A senior Japanese scientist embroiled in a stem-cell research scandal has been found dead in an apparent suicide.
Yoshiki Sasai had supervised and co-authored stem cell research papers that had to be retracted due to falsified contents. Hyogo prefectural police said Sasai, 52, was found on Tuesday at the government-affiliated science institute Riken, in Kobe, western Japan. Sasai was deputy chief of Riken's Centre for Developmental Biology.
A security guard found Sasai suffering from cardiac arrest. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead two hours later.
Police said Sasai left what appeared to be suicide notes but they refused to disclose their contents. The public broadcaster NHK said there were letters addressed to other researchers and senior scientists at the centre.
Sasai's team retracted the research papers from the British science journal Nature over co-author Haruko Obokata's alleged malpractice, which she has contested.
Retractions of papers in major scientific journals are extremely rare and the scandal was a major embarrassment to Japanese scientific research.
In two papers published earlier this year in the journal Nature the researchers reported that they had successfully transformed ordinary mouse cells into stem cells by exposing them to a mildly acidic environment. Scientists hope to harness stem cells to grow replacement tissue for treating a variety of diseases.
Riken later held Obokata, a main author of the research, responsible for falsifying data. The investigation also focused on Sasai and two other employees, though those three were not accused of research misconduct.
Sasai had said he was 'deeply ashamed' over the problems in the papers.
Entities 0 Name: Sasai Count: 7 1 Name: Yoshiki Sasai Count: 2 2 Name: Riken Count: 2 3 Name: Hyogo Count: 1 4 Name: Nature Count: 1 5 Name: Haruko Obokata Count: 1 6 Name: Centre for Developmental Biology Count: 1 7 Name: Obokata Count: 1 8 Name: NHK Count: 1 9 Name: Kobe Count: 1 10 Name: Japan Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1uhEchf Title: Noted Japanese stem-cell scientist Yoshiki Sasai is dead, Riken institute says Description: TOKYO-A top Japanese scientist who co-wrote studies on stem cells that were later retracted was found dead Tuesday after an apparent suicide, the government-affiliated Riken institute said. Yoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology, was found by a security guard Tuesday morning, the institute said.
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