University of Rochester cancer researchers included ‘incorrect images’ in 13 papers, committee finds

A group of cancer researchers at the University of Rochester have now lost three papers over concerns about the data in the articles – issues that evidently did not rise to the level of misconduct, according to the institution.

The work came from the lab of Yuhchyau Chen, of the university’s Wilmot Cancer Institute. A common co-author was Soo Ok Lee, who is no longer affiliated with the University of Rochester. In addition to the three retractions, Lee has several corrections and an expression of concern.

The most recent retraction involves a 2019 article in the Journal of Molecular Medicine titled “Radiation-induced glucocorticoid receptor promotes CD44 + prostate cancer stem cell growth through activation of SGK1-Wnt/β-catenin signaling” for which Chen and Lee were corresponding authors. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

According to the retraction notice, dated December 10:  

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this Article because of several irregularities in figures. Specifically:Fig. 5f p-B-catenin lane which appears to be identical to Fig. 4a p-Stat3 lane [1]and Fig. 6a p-stat3 [2]; Fig. 5b the first GAPDH lane which appears to be identical to Fig. 3c cytostolic GAPDH lane [1]; Fig. 4e images for both GR IHC stains which appear to be identical to Fig. 5e IHC GR stains [3] An investigation by the University of Rochester Medical Center did not find any evidence of misconduct. However, owing to the number of errors the Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in the reliability of the work presented in the article. Soo Ok Lee, Peter Keng, and Yuhchyau Chen agree to this retraction. Feng Chen, Xiaodong Chen, Yu Ren, and Guobin Weng did not respond to correspondence from the Publisher about this retraction.

The two other retracted papers are “Neuroendocrine differentiation contributes to radioresistance development and metastatic potential increase in non-small cell lung cancer” and “FASN-TGF-β1-PD-L1 axis contributes to the development of resistance to NK cell cytotoxicity of cisplatin-resistant lung cancer cells,” which were published in 2018 in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Molecular Cell Research and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids, respectively and retracted earlier this year  

Neither notice mentions the institutional investigation; however, all three retractions stemmed from the misconduct inquiry, a university official told us.

Chen did not respond to a request for comment. Our email to Lee’s university account bounced back. 

Dirk Bohmann, the senior associate dean for basic research at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told us that the school conducted a misconduct inquiry, which ended in the summer of 2020,  into 15 papers by Lee and Chen. Although Bohmann said he could not provide us a copy of the report, he told us the focus was:

primarily on falsification, which regulations define as “manipulating research materials, equipment or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.”  To determine whether research misconduct occurred as defined by the relevant regulations, the committee further investigated whether falsification was committed “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” or reflected a significant departure from accepted research practices in the field of radiation oncology.

After reviewing lab records and interviewing multiple faculty and staff members involved in the research, the committee’s investigation determined that a preponderance of evidence did not support a finding of research misconduct by Dr. Lee or Dr. Chen. A specific allegation that Dr. Lee falsified an experiment because she lacked access to a particular plasmid was determined conclusively to be false.

However, the investigation found many errors in published figures which Dr. Lee acknowledged, saying they resulted from a faulty data management system and multiple experiments being conducted in the same time frame. The committee determined that incorrect images appeared in 13 of the 15 articles investigated, which were published in 10 different journals between September 2015 and September 2019. Although the investigation did not prove misconduct, these revelations were disappointing and concerning to us. Whether the cause was intentional misconduct or poor laboratory practice, the fact that flawed information was entered into the scientific record by members of our University is incongruent with our standards as a research institution.

Bohmann added that in September 2020, shortly after the inquiry wrapped up, Mark Taubman, the university’s senior vice president for health sciences, notified the editors at the journals that had published the papers to notify them of the investigation and alerting them to the problematic images. The most recently retracted paper earned an editor’s note on September 17, 2020. Chen and Lee also contacted many of the same journals with requests for corrections, Bohmann noted:

He specifically recommended retraction of three articles based on the number and nature of errors they contained; in the other cases, the editors were invited to follow up with questions and take whatever action they deem appropriate. The recent Journal of Molecular Medicine retraction falls in the latter category.  

Finally, Bohmann confirmed that Lee has left the university: 

However, we are unable to discuss disciplinary actions relative to individuals or internal consequences relative to this laboratory following the investigation. Institutionally, we have strengthened training on ethics and misconduct prevention as part of our mandatory Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) course, and expanded this content in our ongoing RCR training specific to different scientific disciplines.

One final note: Although the investigation was based on federal research definitions and requirements, I should be clear that all of the research in question was supported entirely by the University with no involvement of U.S. Public Health Services funds.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution by PayPal or by Square, or a monthly tax-deductible donation by Paypal to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].