Inside STAP: New Yorker's Long Look at the Flap and its Implications

Over the weekend, the New Yorker published online a bang-up and thorough account of the STAP stem cell scandal of 2014. which stretched across the Pacific from Japan to Boston.

The subhead on the story said,

“Rivalries, intrigue, and fraud in the world of stem-cell research”

The piece was authored by Dana Goodyear, a writer for the New Yorker who also teaches writing at the University of Southern California.

UC Davis stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler, who carried on his blog early and lengthy pieces on the STAP flap, today said of the article:

“It’s a long, fascinating look inside of STAP, the tangled and ultimately tragic scientific implosion that created and then brought down two Nature papers and some careers.”

Goodyear’s article brought out much fresh material, including a more detailed look at the history of the STAP research than has been previously published. The piece also contained probably enough scientific detail to satisfy the experts in the field.

But Goodyear also included thoughts on the stem field in general, issues related to scientific journals, hyper-competitiveness among researchers, replication of research and more. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article, which we highly recommend:

“The promises of stem-cell research lie at the core of human desires—to understand our origins and to cheat death—and there is a great deal of money and prestige at stake. It is a ruthlessly competitive field, susceptible to fantasy and correspondingly sensitive to bunglers. Human embryonic stem cells were first cultured in 1998; nearly twenty years later, basic assumptions about cell behavior are still routinely overturned. Andrew McMahon, a top researcher at the Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, at the University of Southern California, told me, “It’s not unusual to see something and not be able to explain it.” In reporting results, researchers must often craft a narrative to make sense of mysterious phenomena. What to ignore and what to privilege—that discernment can be the difference between brilliance and quackery, and between fame and obscurity.”

On the difficulties in replicating research findings:

“Many people believe this is partly the fault of the scientific journals. Along with the influential role that Nature has in shaping the trajectories of ideas, technologies, and careers, it is essentially a commercial enterprise. The editors like big stories, and for the right ones they take risks. Some observers complain that incentives to publish have a distorting effect, causing scientists to oversell data; a cutthroat culture sometimes leads researchers to publish intentionally incomplete or vague protocols. The perceived conflict between good science and prestige has become so pointed that, two years ago, Randy Schekman, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, announced in the Guardian that he would no longer publish in Nature, Cell, or Science, which, he wrote, ‘aggressively curate their brands, in ways more conducive to selling subscriptions than to stimulating the most important research.’”

Expectations, Ballyhoo and Stem Cell Research

Two seemingly unrelated biotech stories popped up this morning on the news.  One involved an international stem cell research brouhaha. The other involved what could amount to a nearly $2 billion biotech deal for a California firm.  

What brings them together is the diaphanous nature of some of the work in these much ballyhooed fields. But first, let’s look at the latest reports about the STAP stem cell flap concerning research in Japan and Massachusetts that seemed to promise a fast and easy way to make pluripotent stem cells.

After five months and major questions, the journal Nature has decided to retract the STAP paper despite the fact that the journal had it vetted by some of the best scientists in the world. Even with the review, Nature said “extensive” errors have surfaced along with “inexplicable discrepancies.”

It is fair to say that 20 years ago, that paper would still be widely accepted and remain firmly entrenched in Nature’s archive as reliable. What has changed is the Internet and impact of social media on evaluation of research. That has given researchers the unfettered ability to discuss and publish their findings dealing with replication of results and other issues.  At the same time, the speed in which this cyber review takes place is remarkable.  The change from 20 years ago is the equivalent of the move from hand-cranked printing presses to the high-speed presses of today that can spit out thousands of pages an hour.

(We should note that California stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler of UC Davis played an important role in probing the scientific reliability of the STAP research with responsible reporting and commentary on his blog, ipscell.com.)

Now, about that nearly $2 billion deal, Wall Street Journal columnist Helen Thomas this morning wrote about the acquisition of Seragon Pharmaceutical by Roche, describing it as “disconcerting.” She said it could be a case of shelling   “out vast sums for assets that could quite possibly amount to nothing.”  San Diego-based Seragon “was formed only last year and has one breast cancer drug in early stage trials,” Thomas wrote.

She continued,

“The global pharma sector's forward earnings multiple has expanded to almost 16 times, up from less than 11 times two years' ago, in part because investors believe the (biotech) industry's R&D machine is again producing the goods.”

Thomas noted, however, that only one in 10 potential therapies entering clinical trials reaches the marketplace. “The risks are substantial,” she said. Those same risks apply as well to the 10 clinical trials that the California’s $3 billion stem cell agency has been involved in.

Earlier this year, noted bioethicist Art Caplan wrote about what he called the “off-the-rails syndrome” in stem cell research. The STAP article was his starting point.  Stem cell research is a field that has had more than its share of hype. Well-respected scientists routinely refer to its revolutionary potential. Little public attention is paid to the obstacles and the lengthy and often unsuccessful process of developing a truly usable product.  Expectations of desperate patients are raised. Many of them wind up paying for expensive, untested and perhaps unsafe treatments.

The Seragon-Roche deal is also a reflection of the hype that can arise in biotech/stem cell research. It can be so powerful that the supposedly “rational” economic markets are swept up in the exuberance of a nifty research story.  Ultimately the deal may pan out for Roche, although Roche can afford to take a big loss. But stories are stories.

What does all this mean for the California stem cell agency? Good reasons exist to manage expectations so that the public and potential sources of funding are surprised by successes rather than being surprised by the agency’s failures.  No one wants to see a story like the Solyndra scandal emerge from the California stem cell agency.