Haruko Obokata
| Haruko Obokata | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 25, 1983 Matsudo, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Fields | Stem cell research |
| Institutions | RIKEN |
| Alma mater | Waseda University |
| Thesis | Isolation of pluripotent adult stem cells discovered from tissues derived from all three germ layers (2011 (revoked in 2015)) |
| Doctoral advisor | Satoshi Tsuneda |
| Known for | STAP cells |
Haruko Obokata (小保方 晴子? Obokata Haruko, born 1983) is a former stem-cell biologist and research unit leader at Japan's Laboratory for Cellular Reprogramming, Riken Center for Developmental Biology. She claimed to have developed a radical and remarkably easy way to make stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells that could be grown into tissue for use anywhere in the body. Riken, however, eventually launched an investigation in response to allegations of irregularities in images appearing in several articles she authored, including the paper announcing the discovery of STAP cells. The ensuing scandal over STAP cells has since become one of the world's best-known scientific frauds alongside the Schön scandal and Hwang Woo-suk's cloning experiments.
Obokata was born in Matsudo, Chiba, Japan, in 1983. She attended Toho Senior High School, which is attached to Toho University, and graduated from Waseda University. At Waseda University, Obokata undertook undergraduate studies in the Department of Applied Chemistry, within the School of Science and Engineering, earning a Bachelor of Science in 2006, and graduate studies in the Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, earning a Master of Science in Applied Chemistry in 2008.
After completing her master's, Obokata went on to study stem cells and regenerative medicine at the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science, a cooperative research and education facility operated with Tokyo Women's Medical University. She then undertook research at Harvard Medical School in Boston under Charles Vacanti for two years before returning to Waseda University to complete her Ph.D. in Engineering, again, from the Graduate School of Advanced Engineering and Science in 2011. According to a recent Asahi Shimbun news report, Obokata had offered to retract her doctoral dissertation following allegations that she may have copied and pasted some segments of her dissertation from publicly available documents posted in the U.S. National Institute of Health website.
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Wikipedia