A group of researchers at Bristol-Myers Squibb has had a paper retracted for reasons we can’t quite figure out.
All the notice for “Simultaneous expression of antibody light and heavy chains in Pichia pastoris: improving retransformation outcome by linearizing vector at a different site,” published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, says is:
This article has been retracted due to unsolved legal reasons.
It’s unclear what this means. The ten authors of the paper are at Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Biologics Process Sciences division of its Global Manufacturing and Supply operation in East Syracuse, New York. Neither the corresponding author, the editor of the journal, nor Bristol-Myers Squibb has responded to our requests for comment.
Pichia pastoris is a yeast that, according to Wikipedia, is
widely used for protein expression using recombinant DNA techniques. Hence it is used in biochemical and genetic research in academia and the biotechnical industry.
“Unsolved legal reasons” seems to be a favorite at Springer, which publishes the journal. We reported on two other retractions for the same “reason” last month.
9 of those 10 authors also had another paper withdrawn:
Protein Expr Purif. 2012 Sep 5.
WITHDRAWN: Aminoglycoside phosphotransferase II gene as primary selection marker for Pichia pastoris producing full-length monoclonal antibody.
Qian Y, Xu X, Qian NX, Dhar V, You L, Xing Z, Huang C, Pan SH, Li ZJ.
Reblogged this on The Firewall.
Patent dispute?