Yamanaka: 'Rejected, Slow and Clumsy'

This week's announcement of the Nobel Prize for Shinya Yamanaka brought along some interesting tidbits, including who was “snubbed” as well as recollections from the recipient.

Jon Bardin of the Los Angeles Times wrote the “snubbed” piece and quoted Christopher Scott of Stanford and Paul Knoepfler of UC Davis about the selection issues. Bardin's piece mentioned Jamie Thomson and Ian Wilmut as scientists who also could have been considered for the award but were not named. Ultimately, Bardin wrote that the award committee was looking for a “singular, paradigm shifting discovery,” which he concluded was not the case with Thomson or Wilmut.

How Yamanaka arrived at his research was another topic in the news coverage, much of it dry as dust. However, Lisa Krieger of the San Jose Mercury News began her story with Yamanaka's travails some 20 years ago. At the time, no one was returning his phone calls as he looked for work, and he was rejected by 50 apparently not-so-farsighted American labs.

But that job search in 1993 came only after Yamanaka decided he was less than successful as an orthopedic surgeon, according to an account in JapanRealTime. “Slow and clumsy” was how Yamanaka described himself.

And so he moved on to research. But again he reported stumbling. In this case, he found a way to reduce “bad cholesterol” but with a tiny complication – liver cancer. That in turn sent him on a journey to learn how cells proliferate and develop, which led him to the work that won the Nobel Prize.

Yamanaka said his original interest in orthopedic medicine was stimulated by his father along with the treatments for injuries young Yamanaka received while playing rugby and learning judo. The JapanRealTime account continued,

“'My father probably still thinks in heaven that I’m a doctor,' he said in the interview(with Asahi Shimbun last April). 'IPS cells are still at a research phase and have not treated a single patient. I hope to link it to actual treatment soon so I will be not embarrassed when I meet my father someday.'”

And then there was, of course, the much-repeated story from the researcher who shared the Nobel with Yamanaka, John Gurdon. He has preserved to this day a report from a high school biology teacher that said the 15-year-old Gurdon's desire to become a scientist was “quite ridiculous.” The teacher, who is unnamed, wrote,

“If he can’t learn simple biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who would have to teach him.”

Faulty Research, Fraud Attract Page One Attention in Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal today reported a sharp upturn in retractions of scientific studies and a trend in research fraud that one editor of an influential scientific journal called a "scar on the moral body of science."

The journal's page one piece was headlined, "Mistakes in Scientific Studies Surge."

The article documented instances in which hundreds of thousands of persons were treated on the basis of faulty research.

Reporter Gautam Naik wrote,

"Science is based on trust, and most researchers accept findings published in peer-reviewed journals. The studies spur others to embark on related avenues of research, so if one paper is later found to be tainted, an entire edifice of work comes into doubt. Millions of dollars' worth of private and government funding may go to waste, and, in the case of medical science, patients can be put at risk."

The Journal piece has implications for the California stem cell agency, which ballyhoos the number of papers its grant recipients publish -- some 600 or so from $1.3 billion in grants and loans. The agency also has established critical bench marks for performance that must be verified on some big-ticket grants if state money is to continue to flow to recipients. And CIRM grants are awarded on the basis of a peer review process.

Naik wrote,

"Since 2001, while the number of papers published in research journals has risen 44%, the number retracted has leapt more than 15-fold, data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by Thomson Reuters reveal.

"Just 22 retraction notices appeared in 2001, but 139 in 2006 and 339 last year. Through seven months of this year, there have been 210, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science, an index of 11,600 peer-reviewed journals world-wide."

The article said that retractions related to fraud increased more than sevenfold between 2004 and 2009, according to an analysis in the Journal of Medical Ethics, a finding also supported by another researcher.
Naik wrote,

"Why the backpedaling on more and more scientific research? Some scientific journals argue that the increase could indicate the journals have become better at detecting errors. They point to how software has made it easier to uncover plagiarism.

"Others claim to find the cause in a more competitive landscape, both for the growing numbers of working scientific researchers who want to publish to advance their careers, and for research journals themselves.

"'The stakes are so high,' said the Lancet's editor, Richard Horton. 'A single paper in Lancet and you get your chair and you get your money. It's your passport to success.'"

Naik continued, "The apparent rise in scientific fraud, said Dr. Horton 'is a scar on the moral body of science.'"

By about 9 a.m. PDT, the article had attracted more than 200 comments on the Journal's web site. Some readers minimized the problem. Another reader said that to be a credible scientst,

"One must jump (through) many hoops in conforming to proper authorities."

Another commented about problems created by agenda-driven results. Another criticized the peer review process as simply an inexpensive way for scientific journals to fill their pages. Reader Daniel Viel said, "Bottom line: this is big business. A tremendous amount of money involved every time a study 'pushes' drugs."