Tokyo Medical and Dental University. Wikimedia Commons, Rs1421The University of Tokyo last week (October 19) dismissed Hisashi Moriguchi, the researcher who claimed to have treated human patients with their own induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), ScienceInsider reported. The dismissal came after Moriguchi admitted at a press conference in New York (October 13) that his original claim—that he had injected cardiac muscle cells derived from iPSCs into the hearts of five patients and seen positive therapeutic effects—was false.
But Moriguchi maintains that the procedure was carried out on a single patient—not at Harvard General Hospital in February 2012, as he originally claimed, but last June at a Boston hospital he declined to name.
Moriguchi’s claims, presented at the New York Stem Cell Foundation meeting at Rockefeller University, New York, quickly raised suspicions. Alerted to the story by Nature, spokespersons for the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School—listed as collaborating institutions on his papers—denied that the procedures had taken place there. Moriguchi was a visiting fellow at Harvard for just one month in late 2009, they said. Moreover, several scientists named as collaborators have distanced themselves from any of the clinical work claimed by Moriguchi.
Although he admitted making some “procedural” mistakes, ...
