Researcher’s death shocks Japan - NATURE News

Yoshiki Sasai, one of Japan’s top stem-cell researchers, died this morning (5 August) in an apparent suicide. He was 52.

Sasai, who worked at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, was famous for his ability to coax embryonic stem cells to differentiate into other cell types. In 2011, he stunned the world by mimicking an early stage in the development of the eye — a three-dimensional structure called an optical cup — in vitro, using embryonic stem cells.

But lately he had been immersed in controversy over two papers, published in Nature in January, that claimed a simple method of creating embryonic-like cells, called stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP). Various problems in the papers led to a judgement of scientific misconduct for their lead author, Haruko Obokata, also of the CDB. The papers were retracted on 2 July.

Sasai, who was a co-author of both papers, was cleared of any direct involvement in the misconduct. But he has been harshly criticized for failure of oversight in helping to draft the paper. Some critics, often on the basis of unsupported conjecture, alleged deeper involvement of  the CDB. An independent committee recommended on 12 June that the CDB, where Sasai was a vice-director, be dismantled. Sasai had been instrumental in launching the CDB and helped it to develop into one of the world’s premier research centres.

Just after 9 a.m., Sasai was found hanging in a stairwell of the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation, next to the CDB, where he also had a laboratory. He was pronounced dead just after 11 a.m., according to reports by Japanese media.  A bag found at the scene contained three letters: one addressed to CDB management, one to his laboratory members and one to Obokata.

In a brief statement released this morning, RIKEN president Ryoji Noyori mourned the death of the pioneering researcher. “The world scientific community has lost an irreplaceable scientist,” he said.

Research integrity: Cell-induced stress - NATURE News

As a much-hailed breakthrough in stem-cell science unravelled this year, many have been asking: ‘Where were the safeguards?’

David Cyranoski  

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. >>>

 

Haruko Obokata tearfully faces the media after she was found guilty of misconduct in April.

Journal Publishers in China Vow to Clamp Down on Academic Fraud - SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

By David Cyranoski of Nature magazine

China's roughly 5,300 home-grown journals have been a receptacle for much of the nation's research that has resulted from misconduct

The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in Beijing has taken the lead among the country's publishers in trying to clamp down on academic misconduct. This month, it issued a declaration from the 1,050 journals it oversees -- part of increasingly aggressive nationwide efforts to purge China's corpulent scientific publishing industry and bring its home-grown journals, in both English and Chinese, up to international standards.

In the declaration, journal editors in chief and affiliated society presidents commit to following CAST guidelines issued in 2009. The document defines many types of fraud and lists possible penalties for miscreant authors -- from written warnings to blacklisting or informing home institutions and funding agencies about the misconduct. Reviewers who abuse their privilege by, for example, plagiarizing an article, can also face blacklisting and public disclosure.

That is a step in the right direction, says Chun-Hua Yan, associate editor-in-chief of the CAST-administered Journal of Rare Earths, based in Beijing. Yan says that many editors had not been aware that some subtle forms of wrongdoing -- such as favoring papers on the basis of personal relations or offering honorary authorship -- were types of misconduct. "There are some soft or grey areas. These are now more clear to all the editors," he says. Suning You, president of the Chinese Medical Association Publishing House in Beijing, which has 126 journals administered by CAST, agrees. "The declaration will purify the academic environment to create first-class medical journals, thus achieving social and economic benefits," he says.

Clampdown on misconduct

China's academia and government alike have taken measures to curb misconduct in recent years, with institutions such as Zhejiang University in Hangzhou taking the lead (see Nature 481, 134-136; 2012). The CAST declaration itself follows the announcement of rules from China's education ministry that require universities to monitor misconduct closely (see Nature 483, 378-379; 2012).

The country's roughly 5,300 home-grown journals have been a receptacle for much of the research that has resulted from misconduct. Two years ago, the government vowed to get rid of the most problematic publications (see Nature 467, 261; 2010), but that weeding process hasn't happened yet.

Yan says that the latest declaration will put pressure on journals to fall in line. "Many are just commercial journals, just there to make money," he says. "We cannot make an announcement that `these are bad journals' but we can show the right way to publish."

A stronger incentive -- money -- might force the issue. According to Yan, China's finance ministry is starting a program that will spend 100 million renminbi (US$16 million) per year to improve journals. By the end of 2012, a committee will rank the country's publications into three tiers on the basis of their international and Chinese impact factors and other measures of international influence, such as the number of overseas subscriptions and the number of foreign editorial-board members. Journals ranked in the first tier will get a bonus of 100,000 renminbi per year, and those in the second, 50,000 renminbi. Third-tier publications will get nothing.

Yan says that the money could as much as double his journal's current budget, and allow the publication to waive publishing fees for top papers, train young researchers in how to write scientific papers, invite international advisory-board members to China to discuss possible improvements and enhance software for electronic submission and review systems. He hopes that some Chinese-language journals will become internationally relevant, "followed by scientists around the world".

But there are skeptics. Cong Cao, a science-policy researcher specializing in China at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that neither the extra funding nor the editors' declaration will have much of an impact. China's 5,300 journals account for roughly one-third of the world's science and technology journals and, by Cao's estimate, publish around 600,000 papers per year. That, he says, "represents a huge business". The journals attract "those who have to fill institutionally set publication requirements", adds Cao. "The real question that China's scientific leadership as well as scientific publishers have to consider is: does China really need that many journals in the first place?"

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on April 25, 2012.