HARUKO OBOKATAWhen a team led by investigators at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, reported a new method to reprogram stem cells using an external stressor, such as an acid bath or a mechanical squeeze, several researchers and media reports marveled at the simplicity of their approach. But anecdotal evidence from stem cell researchers trying to replicate the results of the two Nature studies published last month (January 29) indicates that reproducing stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) is anything but easy.
“A lot of people have been trying [to replicate the studies’ results], but I have not heard any positive results yet,” said Sheng Ding, a stem cell researcher at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, who did not participate in the work and has not himself attempted to reproduce STAP. “But it’s early. It has only been a few weeks.”
Researchers who have tried to follow the published protocol have reported trouble with the method. “The groups that published these papers spent years and years trying to get this to work, in various forms and with different cells, so it may just be that it’s an unusual situation to actually get it to work,” said the University of California, Davis’s Paul Knoepfler, who also has ...
