Aggregated News

He’s back.

Last autumn, Hisashi Moriguchi stunned the world of stem-cell science by claiming he had become the first person to transfer induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into patients. In a now-infamous front-page spread in the Yomiuri Shimbun — which has the largest number of subscribers of any newspaper in the world — Moriguchi said he created a type of iPS cell, differentiated them into cardiac cells, and treated six heart failure patients. One, he said, had already recovered and was living a healthy life.

But in an interview with Nature on the day the story appeared, Moriguchi’s claims quickly fell apart. Nature found that a paper that had supposedly set the foundation for the work was largely plagiarized, that Moriguchi had lied about his training, that he couldn’t name collaborators, and that the facilities where the procedures supposedly took place had no record of it.

He also prevaricated about his affiliations — claiming, for example, to hold a position at Harvard in publications long after the short-term visiting fellowship he held in 1999-2000. Under fire, Moriguchi admitted to many...