WIKIMEDIA, NIHYoshiki Sasai, a principal investigator within the RIKEN Institute’s Center for Developmental Biology who was a coauthor on both of the now-retracted stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) papers, has killed himself, Kobe police said on Tuesday (August 5). Sasai was 52.
Officials confirmed his suicide in a statement to Reuters, which reported that in March, Sasai had been hospitalized for stress and exhaustion in the wake of the high-profile investigation into his team’s stem cell work. In his position at RIKEN, he supervised the lead author on the STAP research, Haruko Obokata, who was found guilty of research misconduct.
Ryoji Noyori, RIKEN president, expressed “deep regret over the loss of an irreplaceable scientist,” Reuters reported. “Mr. Sasai contributed greatly in the field of developmental biology and was an internationally renowned researcher,” said Yoshihide Suga Chief Cabinet Secretary for the Japanese government.
In 2008, a team led by Sasai “showed that stem cells can be coaxed into balls of neural cells that self-organize into distinctive layers,” The ...
