The steady drip-drip-dripping sound you hear from the cancer literature these days comes from the stream of retractions involving studies by Naoki Mori, the now jobless scientist whose work on cancer viruses appears to be evaporating before our eyes.
Cancer Science, which used to be called the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, has retracted three more of Mori’s papers, each of which, according to the journal, contained multiple unreliable images. That brings the tally of retractions involving Mori’s articles to 14 by our count, an impressive number by any measure. Mori has more than 50 papers to his name, however, so it’s possible that the number of retractions will grow.
Here are the latest retractions:
1. Epstein-Barr virus-encoded latent membrane protein 1 activates β-catenin signaling in B lymphocytes. Tomita M, Dewan MZ, Yamamoto N, Kikuchi A, Mori N. (2009; cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge)
From the notice:
This article has been retracted at the request of Editor-in-Chief & Author. The following article from Cancer Science: Mariko Tomita, Zahidunnabi Dewan, Naoki Yamamoto, Akira Kikuchi and Naoki Mori. Epstein-Barr virus-encoded latent membrane protein 1 activates β-catenin signaling in B lymphocytes, Cancer Science 2009; 100: 807-812, (doi: 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2009.01121.x), published online on 20 March 2009 on Wiley Interscience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com), now Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor-in-Chief, Yusuke Nakamura, and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd. All authors wish to retract this paper due to repeated use of images in the same gel in two figures within the article. Yusuke Nakamura Editor-in-Chief Cancer Science.
2. Anti-adult T-cell leukemia effects of a novel synthetic retinoid, Am80 (Tamibarotene). Nakazato T, Okudaira T, Ishikawa C, Nakama S, Sawada S, Tomita M, Uchihara JN, Taira N, Masuda M, Tanaka Y, Ohshiro K, Takasu N, Mori N. (2008, cited 5 times)
The notice:
This article has been retracted at the request of Editor-in-Chief & Author. The following article from Cancer Science: Tetsuro Nakazato, Taeko Okudaira, Chie Ishikawa, Shinji Nakama, Shigeki Sawada, Mariko Tomita, Jun-nosuke Uchihara, Naoya Taira, Masato Masuda, Yuetsu Tanaka, Kazuiku Ohshiro, Nobuyuki Takasu, Naoki Mori. Anti-adult T-cell leukemia effects of a novel synthetic retinoid, Am80 (Tamibarotene), Cancer Science 2008; 99: 2286-2294, (doi: 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2008.00917.x), published online on 1 September 2008 on Wiley Interscience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com), now Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor-in-Chief, Yusuke Nakamura, and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd. All authors wish to retract this paper due to inappropriate image utilization in three of the figures within the article. Yusuke Nakamura Editor-in-Chief Cancer Science.
3. Curcumin targets Akt cell survival signaling pathway in HTLV-I-infected T-cell lines. Tomita M, Matsuda T, Kawakami H, Uchihara JN, Okudaira T, Masuda M, Ohshiro K, Mori N. (2006; cited 12 times)
The notice:
This article has been retracted at the request of Editor-in-Chief & Author. The following article from Cancer Science: Mariko Tomita, Takehiro Matsuda, Hirochika Kawakami, Jun-nosuke Uchihara, Taeko Okudaira, Masato Masuda, Kazuiku Ohshiro and Naoki Mori. Curcumin targets Akt cell survival signaling pathway in HTLV-I-infected T-cell lines, Cancer Science 2006; 97: 322-327, (doi: 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2006.00175.x), published online on 30 March 2006 on Blackwell Synergy (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com), now Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor-in-Chief, Yusuke Nakamura, and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd. All authors wish to retract this paper due to inappropriate image utilization in two of the figures within the article. Yusuke Nakamura Editor-in-Chief Cancer Science.
Mori, we should note, has published a total of 8 papers in Cancer Science.