Playback ’14] Cornered by the STAP Cell Issue, RIKEN’s Yoshiki Sasai Leaves a Last Wish in His Will and Testament

What did “FRIDAY” report 10, 20, or 30 years ago? Playback Friday” takes a look back at the topics that were hot at the time. This time, we present “Shocking Suicide: Yoshiki Sasai’s Fall from Vanity and Suffering” and “Confession of a Suicide Note,” which appeared in the August 22 and 29, 2004 issues 10 years ago.

The “STAP cell” was the great discovery of the century in January ’14. However, as the paper’s flaws and allegations of fraud were pointed out one after another, RIKEN, to which Obokata and her colleagues belonged, set up an investigation committee. In April, RIKEN acknowledged the fraud, and in July, the British science journal Nature retracted the paper, and early in August, Obokata’s mentor Yoshiki Sasai, then 52, who was listed as an author on the paper, took his own life. (The statements in parentheses below are taken from past articles.)

In the facility where Obokata was conducting verification experiments: ……

《”Shortly after Dr. Sasai hanged himself, he was discovered by a staff member. We immediately lowered him to the floor and transported him to the hospital, where we attempted to perform CPR, but unfortunately we were unable to do so in time. The staff members who received the simultaneous email informing them of Dr. Sasai’s death are all confused. ……” (RIKEN staff member)

The falsification and fabrication of the STAP cell paper – a major scandal in the history of Japanese scientific research – has taken a turn for the worse, resulting in the deaths of several people. On August 5, Yoshiki Sasai, 52, took his own life at the Center for Advanced Medical Science, a RIKEN facility.

Sasai was the director of the Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) at RIKEN, and was the mentor of Haruko Obokata, the leader of the STAP research team that published the STAP paper. His death came at a time when Obokata was conducting STAP cell verification experiments at the adjacent CDB in an effort to clear his name.

One of the reasons Sasai chose this timing for his death was speculation that he may have despaired of the results of the verification experiment, which was scheduled to be announced on that day. The verification experiment had begun in April, but there was testimony that Sasai had been losing energy day by day and had offered to quit RIKEN, but was not accepted “until the results of the verification experiment were known.

It was also pointed out that one of the factors that may have contributed to his being ostracized was that the “NHK Special” broadcast on July 21 reported that the circumstances surrounding Obokata’s hiring were unclear and that Sasai, who claimed he was only involved in rewriting the paper and not its fundamentals, was in fact deeply involved. On the other hand, an acquaintance of Sasai’s said that he may not have been able to endure the fall from vanity.

“At the first press conference on STAP research at the end of January this year, Mr. Sasai was in quite a state of excitement. Mr. Sasai handed out supplementary materials without consulting the public relations department, in which he used illustrations of cows and wizards to explain how STAP cells are superior to iPS cells.

He said that iPS cells are created by forcing a cow to give birth to a baby, while STAP cells are created like a magician casting a spell, so they are milder.

Sasai was undoubtedly a star researcher in the field of regenerative medicine before Shinya Yamanaka, director emeritus of Kyoto University’s iPS Cell Research Institute, succeeded in developing iPS cells. An acquaintance further testified.

“What was even more surprising was that Mr. Sasai was a co-author of Mr. Obokata’s STAP paper. Masatoshi Takeichi, director of the CDB Center, also said, “I only found out about it after the paper was published. Above all, RIKEN’s upper management was suspicious about the patent. Sasai was among the applicants for the patent, along with Obokata and others. It must have been his disgusted colleagues who exposed Mr. Sasai’s statements on the Internet, such as, ‘I’ll be her Kevin Costner.

In the end, however, “that smug press conference turned out to be a bad thing,” an acquaintance analyzes.

It must have been quite a shock for him to have that snide interview broadcast again in the recent episode of “N Spectrum. He was a man of great pride, and he probably couldn’t stand to be the laughing stock of the world any longer.

The suicide note left in the laboratory was addressed to the RIKEN staff and Obokata, and included the following words: “I am tired.

Please reproduce STAP cells without fail.

In December ’14, RIKEN announced that STAP cells could not be created as a result of the verification experiment that began in April. Obokata resigned from RIKEN.

When the “STAP cell” paper was published in January, in addition to the groundbreaking content of the discovery, the media was all over Obokata’s unique character as a “good-looking researcher” who conducted research in a kappo-gown and painted the walls of her laboratory pink. The reaction to this was huge. The backlash was huge, and the bashing became very severe when it was discovered that she had falsified papers and cut and pasted image data.

A variety show that made fun of Obokata with a character parodying her was protested by lawyers, and the staff of “N-Speak” chased Obokata around and injured her. It is undeniable that the adverse publicity also contributed to Sasai’s emotional distress.

In April of this year, Professor Rockville Shirakura of Ochanomizu University told the Asahi Shimbun, “The number of cases of fabrication and falsification of data and plagiarism of other people’s writings was around 10 in the early ’10s, more than 20 since ’14, and has increased to 45 in ’21. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg,” he replied. He also pointed out that the reason fraud has not decreased is because it is easier to commit fraud and the probability of detection is low.

The “STAP cell” issue may have been a part of the “darkness” in the world of researchers that we do not usually know about.