Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology› Molecular Biology› Pluripotent Stem Cells Research

Stem cell biology — STAP cells (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency)

Submitted 2026-10-23

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular BiologyType: Couldn't replicate a published resultArea: stem cell biologyTarget: STAP cells (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency)Stage: replication

Hypothesis

Cells prepared by the STAP method would be pluripotent and contribute to chimeric embryos, as Obokata et al. (2014) reported.

What failed

Under supervision by RIKEN, the original author prepared STAP cells that were injected into 1,051 embryos. Of the 591 recovered, none showed a significant contribution from the injected cells.

Broken assumption

A simple stress such as acid can turn ordinary body cells into pluripotent stem cells.

Why

The abstract does not give a cause. The key evidence for pluripotency could not be reproduced, even by the original researcher.

From the published paper: Aizawa et al. F1000Research, 2016. ↗CC BY

Research ideas from this failure

Unvetted lead — read the papers

New hypotheses this failure suggests, each with a crucial experiment, a rival explanation of the original result, and the papers it rests on. Written by AI from paper titles and abstracts found on OpenAlex (and Europe PMC, for life and health sciences).

Related failures (1)

Matched on shared genes, mechanisms and ways of failing as well as wording. Each shows why it matched — treat these as leads rather than verdicts.

stem cell biologyAcid treatment to make STAP stem cells
A 25-minute acid treatment (pH 5.7) would turn mouse blood cells into pluripotent stem cells, as Obokata et al. (2014) reported.
Acid-treated spleen cells from newborn Oct4-GFP mice did not express the stem cell marker Oct4-GFP after 3 to 6 days, and qPCR found no rise in Oct4, Sox2 or Nanog. Lung fibroblasts gave the same result.
Why it matched: same research area · similar wording

Links in published research

Where this experiment's genes are known to matter outside its own research area, and the papers behind those links. Sources: Open Targets Platform and Europe PMC.