Fraud Investigation Clouds Paper on Early Cell Fate.

The article offers information on a scientific misconduct investigation at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. The investigation concerns a report in a contentious area of development biology. The report had cited that mouse embryo cells have distinct fates from the time the cell division first takes place. However, the paper is not being considered to be trustworthy now by senior authors. The ongoing debate involves whether very early embryo cells have a tendency towards one fate or another. R. Michael Roberts, an expert in bovine embryology says that in most mouse embryos, there is a distinct difference between cells from the first cell division.