Article
ID: CBB293696857

Research Misconduct in the Age of Open Science: The Case of STAP Stem Cells (2018)

unapi
Moral economy Peer review Scientific misconduct; fraud in science Research Stem cells Obokata, Haruko

In early 2014, Dr Haruko Obokata and her co-authors caused a global media storm by publishing two scientific papers in Nature on stem cells. The papers proposed a surprisingly simple new method called stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) to generate pluripotent stem cells for research purposes in a fast and inexpensive way. To the dismay of many, both papers were retracted within six months of their release due to data fabrication and falsification. The rise and fall of the STAP research illustrates the impacts of open science practices of quality control and validation on new scientific claims. In the STAP case, collective action generated through two online forums—the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog and PubPeer—exposed not only data manipulation in the two papers but also the irreproducibility of the purported new cellular reprogramming method. The case brings to the fore the tentative possibilities as well as potential pitfalls of ‘accelerated virtual witnessing’ through crowdsourced post-publication peer reviews that value accessibility and inclusiveness. Indeed, it calls for empirically grounded discussion on the ongoing reconfiguration of the shared system of values and norms or the moral economy of science.

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Authors & Contributors
Jacob, Marie-Andrée
Mikami, Koichi
Roumbanis, Lambros
Li, Zhengfeng
Chevassus-au-Louis, Nicolas
Kim, Myungsim
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Social Studies of Science
Science, Technology and Human Values
History of Science
Spontaneous Generations
History and Technology
Publishers
Western Michigan University
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Harvard University Press
University of Pittsburgh
Concepts
Scientific misconduct; fraud in science
Research
Peer review
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Stem cells
Ethics
People
Ivan Oransky
Obokata, Haruko
Hwang, Woo-suk
Clot, Antoine-Barthélémy
Discussion, Roundtable
Hwang Woo-suk
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
Places
Korea
United States
China
Sweden
Japan
Germany
Institutions
Biomed Central
Committee on Publication Ethics
Qasr Al-Ayni
Deakin University (Australia)
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