EMBO takes back Voinnet’s award, investigates other awardee who just lost a Nature Genetics paper

In the version of this article initially published, the colony formation assay image labeled “Co115.DICER1” was the incorrect image. The error has been corrected and a corrected version of Figure 4 panel e is provided in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

Additional papers co-authored by Melo have been discussed on PubPeer, with some commenters suggesting they contain duplicated figures that claim to represent different experimental conditions.

In December, EMBO announced she would receive the organization’s Installation Grant, awarded to “talented young group leaders in establishing their laboratories.” The grant awardees receive

50,000 Euros annually for three to five years from their host countries. The nine grantees will also enter the network of EMBO Young Investigators, which helps them to integrate into the European scientific community.

The memo from Leptin explains the process behind revoking Voinnet’s medal:

Recent investigations following concerns about data manipulation in Olivier Voinnet’s publications have resulted in the retraction of several papers and the correction of others of which he is an author. To ensure that the prestige of the EMBO Gold Medal and the reputation of science more generally are maintained, EMBO Council at its 2015 annual meeting set up a committee to assess the allegations of data manipulation in Olivier Voinnet’s publications, and based on this assessment to determine what actions to take.

It continues:

In addition to considering the allegations concerning Olivier Voinnet’s publications that are already in the public domain, the committee carried out an independent investigation, focusing on the papers submitted as part of the nomination for the Gold Medal. The investigation identified a number of further cases of data manipulation in these publications in addition to those already discussed in the public domain, corrigenda and journal retraction notes.

The committee concluded that the manipulation of data in the publications authored by Voinnet was unacceptable for the proper reporting of research and devalued both science in general and the Gold Medal in particular. The committee therefore decided that EMBO would revoke its award of the Gold Medal to Olivier Voinnet.

Voinnet’s 2009 gold medal award came with a prize of 10,000 euros. The announcement that EMBO released at the time is filled with glowing praise for the scientist:

“Olivier Voinnet is one of the most extraordinary young scientists that I have encountered,” writes David Baulcombe, Professor of Botany at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK.

Baulcombe has since been a co-author on multiple retractions by Voinnet, including two of our top 10 most highly cited retractions.

According to the memo from Leptin, Voinnet has agreed to return the medal.

Update 2/2/16 9:23 a.m. eastern: We’ve received a statement from Sonia Melo:

Unfortunately the Nature Genetics manuscript got retracted because duplicated images were identified some even in the same panels of the same figure. This embarrassing error was not identified by anyone who has scrutinized the manuscript before publication, especially by myself, as the first author, who had a high responsibility in carefully looking at the final manuscript. The first version of the submitted manuscript shows that the figures were accurate without the duplication that appeared in the final version. The published correction (2010) to the manuscript happened because one of these mistakes was identified soon after the original publication. At that time point this was taken as an isolated error, which happened during final figure assembly of the images. Unfortunately, I failed to see the other duplicated images in the manuscript. The raw data registered in the Lab notebooks shows to be correct, the original submission files do not have duplicated images and therefore I stand by the data reported in the manuscript and it is my aim to re-publish this original work in a near future.

As for further comments/concerns, which arose on pubpeer, the authors and respective institutions have not ignored them. All concerns were addressed, raw data registered on notebooks was analysed and reports developed for each case. The data was shown to be correct so no further action was taken.

EMBO was informed of all these facts and is evaluating if these affect my evaluation for the EMBO Installation Grant I was recently awarded. As I previously said, I stand by every bit of data published in the papers I co-author. There was no effort to commit fraud. I regret the lack of diligence I have shown with the Nature Genetics manuscript, my first manuscript as a PhD student, and the confusion it has caused to the readership and my colleagues. Until now, and because the Nature Genetics retraction process was ongoing, I chose to remain silent. I was not and will not be available to participate in discussions that occur under the auspices of anonymous contributions and unclear moderation. I am however available to answer further questions that aim at clarifying open issues and that contribute to increase the transparency due to the scientific process. Therefore, if any entity or organization wants to formally contact me, I will be happy to provide any details required.

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