Japanese research center Riken apologises for what it calls 'grave mistakes' in their stem-cell study published in Nature magazine. Full Story: A Japanese research center that sponsored a headline-grabbing study on stem cells earlier this year said on Friday that it would look into withdrawing the paper. The research - hailed when it came out in January as a breakthrough that could herald a new era of medical biology - was covered widely in Japan and across the world after it was published in the highly reputable science journal Nature. The study's results appeared to offer a promise that human cells might in the future be simply and cheaply reprogrammed back into embryonic cell-like cells - in this case cells dubbed Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency, or STAP, cells - suggesting a simple way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs for sick and injured people. But since the publication, there have been reports that other scientists have been unable to replicate the Japanese team's results and that there may have been problems with its data and images. One of the researchers in the project, Teruhiko Wakayama, called for the study to be withdrawn from publication, saying its findings had been thrown into too much doubt. On Friday, Ryoji Noyori, the president of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, where the project's researcher Haruko Obokata works, apologised for the controversy. "I would like to apologise for the research paper written by RIKEN staff and published in Nature magazine and which has come in to doubt, causing so much trouble to so many people," Noyori said. RIKEN said last week it had launched an independent inquiry into the content of the paper. Noyori said they would cooperate with other scientists in corroborating the results of the study. "I have ordered that we actively cooperate and provide any necessary information to third party, outside researchers who are attempting to replicate the results," Noyori said. They said that they had found evidence of photos being reused in the paper and improper data management. "On the other hand, it is extremely regrettable that there were many grave mistakes made in the process of putting together the joint research paper that was published in Nature magazine. We are even considering retracting the research paper altogether," Noyori said. To retract the paper it would require co-researchers Obokata and Wakayama of the University of Yamanashi along with researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States to agree. Yamanashi University had said after the news conference that they had no comment on the findings. For more news and videos visit ☛ http://ntd.tv Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision Add us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C

• published: 14 Mar 2014
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