Last year, we reported on two retractions and two corrections by a team at the University of Utah. The retractions were because “some of the original data were inappropriately removed from the laboratory.”
At the time, corresponding author Jerry Kaplan told us that:
The data were lost when an employee, who was dismissed, discarded lab notebooks without permission. This occurred prior to the identification of errors in the manuscripts and was reported at that time to the University authorities.
The university would not confirm whether it investigated the case. However, we have now learned that Kaplan and first author Ivana De Domenico have now left the university. A spokesperson tells us that “as of the end of June 2013 Dr. DeDomenico will no longer be employed by the University of Utah,” and that Kaplan has retired effective the same date.
We asked Kaplan for comment, and will update with anything we learn.
Reblogged this on The Firewall.
Fantastic news! So it wasn’t the poor lab tech after all. Hopefully they do the right thing and retract/correct the other papers that were questioned in the previous threads concerning this case.
I wonder to what degree they were “inappropriately” removed. I hope to hear more from the university on why they were fired/let go, because now it seems as if some form of fraud was committed and the university is looking the other way, possibly for saving face.
The article does not say they were fired/let go. Kaplan must be over 70, from info on his CV, and so retiring now is not that odd. DeDomenico probably left because she was soft money (Research Assistant Professor certainly sounds like that, meaning that since the “hard’ money comes from teaching, usually), Kaplan had planned to retire and did not write any more grants to support the lab.
The university needs to set the record straight. My take: De Domenico did some photoshopping and they or she tried to blame the lab tech.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56676417-78/lab-kaplan-papers-research.html.csp