Research Integrity: Cell-Induced Stress

It seemed almost too good to be true — and it was. Two papers^{1, 2} that offered a major breakthrough in stem-cell biology were retracted on 2 July, mired in a controversy that has damaged the reputation of several Japanese researchers.

For scientists worldwide it has triggered painful memories of a decade-old scandal. In February 2004, South Korean researcher Woo Suk Hwang announced that he had generated stem-cell lines from cloned human embryos³, creating a potential source of versatile, therapeutic cells that would be genetically matched to any patient. A frenzy of excitement followed this and a subsequent publication⁴, but that didn’t compare with the media firestorm when the results were revealed to be fabricated. The two main cloning papers were retracted⁵, and the careers of some dozen scientists were devastated.

In the soul-searching that followed, ‘research integrity’ became a hot topic, scientists re-evaluated the responsibilities of authorship, and institutions vowed to improve the way that they police their staff. Nature and other journals also made promises, saying that they would...