that they were investigating. Several stem-cell scientists defended Obokata or reserved their opinion while the investigation was ongoing. To address the problem of reproducibility in other laboratories, Obokata published some technical 'tips' on the protocols on March 5 while promising that the detailed procedure would be published in due course. On March 11, Teruhiko Wakayama, one of Obokata's coauthors, urged all the researchers involved to withdraw the articles, citing many "questionable points". Charles Vacanti said he opposed their retraction and posted a "revised protocol" for creating STAP cells on his own website, which was taken down after he resigned his BWH post. On March 14, RIKEN released an interim report of the investigation. Out of the six items being investigated, the committee concluded that there was inappropriate handling of data on two items, but did not judge the mishandling as research misconduct. On April 1, RIKEN concluded that Obokata had engaged in "research misconduct", falsifying data on two occasions. The co-authors were cleared of misconduct, but bore "grave responsibility" for not verifying the data themselves. RIKEN also announced that an internal group had been established to verify whether the ‘stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency’ is reproducible. Obokata maintained her innocence and said she would appeal the decision. On June 4, 2014, Obokata agreed to retract both the article and the "letter". The article was officially retracted on July 2, 2014. An article analyzing the controversy concluded that while issues of image manipulation, duplication and plagiarism were potentially detectable, the reviewers could not have concluded that the article was the product of academic misconduct prior to acceptance. In the wake of the controversy, observers, journalists, and former members of RIKEN have stated that the organization is riddled with unprofessional and inadequate scientific rigor and consistency, and that this is reflective of serious issues with scientific research in Japan in general. RIKEN commissioned a team of scientists to attempt to verify Obokata's original results and asked Obokata to participate in the effort. On August 5, 2014, Obokata's supervisor and co-author of the original paper, Yoshiki Sasai, was discovered dead by apparent suicide by hanging in a building at the RIKEN facility in Kobe, Japan. On September 24, 2015, the RIKEN scientists reported that Obokata's STAP cells came from embryonic stem cell contamination, while on the same day, research groups who had attempted to reproduce the STAP protocol jointly reported that they had found