Two controversial papers that were hailed as “game changers” for stem cell research only six months ago were withdrawn yesterday by a leading scientific journal after they were found to be littered with errors.
The findings, published in Nature in January by Japanese scientists, staggered the scientific community with the claim that adult blood cells could be transformed into powerful stem cells simply by briefly bathing them in acid.
Initial excitement quickly turned to scepticism as parts of the paper were found to have been plagiarised, figures appeared to have been copied from old work and, crucially, no other scientist was able to reproduce the result.
Yesterday Nature promised to improve its procedures to guard against fraudulent science “to ensure that the money entrusted by