Setting the Record Straight
By Daniel Cossins,
The Scientist
| 10. 01. 2014
Sometimes even the best-known stories have hidden subplots. This January, Nature published two papers describing an astonishing new way to make stem cells: simply grow blood cells from adult mice in acidic media.1,2 The researchers behind the work—a team from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan and Harvard Medical School—called it stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP. These stress-induced stem cells were even more malleable than induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and, even better, they could be produced without the addition of transcription factors. Naturally, the press was abuzz with the promise of STAP to accelerate stem cell research. But in the less well-lit corners of the Web, some were already raising doubts.
Leading the way was Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, Davis. “I quickly had the feeling this might be entirely wrong,” he says, “and that’s pretty unsettling when it’s in Nature.” On January 29, the day both papers went up online, Knoepfler posted a review of the research on his blog. “It just seems too good...
Related Articles
Cathy Tie seems to be good at starting businesses but not so dedicated to maintaining them. CGS, like many others, first heard of her thanks to Caiwei Chen and Antonio Regalado in MIT Technology Review, May 2025, as the partner (perhaps bride) of the notorious Chinese scientist He Jiankui, described in the headline as “China’s Frankenstein.” He prefers “Chinese Darwin.” She ran his Twitter account for a while, contributing such gems as:
Get in luddite, we’re going gene editing...
By Laura DeFrancesco, Nature Biotechnology | 03.17.2026
The first gene editors designed to fix genetic lesions in mutation-agnostic ways are poised to enter the clinic. Tessera Therapeutics and Alltrna, two Flagship Pioneering-funded companies, are gearing up to test novel genetic medicines in humans. Tessera received regulatory clearance...
By Darren Incorvaia, Fierce Biotech | 03.11.2026
A new method for safely inserting large chunks of DNA into genomes has now measured up in mice, potentially paving the way for the next generation of gene editing medicines.
The approach, which is described in a Nature paper...
By Carolyn Riley Chapman and Nirvan Bhatia, Hastings Bioethics Forum | 03.12.2026
Last year, researchers saved an infant named KJ from a life-threatening rare metabolic disorder using a customized gene editing therapy. This was the first time that an individualized gene therapy was used to treat a human patient, and it has...
