Retracted Paper Rattles Korean Science

摘要

Nature this week is retracting a 2000 paper that promised an advance in diabetes treatment using gene therapy. Confusion surrounding the paper, including allegations about fraudulent data, continues to afflict the South Korean science community.rnThe paper's authors, led by Hyun Chul Lee of Yonsei University in Seoul, claimed to have created a treatment for type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells needed to regulate glucose levels. Lee's team used a recombinant virus to introduce a gene for an insulin analogue into diabetic rats and mice, which was expressed in response to blood glucose levels and alleviated symptoms. The team suggested the treatment could be adapted for humans (H. C. Lee et al. Nature 408,483-488; 2000).rnNow, having yet to repeat the experiment, Lee has asked Nature to retract the paper (see page 660). "I don't know the reason why the experiments are not reproducible," says Lee. He suggests that the original gene construct, pLPK-SIA - a combination of the virus vector, the insulin analogue and a promoter that regulates the expression of the analogue in response to glucose levels - might have mutated after the original experiment.