Report this article led to the tragedy of the Japanese scientist – of Polit.ru

Tuesday was found dead Yoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Center for Developmental Biology, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN).

scientist was one of the co-authors published in late January this year, Nature magazine article that described method of obtaining stem cells from normal somatic cells by placing them in a “stressful environment” – a weak acid solution. The authors have named these cells STAP-cells (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency – called stimulus acquisition of pluripotency).

article caused a sensation, but in March, the Centre of Developmental Biology announced that forced to withdraw the paper for reuse of checking all experiments and the data contained therein. In July, the journal Nature announced the final withdrawal of the article, since it showed a series of errors and inaccuracies that make incorrect conclusions of the authors. Among these facts indicate and manipulation in the captions to the images of cells used in the article.

Administration RIKEN liable for infringements of professional ethics on the lead author Haruko Obakatu which head was Sasai. But the scandal severely affected the most Yoshiki Sasai. Jeopardize the existence of the Centre was delivered developmental biology, where scientists spent more than ten years of life. Sigekadzu Saito, Second Vice-Director of the Center, said that in recent Sasai looked depressed.

Yoshiki Sasai was found hanging on the fifth floor of the Center for Developmental Biology. In his briefcase and desk secretary found several letters. They scientist said that he felt deep shame for the numerous errors in publications and recognizes that now STAP-cells does not even claim to the status of a hypothesis. Sasai writes that feels great personal responsibility for what happened.

Born in 1962, Yoshiki Sasai graduated from Kyoto University School of Medicine in 1986. After internship in internal medicine, he began to study the molecular neurobiology and in 1998 became a professor at Kyoto University. Since 2003, he began working at the Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, where he led a group of organogenesis and neurogenesis.

He gained fame thanks to impressive experiments in growing stem cells in organopodobnyh structures. In 2012 he became the first researcher, who managed to grow human stem cells from “optic cup” – the cell structure, the existing early stage of eye development in the embryo. He also worked at the University of California in Los Angeles, where he and co-workers succeeded in isolating a protein from Xenopus chordin and prove the important role of this protein in embryonic development of vertebrates.

In 2010, Sakai received his award for playing Osaka development in vitro of brain tissue. In 2012 he was awarded Enre Inoue in science for the study of self-organizing neural structures in three-dimensional cultures of stem cells.

Chief Editor of Nature Philip Campbell said Yoshiki Sasai’s death – a true tragedy for science and an irreplaceable loss for scientific community.