Talk:Haruko Obokata

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Evidence is accumulating that this women is simply a fraud. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.240.206.199 (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Vacanti
Dr Charles Vacanti, as a joint corresponding author in the same Nature paper reporting the creation of STAP cells, should also be given credit for this discovery, just like Dr. Obokata. See The Boston Globe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.246.56.171 (talk) 13:51, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Before changing this article, please gain consensus how Vacanti as well as other corresponding authors of the Nature articles, Wakayama, Sasai contributed to STAP cell at Talk:Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cell. Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cell describes "The technique for producing STAP cells was discovered and developed by Haruko Obokata at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), while she was studying under Charles Vacanti".―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Citing another Wikipedia page does not really contribute to this discussion. Since the Nature paper features both Dr Obokata and Dr Vacanti as corresponding authors, probably by agreement between the authors themselves, they should both be given credit for this initial discovery (the acid bath method). He provided the idea and rationale for the project, and Dr Obokata actually did the work and developped the technique that is reported in the paper. It is very likely that Dr. Obokata would not have made this discovery if she had not worked under the supervision of Dr. Vacanti, and Dr. Vacanti would not have been able to make this discovery if he had not had Dr Obokata to do the experiments with such care (again, see the article in The Boston Globe). This is what is reflected by both of them being corresponding authors. In relation to that, in the biography of Dr. Obokata, Dr. Vacanti should also be mentioned as instrumental in this discovery (also in the Japanese version...). If Dr Vacanti had also written his own biography on Wikipedia and not aknowledged the contribution of Dr Obokata, I would also have edited his page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.54.130.243 (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, this is a biographical article. If you wish to discuss how Vacanti and others contributed to STAP cells, the best place is Talk:Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cell, not here.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 01:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree. On the James Watson Wikipedia biography page, he is presented as the "co-discoverer of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick", and vice versa. So, this sets a clear precedent, and the names of the corresponding co-authors should be given in the biography. In the same scientific field as Dr. Obokata, Dr. Shinya Yamanaka's biography never fails to mention the names of co-recipients of Scientific prices he received. Another example, Nobel Prize winner Michael Brown's biography states: "Brown and colleague Joseph L. Goldstein researched cholesterol metabolism and discovered that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors", or "In 1993, their trainees Xiaodong Wang and Michael Briggs purified the Sterol regulatory element binding proteins." There are many more examples.

In conculsion, I recommend the use of the sentence: "Dr. Obokata's group, together with Dr Vacanti established the method....".
 * Please read this. Do you still think the method was established with Dr. Vacanti? Oda Mari (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for this! From the link you send me, I quote: "These breakthrough findings, made in collaboration with Charles Vacanti’s lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, and colleagues at the CDB laboratories for Genomic Reprogramming (Teruhiko Wakayama, Team Leader; now at Yamanashi University), Pluripotent Stem Cells (Hitoshi Niwa, Project Leader), and Organogenesis and Neurogenesis (Yoshiki Sasai, Group Director), stand to revolutionize not only the study of pluripotency and cell reprogramming, but our understanding of the stability and irrevocability of differentiation itself."
 * Another quotation from the Riken site: "“This research would not have been possible without the significant contributions of every author involved and the international collaboration between Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the RIKEN CDB,” says Charles Vacanti."
 * I strongly believe that Scientists must exercise fair-play and honesty in all situations. Why is it hard to aknowledge on her Biography that Dr Obokata was not alone in her work? Wikipedia should apply the same standards.


 * Anyway, this discovery is an excellent piece of work, and my criticisms here do not seek to diminish the scientific talent of Dr. Obokata. I apologize if it is the impression it gave. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.54.130.253 (talk) 11:32, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * So by your logic, we should life the entire staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital and RIKEN? It's common courtesy in many professional circles to mention the support of colleagues, but that doesn't mean that they codiscovered something.  It's pretty clear from the sources that Obokata made the discovery. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 15:14, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Which sources? Newspaper, TV channels and secondary reporting? On the original Nature article, there were two corresponding authors: Dr. Obokata and Dr. Vacanti. Nature paper is by excellence a RELIABLE source as defined by Wikipedia. So, here it should be said the Dr. Obokata had made the discovery in COLLABORATION with Dr. Vacanti.


 * But I'll just stop the fight here and add one reason to not trust info given in Wikipedia. Last comment, this page is actually flagged as requiring more reliable source to be aded as supporting citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.54.130.249 (talk) 01:46, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Never trust Wikipedia when you don't like it. OhNo itsJamie Talk 02:14, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

In biological sciences who the corresponding author is often does not inform us of the discoverer by itself. Typically, the PI (professor Vacanti, in this case) is the default corresponding author and the Ph.D. student/post-doctoral fellow is the first author. Occasionally the idea can be created by the first author, and the first author is still not even granted corresponding author status. Sometimes the corresponding and first authors did not even come up with the idea or discovery, but are in these positions for other reasons. Being given corresponding author suggests greater than normal contribution. In practice this happens for a large variety of reasons. In the current case it appears quite different because Dr. Obokata designed and led the experiments at RIKEN. That satisfies the normal threshold for scientific credit as a discoverer. Unless more specific evidence clearly states this to be wrong I believe we should not assume a role for Vacanti out of his author position, and here would not be the appropriate place to discuss detailed contributions. --Joseph — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.210.134.217 (talk) 04:25, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I quote: "The Japanese press went gaga, publishing many articles praising the idea behind the Nature papers, often calling that idea Obokata’s. (Vacanti was actually the one to assign Obokata, a student/post doc in his lab, the task of stressing cells to dedifferentiate them. He was interested in this since postulating, in a 2001 paper, that pluripotent cells spied in adult tissues are recycled “phoenix” cells--meaning, he says, cells that transform in response to harsh culturing.)" Bioscience Technology article by Cynthia Fox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.54.130.252 (talk) 02:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Scientific style?
Meanwhile, wearing an apron instead of a lab coat and painting one’s lab pink and yellow and decorating it with cartoon characters qualifies in this article as “scientific style.” I’m sure all this is great for her reputation in the scientific community. Jim_Lockhart (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This information seems to have been removed from the article. Bad choice. According to Japanese media, she is now working in an upscale pâtisserie in Tokyo; "upscale" to the degree that customers need to schedule appointments in advance. As a scientist, she was known for baking cakes for others in the lab. According to Japanese media, her older sister is a successful scientific research; it's from admiration for her sister that she tried to become a scientist, but her first love is being in the kitchen. Wearing an apron in the lab was an indicator that she never should have become a scientist in the first place. Not trivial. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * If you can find a reliable, secondary source that reports on the subject's lab décor, her "first love," etc., and assuming that such information is WP:DUE (which it very well might not be), then go ahead and add the information. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 10:54, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

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Unsourced original research
User:Jiruman Over the previous few days you have added content to this article that is unsourced, un-reliably sourced, and/or original research (please read WP:OR). Perhaps all of your claims are true. Without being support by adequate sources (please read WP:RS), however, the content is not suitable for Wikipedia, especially in biographies of living persons (please read WP:BLP). Statements along the lines of "Mr. So-And-So said this" are not valid sources. If you want to discuss the issue, including making a claim that the sources you are using actually meet the standards of WP:RS, this is the place to do so. But please do not simply re-add unsourced, WP:OR content. Doing so could be interpreted as disruptive editing (please read WP:DE and WP:EW), and might lead to you being blocked from editing this topic. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2021 (UTC)