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It is one of the best-known stem cell papers in the past five years, describing adult cells that seemed to hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. Now, following inquiries by New Scientist, some of the data contained within the papers is being questioned.
In 2002, a team led by Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, described "multipotent adult progenitor cells" or MAPCs, isolated from the bone marrow of rodents (Nature, vol 418, p 41). These cells seemed able to develop into most of the body’s tissues.
Previously, only embryonic stem cells (ESCs) had proved so versatile, and the work was seized upon by opponents of ESC research, who claimed it showed similarly versatile cells could be harvested without destroying human embryos.
The results proved hard to repeat, and for more than six months from late 2003 even Verfaillie’s own group was unable to isolate the cells. When New Scientist looked more closely, we found that six plots from the Nature paper and its supplementary information were duplicated in a second paper, published at about the same...