Two of the USA ’s most prominent medical research mental institution havecalled for the retractionof a string of prominent papers free-base on work purportedly conducted in their laboratories . The study give hope to millions of the great unwashed with damaged hearts about the opening for cure , and spawned fellowship once measure at many millions of dollars . Now they ’ve caused brokenheartedness of a different sort .
Dr Piero Anversa inspired great excitement in 2001 with a newspaper publisher inNaturein which he claimed to have used stem cells from bone marrow to furbish up 68 percent of the damaged tissue paper in a black eye fondness .
The implication was hard to omit , and the paper has been cited an stupefying 6,765 times since .
Companies were create to commercialise the body of work , including one call Autologous / Progenital headed by Anversa himself . The publicity the work attain give credibleness to highly dubious stem prison cell therapies promote for many other condition .
Yet within three year , Nature hadpublishedtwo otherpapersfrom other scientists who had tried to replicate Anversa ’s work , and give out . Both squad reported that when off-white marrow cells were inject into damaged heart tissue , they neglect to fulfil their voltage to transmute into heart cells .
It appeared either Anversa had some secret arm he was hide , or he had faked his results .
Anversa was not dissuade , continuing topublish papersin top journals , including arrogate the heart has its own stem cells , which he call c - kit cellular telephone . Anversa claimed appropriate nurturing of ampere-second - kit cell could remove the need to use bone essence . The fact he was doing his work at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women ’s Hospital gave Anversa some protection against the skeptics , but as time went on doubts grew as more and more labs die to get the same results .
The problems for Anversa really hit in 2014 . Yet anotherNaturepaper provided powerful grounds prow cells were not , in fact , transforming into bosom cellular telephone at any significant charge per unit . Meanwhile , some of Anversa ’s own co - authors asked for a paper they had published with him to be retracted , saying it let in result unlike from those they had actually produced . On the other manus , Anversablamedhis co - generator for flaws that led to one of his papers being retracted .
Harvard and Brigham and Women set about investigations , and Anversa left both mental home the following class . In 2017 Brigham and Women ’s Hospital paid$10 millionto the Union administration in reaction to claim they had received funding for Anversa ’s employment based on previous fraudulent title .
Nevertheless , both institutions continued to see into the matter , rather than admit the papers should be withdrawn . Now the institution have call for a remarkable31 papersto be retracted , but no account has been provide as to why so much time was needed . AlawsuitAnversa and a colleague launched against Harvard may have contributed to the delay .
Retractions of blemished papers are a healthy part of the scientific process . The websiteRetraction Watchestimates this happens around 1,400 times a twelvemonth , but to have 31 withdrawn at the same time is extremely unusual . It intimate late similarproblems in psychologyare not confined to that subject .
As always when scientific fraud is uncovered , the situation is both an plethora to science , and a vindication . Anversa ’s dissembling should never have been permit to go on for so long , yet the fact the issue has been address at all contrasts with the room pseudosciences respond to their error , accusal , or lack of replicable data .
[ H / T : New York Times ]
