very early mouse embryology that the embryo is a unique organism from fertilization, since the immediate result of the first division showed different fates and different genetic markers.
There is nothing here to discount the fact that the zygote is an organism. In fact, the cdx2 marker is indeed found mostly at one end of the zygote and most of it ends up one of the cells after division. The article, "Your destiny from day one" in Nature.com (behind a paywall) covered the work by R.L. Gardner and Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz:
Nature 418, 14-15 (4 July 2002)"Developmental biology: Your destiny, from day one"
Helen Pearson
The mammalian body plan starts being laid down from the moment of conception, it has emerged. Helen Pearson considers the implications of a surprising shift in embryological thinking.
Your world was shaped in the first 24 hours after conception. Where your head and feet would sprout, and which side would form your back and which your belly, were being defined in the minutes and hours after sperm and egg united.
More proof has been produced in other research, there's some, here, and a review in this article by Robert P. George and Patrick Lee in the New Atlantis. From this year there's the report from M.-E. Torres-Padilla et al. [Nature 445, 214–218; (2007)] described this way in Nature (sorry, also subscription only):
Nature 445, 157 (11 January 2007) Published online 10 January 2007"Developmental biology: Marked from the start"
Helen Dell
Not all cells in the early mammalian embryo are created equal. Even at the four-cell stage, embryonic cells that follow a particular pattern of division already have their developmental fate assigned to them. No cell will contribute exclusively to a specific cell type in the later embryo. But the progeny of some cells make a greater contribution to the 'inner cell mass' — the stem cells destined to become the fetus — and its surrounding 'trophectoderm', which forms extraembryonic structures such as the placenta. The progeny of other cells will make a greater contribution to other extraembryonic structures.
However, I'm afraid we should expect to see this scandal used against those of us who would protect embryonic human life. more on the Deb scandal from the Columbian Missourian
I love your ice cream. :’)
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