The Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University in Japan is defending Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka against claims of image manipulation in multiple studies on which he was an author. Yamanaka shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012 and works at CiRA.

On August 7, 2026, Gotham City Research LLC, a short-selling firm based in the United States, released a report alleging image manipulation in several papers by Yamanaka appearing between 2000 and 2020. The targets of the report and another issued a few days earlier were two Japanese firms, Sumitomo Chemical And Sumitomo Pharmaceutical. These companies have provided funding to CiRA, where Yamanaka and his colleague Kazutoshi Takahashi conducted early proof-of-concept research on reprogramming mature cells into induced pluripotent stem cells.

Earlier this year, Japan’s health ministry gave conditional approval to Amchepry, a treatment for Parkinson’s disease based on reprogrammed stem cells. But some researchers worry that the first-of-its-kind treatment has only been tested in seven patients.
 

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/08/27/japan-stem-cell-research-kyoto-shinya-yamanaka-gotham-city-research/

Another high-profile case has interested scientists. Read now