Over the course of a year, Han Chunyu took the initiative to apply to nature magazine to withdraw NgAgo's paper.

On August 3rd, Beijing time, Nature Biotechnology published an editorial entitled "It's time for the data to speak", withdrawing a paper published in the journal by Han Chunyu's team on May 2, 2016.
news was informed that the paper was withdrawn, is Han Chunyu's initiative to apply for withdrawal.
are now convinced that Han Chunyu's decision to withdraw is the best way to maintain the integrity of published scientific records," the newspaper said in an editorial.
, the "Natural Biotechnology" published an editorial at the same time, issued Han Chunyu's withdrawal statement.
in a withdrawal statement, Han Chunyu said they "did not independently repeat the reports of these results."
therefore, we are now withdrawing our initial report in order to preserve the integrity of the scientific record.
, however, we will continue to investigate the reasons for the lack of repeatability in the study to provide an optimized experimental solution.
" Han Chunyu was born in 1974 and is now an associate professor at Hebei University of Science and Technology, graduated from Hebei Normal University with a master's degree from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a Ph.D. from Concord Medical University in China.
In academic publishing, widely questioned papers, under the investigation and coordination of journals, often by the author of the paper to apply to the journal for withdrawal, in order to reduce the damage to the scientific credibility of the author of the paper, while avoiding more researchers continue to cite the paper.
, "We also asked the authors if they could answer why it was difficult for the scientific community to repeat their results," the authors said in the aforementioned editorial.
, in December, Han Chunyu and colleagues, as well as several other independent research groups associated with the journal, provided new data that they said had repeated the NgAgo gene-editing activity.
, both the editor and an external reviewer decided that the data were too primary to meet publishing standards.
, we decided to give the authors of these original papers and the new research team more time to gather more experimental evidence to support their arguments. "Now, more than a year after the original paper was published, we understand that the independent research team that reported the initial success of repeating the results of the experiment was unable to reinforce the initial data to a publishable level,"
said.
similar, after seeking feedback from expert reviewers, we determined that the latest data provided by Han Chunyu and his colleagues were insufficient to refute the large amount of evidence contrary to his initial findings.
we are now convinced that Han Chunyu's decision to withdraw the manuscript is the best way to maintain the integrity of published scientific records.
", the paper was published, Han Chunyu team and its report NgAgo technology received a lot of praise.
NgAgo technique described in this paper is the use of Argonaute nucleic acid endoenzyme in Natronobacterium Gregoryi, which uses DNA-mediated gene editing, or NgAgo-gDNA.
the paper, Han Chunyu's team used NgAgo-gDNA technology to edit 100 percent of the genes at 47 points in the mammalian cell genome, with an efficiency of 21.3% to 41.3%.
according to the results of Han Chunyu team's experiments, the technology is highly efficient, comparable to the already "gene magic shear" known as CRISPR-Cas9, the specific site of the gene is accurately rejected, added and so on.
Chunyu NgAgo Event Review: June 3, 2015, Han Chunyu to Natalie Biotechnology.
May 8, 2016, a number of well-known WeChat public numbers with a startling title, has reported Han Chunyu in extremely difficult and poor conditions, to make world-class scientific and technological achievements.
July 2, 2016, the well-known academic counterfeiter Arkzi published "The Repetitive Question of Han Chunyu's "Nobel Prize-level" Experiment at Hebei University of Science and Technology, which openly questioned it, and the controversy over NgAgo gene editing technology began to enter the public eye.
July 13, 2016, Han Chunyu was elected Vice Chairman of hebei Science and Technology Association, and in the same month was recommended by Hebei University of Science and Technology as a candidate for the Yangtze Scholars Award Program, as well as a series of subsequent title awards, scientific research foundation.
July 21, 2016, Qiu Zilong, a researcher at the Institute of Neurology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, issued a statement saying that gene editing caused by NgAgo could be seen at the genomic level.
July 29, 2016 - Australian scientist Gaetan Burgio publishes a long article saying the results of Han Chunyu's paper Figure 4 cannot be repeated, while the International Association of Genetically Modified Technologies sends an e-mail to its members warning that "NgAgo cannot make genetic editing in mammalian cells."
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waste time, money, manpower and subject again.
, August 2, 2016, Nature Biotechnology first responded to the controversy, and several researchers have contacted the journal to say they cannot repeat the study.
will investigate the matter in accordance with established procedures.
."
September 9, 2016, Fang Zhouzi reported Han Chunyu to the National Natural Science Foundation of China and recommended that well-known biologists such as Rao Yi of Peking University, Lu Bai of Tsinghua University, and Yan Feng of the Beijing Institute of Life Sciences participate in the survey.
October 10, 2016, 13 Chinese biologists made a public statement in the media, saying they could not repeat the results of the experiment and calling on the authorities to launch an academic investigation.
October 10, 2016, the front page of science and technology daily published "Han Chunyu on the "repeated failure of the experiment" answer to the science and technology daily reporter's question.
interview, Han Chunyu refused to prove his innocence.
the same day, 12 scholars, in their real names, publicly stated that their lab had not "repeated" Han Chunyu's experiments.
October 14, 2016, Hebei University of Science and Technology provided the media with a written document entitled "Responses to public opinion questioning the results of Han Chunyu", indicating that the school has been paying active attention to the matter.
has been an independent off-campus agency using Han Chunyu team's NgAgo technology to achieve gene editing, the agency and Han Chunyu team's cooperation is under negotiation.
11, 2016, Liu Dong of Nantong University and Professor Yongming Wang of Fudan University published an article in the form of Letter to Editor at Cell Research.
the study did not find that NgAgo was able to perform gene editing, but could knock the gene down.
's article does not support or refute Professor Han's findings; on November 15, 2016, an academic review co-authored by Protein and Cell, an open-access journal co-sponsored by The Higher Education Press, the Beijing Institute of Life Sciences, and the Chinese Biophysical Society, and co-published by The Higher Education Press and Springer, was published online in an academic review co-authored by 20 biologists at home and abroad, entitled Questions about NgAgo, the first time that NgAgo gene editing technology could not be repeated.
November 19, 2016 - Nature Biotechnology issues an online statement expressing the following four points: (1) NBT published a peer-reviewed joint commentary article "Failure to detect DNA-guided genome" using Natronobacterium Gregorian Argonaute, i.e., not NgAgo Gene editing features; (2) expressing editorial concerns about Han Chunyu's paper, namely, Edital Expression of Concern; (3) setting a January 2017 deadline for authors to clarify, "the provide with the opportunity to do the by January 2017" ;(4) Han Chunyu and Shen Xiao agree with Editorial. Expression of Concern, but three other authors objected! On January 9, 2017, the State Intellectual Property Office issued a "Notice of Withdrawal", showing that Han Chunyu, an associate professor in the Department of Life Sciences and Engineering at Hebei University of Science and Technology, and Shen Xiao, a researcher at Zhejiang University's School of Basic Medicine, were withdrawn as inventors of the patent application for "Gene Editing Technology with Argonaute Nuclease as the Core".
this behavior was once widely interpreted as a manifestation of patent applicants' lack of confidence in the repeatability of technology.
January 12, however, Han Chunyu's team issued a statement saying that from the perspective of intellectual property protection strategies, they chose to protect domestic patents in China by filing international patents with China.
January 19, 2017, Hebei University of Science and Technology announced that Denmark's Noviesin Corporation, a global leader in industrial enzyme and microbial preparations, has signed a cooperation agreement with hebei University of Science and Technology's Center for Gene Editing Technology in the joint development and industrialization of NgAgo-gDNA gene editing technology tools, sharing their respective NgAgo technology achievements on the basis of agreed cooperation conditions, and working together to further improve and improve the technology in the future.
said it had tested the technology, seen some signs that it might be useful, and had made an advance payment to Hebei University of Science and Technology.
at the same time, Nature Biotechnology did not release the conclusive results as expected at the end of January, noting in a statement that new data related to repeatability of the NgAgo system had been obtained, but that further analysis was needed before a conclusion could be reached.
han Chunyu later confirmed that the new data was provided by their team.
May 9, 2017, Nature Biotechnology posted "Editorial Concerns" online, indicating that journal editors have taken note of readers' concerns about the repetitive nature of NgAgo's paper published online May 2, 2016.
20, 2017, CCTV-13's "News Investigation" section aired an in-depth survey program on the topic of "Associate Professor Han Chunyu".
The full text of the Nature Biotechnology editorial and Han Chunyu's withdrawal statement: Nature Biotechnology editorial: It is time for the data to speak out and a study claiming gene editing through Argonautease was withdrawn, demonstrating the importance of peer review in the all-weather media age following the publication of the paper.
, Han Chunyu and colleagues withdrew a paper published last May.
the paper, short 5' phosphate monochain DNA can lead to double-stranded rupture of NgAgo nucleic acid kerase (NgAgo) for editing the human genome.
the paper was published, it aroused great interest from researchers and competing media reports.
, but soon, with the help of Twitter, blogs and other social media, questions about the repeatability of the study began to grow rapidly.
november, the journal published Editorial Expression of Concern, reminding the scientific community of these repeatability concerns.
to finally resolve the dispute, several research groups generated more experimental data over several months.
the dust has settled, and this is a testast to the amount of time, effort and money that many laboratories around the world have put in to clarify the capabilities of NgAgo.
the impact of Han Chunyu's paper since it was published last year cannot be overblown, especially in China, the source of the paper.
chinese media have been reporting on the discovery of a new gene editing system with headlines.
is undoubtedly the most-reported paper in China last year, with nearly 4,000 related news stories in the first two months of publication alone, according to Meltwater, a media Chinese company.
NgAgo's buzz has focused on one of the points where it could possibly complement or even replace the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system.
NgAgo is expected to perform gene editing in one target sequence (Cas9 requires not only a target sequence, but also another nearby identification (PAM) sequence).
Moremore, the initial data show its advantages in other areas, such as greater primer stability (DNA vs. Cas9 RNA), enhanced specificity, reduced genome editing off-targeting, improved activity in genome-rich GC regions, and easier synthesis and treatment of reagents used.
if all this sounds too good to be true, doubts have been raised since last summer as more and more laboratories were unable to repeat the genome editing capabilities reported in the paper.
the paper has become one of the hottest topics in various genome editing sessions, newsgroups and e-mails.
this quickly attracted media attention, and voices on both sides of the positive and positive aspects of the validity of the initial report began to clash.
our internal image integrity screening did not find any obvious anomalies in Han Chunyu's paper, and the three external reviewers reviewing the data held the same view.
, Nature Biotechnology has been in contact with the scientific community, focusing on ongoing efforts to repeat papers.
, under the coordination of the editors, the results of the three independent panels resulted in a separate dispro argue and were peer-reviewed (Nat.Biotechnol.34,768-773, 2016).
And these data, we have every reason to alert readers to possible problems with the paper, and we will be formally "editorial attention" published on the site where the paper is located, a move supported by two authors of the paper, including Han Chunyu.
also asked the authors if they could answer why it was difficult for the scientific community to repeat their results.
then, last December.