GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiac Researcher

lunes, 22 de octubre de 2018

Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiac Researcher

Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiac Researcher

Bioedge

Harvard calls for retraction of dozens of studies by stem cell researcher

by Xavier Symons | 20 Oct 2018 |

A world-renown cardiac researcher and former Harvard Medical School professor has been accused of fabricating or falsifying the data in 31 of his published studies.

Piero Anversa is an Italian-born researcher who rose to fame in the early 2000s after publishing pioneering studies on the regeneration of the heart tissue by stem cells. Anversa moved to Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2007, and was appointed a full professor in 2010.

But Anversa left Harvard in 2015 after questions were raised about the veracity of his research. Now, officials from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have recommended that that 31 papers from a former lab director be retracted from journals. The papers “included falsified and/or fabricated data,” according to a statement to Retraction Watch and STATfrom the two institutions.

Last year, the hospital agreed to a US$10 million settlement with the US government over allegations Anversa and two colleagues’ work had been used to fraudulently obtain federal funding. Stem cell researchers at other labs around the US have routinely failed to replicate Anversa’s results.

Some researchers have welcomed the investigation into Anversa’s research, saying that the idea of regenerative stems cells existing in the heart is implausible. “It really is a relief that this has been corrected”, said Jeffery Molkentin, a researcher at Cincinnati Children’s whose lab was among the first to question the basis of Anversa’s results in a 2014 paper in Nature. “There are no stem cells in the heart. Quit trying to publish those results”.

Experts have expressed concern that a clinical trial based on Anversa’s research is continuing to recruit patients.

The leading bioethics issue in American politics is, by far, abortion. But others have made an impact. The proper use of human embryonic stem cells was debated in Obama’s first campaign. Euthanasia is sure to become an issue at some stage. But, much to my surprise, consumer genetics is emerging as a sleeper issue.

Millions of Americans have used the services of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing companies. Now Senator Elizabeth Warrane, aka “Pocahontas” to supporters of President Trump, has resorted to one to settle the controversial question of her Native American heritage. A report has finally demonstrated that she may have had a Native American ancestor six to ten generations ago. But it does not demonstrate that this ancestor was from the Cherokee tribe, or even from a tribe in the United States.

Settling questions of personal identity with genetics is fraught with uncertainty. It’s an area that politicians – and everyone else -- should approach with great caution.