Jens Christian Schwamborn, a stem cell researcher at the University of Luxembourg, is retracting a 2007 paper on how to grow brain cells.
The paper, “Ubiquitination of the GTPase Rap1B by the ubiquitin ligase Smurf2 is required for the establishment of neuronal polarity,” was published while Schwamborn was at Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universität Münster in Germany. An anonymous critic had sent questions about the study to Germany’s DFG in the middle of last year, and later to Paul Brookes, who posted them on PubMed Commons.
Those criticisms match the problems listed in the detailed notice:
The above article from The EMBO Journal, published online on 22 February 2007, has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Chief Editor and Head of Scientific Publications, EMBO, Bernd Pulverer, and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The authors’ statement follows.
We have been made aware of a number of issues with figures included in our research article published in 2007 (The EMBO Journal 26: 1410–1422). Briefly, image aberrations and/or duplications were apparent in Figures 2A (splicing of right most lane in the Myc blot); 2B and 2C (duplication of lysate Myc blot and lysate Flag blot, respectively); 2D (splicing on right and left of Flag blot); 2C and 5A (duplication and rotation of GST/Rap1B section of GST blot and tubulin blot, respectively) and aberrant image processing in the top left corner of two panels in Figure 6A labelled Smurf2 RNAi + HECT. We have been unable to locate the original data associated with these figures, and it has therefore not been possible to resolve these issues. At the request of the first author, JCS, all of the authors therefore agreed to retract the paper. We apologize for any adverse consequences that may have arisen from these errors.
The study has been cited 69 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
The critic also raised questions about another paper by the team, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
We tried to contact Schwamborn, whose out-of-office reply indicated he would not read his email until January 5, and corresponding author Andreas W Püschel. We’ll update with anything we learn.
Hat tip: Leonid Schneider
Too much… too many articles about stuff wrong with stem cells to comment. Stem cell retraction/expression of concern overload.
The acknowledgements of the retracted paper states: “This work was supported by grants from the DFG (AWP) and a fellowship from the Boehringer Ingelheim foundation (JCS).” ( http://emboj.embopress.org/content/26/5/1410.long ).
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Researchers with a DFG grant must work according the “Rules of Good Scientific Practice” of DFG (
http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/principles_dfg_funding/good_scientific_practice/index.html ).
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“Recommendation 7: Safeguarding and Storing of Primary Data. Primary data as the basis for publications shall be securely stored for ten years in a durable form in the institution of their origin.” ( http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_profil/reden_stellungnahmen/download/empfehlung_wiss_praxis_1310.pdf , pag 74).
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The retraction note states: “We have been unable to locate the original data associated with these figures, (…). ”
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It seems to me that it can be concluded at least author AWP has violated Recommendation 7 of the “Rules of Good Scientific Practice” of DFG.
The guidelines of DFG were amended in 2013, and point 7 was made more concrete, so this may well mean that it wasn’t 10 years (or rather, no time period stated) in 2007.
Also, and this is what makes all these guidelines quite tricky, it is in principle the *institution* that has the requirement to store the data. To add insult to injury, these guidelines may create significant challenges for those doing research outside their country, thereby transferring the requirement to store data on an institute that in principle cannot be bound by these same guidelines, and may have different guidelines that are in direct contradiction.
It is not a case of lost data, but of image manipulation, committed in a German institution (University of Münster) while financed by DFG. The rules for that kind of misconduct were quite clear even in 2007. So, DFG should act in any case.
The comments posted by Paul Brookes indicate that DFG has been informed. RW could try to obtain their statement, whether there is an investigation. Same for the journal JBC.
The amount of high-profile retractions, corrections, erratums, institutional investigations etc. in the stem cell field, just in 2014, is mind-boggling. STAP, betatrophin, cardiac stem cells, induced stem cells, and now this one.
I would like to refer to the following quote on page 75/76 of the “Rules of Good Scientific Practice” of DFG:
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“The published reports on scientific misconduct are full of accounts of vanished original data and of the circumstances under which they had reputedly been lost. This, if nothing else, shows the importance of the following statement: The disappearance of primary data from a laboratory is an infraction of basic principles of careful scientific practice and justifies a prima facie assumption of dishonesty or gross negligence.”
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See also “Whom should I contact regarding issues of good scientific practice, or if I suspect scientific misconduct?” ( http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/principles_dfg_funding/good_scientific_practice/regarding_issues/index.html ).
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Jens Förster is another example of a German researcher who got various DFG grants and who claimed that his primary research data did not exist anymore. I would like to invite authors and/or affilations/institutes to comment over here on their statement “We have been unable to locate the original data associated with these figures, (…).”
Klaas, well pointed out, DFG is the first one to contact according to their diagram. Well, the whistle-blower who wrote to Paul Brookes did so, one year ago. Now what? It would of course prompt DFG to react somehow, if JBC would move in regard of the other 2007 paper next.
Three posts on Retraction Watch about three separate problems from three different research teams relating to stem cell work, and then Dr Obokata resigns from her position over STAP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30534674
Is this International Dubious Stem Cell Research Week or something?
Marco wrote: “Also, and this is what makes all these guidelines quite tricky, it is in principle the *institution* that has the requirement to store the data. To add insult to injury, these guidelines may create significant challenges for those doing research outside their country, thereby transferring the requirement to store data on an institute that in principle cannot be bound by these same guidelines, and may have different guidelines that are in direct contradiction.”
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Well over 100 years ago, so-called ‘old school biologists’ knew very well that they needed to store their specimens in a museum, so anyone could check their findings.
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I fail to understand why researchers in the 21st century (eg. stem cell researchers) might use the lack of a guideline (eg, ‘Primary data as the basis for publications shall be securely stored for ten years in a durable form in the institution of their origin’) as an excuse. Storing your primary data on a secure place is and was always ‘good scientific practice’.
Klaas, it is correct that it is GSP to properly store primary data, but you cannot argue someone violated the DFG guidelines when those guidelines at that time likely did not provide a time limit.
There is also a limit to how much you can be considered responsible for proper archiving. I myself have worked in three different places, and in principle I should not be allowed to take primary data with me away from those institutes (two)/company (one). If they mess up, either through incompetence, by accident, or through force majeur, you also cannot blame the scientist. For example, not too long ago there was a controversy related to Milena Penkowa (search retractionwatch). One problem was that they could not find materials that were stored in a fridge. Or rather, they could not find the fridge. It was moved after Penkowa had been fired/quit. They later found the fridge again, but imagine the material in the fridge had been thrown out by someone who had no idea what it really was!
You can easily find plenty similar examples by just talking to people. I myself have primary electronic data (spectra) that I can no longer access, because it is on a disk format that is no longer available and in a format that is no longer supported. What do I do if someone asks me for that data?
Klaas, if losing or not being to present and explain the entire original data after up to 10 years was enough to justify retractions, nearly every paper would have to be retracted! The failure to produce raw data only becomes problematic, when there is a strong reason to suspect misconduct, such as here.
Marco, thanks for your quick and friendly response. I fully agree with you that there are loads and loads of examples of primary data which have been thrown away / are not available anymore (etc.). This is no problem at all / just bad luck as long as there are no concerns about dishonest researchers (etc.). Just tell them the truth and anyone will accept your explanation on electronic data you cannot access anymore.
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I recall a request of a few years ago about primary data collected in the early 1970s. It turned out that the data (a huge pile of paper sheets) had been thrown away when the researcher in question got retired. Just bad luck that I was unable to use these primary data in one of my publications. That’s just how it goes. The lacking information was a tiny and a very unimportant part of the publication. In a more recent case, I was pleasantly surprized that I got a scan from a paper sheet with data collected in the early 1980s. I would like to tell you that I am also unable to provide you (or anyone else) with my (SPSS) calculations carried out in the end of the 1980s on a mainfraim computer (results were published in a paper in 1991). I do have the orginal paper sheets of the raw data (collected in 1982 and 1983), so recalculations can be conducted.
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I tend to think that it will happen quite often that this kind of electronic data (and / or paper sheets) is not available anymore. How about floppy disks?.
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Once again, no problem at all when there is no doubt about the reliability of the data / the researcher(s), etc. I do have a problem with the explanation of Jens Schwamborn, Myriam Müller, Annemarie Becker & Andreas Püschel (“We have been unable to locate the original data associated with these figures, and it has therefore not been possible to resolve these issues.”), as a reader has raised (serious) concerns about the integrity of the paper. It is an easy explanation (‘bad luck, all the primary data got lost’) to solve all these ‘issues’.
Klaas, which explanation did you expect from two well established professors? We apologise and admit guilt and misconduct? This would be career suicide. Please do not demand that scientists are to be more honest and moral, due to their supposedly idealistic profession. Everyone who worked in science knows how pathetically low human and scientific ethics can fall there.
Leonid, excellent scientists will respond quickly on requests of RW. Such scientists are willing to share all kind of details with RW. They will go out of their league to find out what went wrong during the preparation of the figures (please note that alot went wrong). They will also be eager to share with others (including RW) what has been done to prevent that this will happen again in the future. Excellent scientists will even publish scientific papers on such kind of failures.
Klaas, I do not disagree with you. Indeed there are (still!) enough honest scientists around, they actually keep science going. They are not necessarily the ones who make big careers, too many just manage to cling on, in best case. How often do we see scientists replying in a (satisfactory matter!) to retractions and accusations of image manipulations? Speaks for itself.
If you go to Schwamborn’s institutional website, no publication prior to 2010 is listed. Ditto on Google Scholar. But his Pubmed record goes back to 2004. Has he disowned any of his work prior to 2010?
Probably a matter of simple presentation. If you look at the actual links, they’re assigned with a sequential identifier. The last paper listed is No. 2739, but if the counter is incremented by hand, the links still work (e.g., here).
I wouldn’t assume that everyone is sufficiently interested in G—le Scholar to bother with carefully tending their profiles.
Updating is one thing, but not including all your previous publications when originally setting it up? A bit odd. Still, perhaps it is all for technical reasons.
Several of the “errors” declared by the authors were not part of the whistleblower’s report (going by Paul Brookes’ post). And I can see why, as it doesn’t seem possible to infer from the published figures that there was splicing in Figs. 2A and 2D, or that the images in Fig. 6A were fudged. How, then, were these “errors” discovered absent the original data?
Irrespective of this, what is declared here squarely meets the definition of data fabrication. It is beyond me how the authors can refer to this as “errors” with a straight face. Can anyone think of a scenario, no matter how improbable, where the splicing of two blots (with one duplicated from another panel, then rotated!) to make them appear as a single blot could arise from an (honest) error?
I certainly can’t. It appears to me that this retraction notice is about as honest as the article it is retracting. I suppose old habits die hard?
Well spotted Elmer, many thanks! This would imply EMBO J did their own investigation and found things beyond the original anonymous hint to Brookes. If this was the case, well done, Bernd Pulverer and EMBO J team!
Every actively publishing scientist or active researcher should be expected to set up their own independent website with a full listing of all publications, errata and retractions included. And, in the case that they have passed away, their past profiles should be set up by their institutes who they served during their tenure. Anything less than this should be unacceptable. And publisher-created profiles should be scrapped, including ORCID (publisher-centralized profiles), and universities and research institutes should be forced by ministries of education to implement this system, with a one-year lee-way, or face an inquiry, or penalties. A simple solution to enforcing accountability and transparency. Any volunteers to start the ball rolling?
So, where is yours?
For the German speakers: here is my background report about this retraction in the German life science magazine Laborjournal: http://www.laborjournal-archiv.de/epaper/LJ_15_01/#14