Month: September 2022

Chinese hospital sanctioned at least 35 scientists for research misconduct

Retractions are rolling along for numerous scientists affiliated with the Jining First People’s Hospital in Shandong, China, who were sanctioned in December for research misconduct such as tampering with data and fabricating research.  

For example, one article, “Lycium barbarum polysaccharides alleviates oxidative damage induced by H2O2 through down-regulating microRNA-194 in PC-12 and SH-SY5Y cells,” which appeared in Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry in 2018, was retracted on August 31. 

The retraction notice stated:

Continue reading Chinese hospital sanctioned at least 35 scientists for research misconduct

Publisher says it will investigate allegations despite editor’s refusal

Guido Schmitz

A journal whose editor who has refused to investigate strong claims of misconduct by an anonymous whistleblower appears to be investigating anyway following our coverage of the case. Meanwhile, the editor has found other ways to express his lack of concern for nonsense that may appear in the journal’s pages.

As we reported late last month, Guido Schmitz, the editor in chief of the  International Journal of Materials Research has been rock-ribbed in his refusal to investigate claims of misconduct brought by the data sleuth Artemisia Stricta. The reason: Artemisia refused to divulge their identity  – which, to Schmitz, evidently appears to be a more grievous sin than research misconduct itself. 

Schmitz even went as far in emails to us to state that researchers are free to publish “bullshit and fiction.” 

Continue reading Publisher says it will investigate allegations despite editor’s refusal

Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers

Gregg Semenza

A Johns Hopkins researcher who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has retracted four papers from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for concerns about images in the articles.

Gregg Semenza is “one of today’s preeminent researchers on the molecular mechanisms of oxygen regulation,” the work for which he shared the 2019 Nobel, according to Hopkins. But even before that, the pseudonymous Claire Francis began pointing out potential image duplications and other manipulations in Semenza’s work on PubPeer, as described in October 2020 by Leonid Schneider.

The four papers retracted yesterday are:

Continue reading Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers

Weekend reads: A tale of deception; hydroxychloroquine in Australia; AI and ML to fix your papers — or write them

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 257. There are more than 35,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: A tale of deception; hydroxychloroquine in Australia; AI and ML to fix your papers — or write them

Former NCI postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

A former postdoc at the National Cancer Institute faked 15 figures and a movie in grant applications, presentations, a paper, and an unpublished manuscript, according to a federal watchdog.

The finding from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) comes more than a year after PLOS Biology retracted a 2016 paper and noted that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had found that the postdoc, Ritankar Majumdar, committed misconduct and faked data in two figures. 

The same day, the journal republished a revised version without the faked data. The retracted paper has been cited 107 times, 13 of those after it was retracted, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The revised paper — which included Majumdar as a first author — has been cited eight times. 

The retraction notice stated that Majumdar agreed with the retraction but that he “disputes the NIH’s finding of misconduct.” 

Continue reading Former NCI postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

Veterinary researcher banned from journal after fourth forthcoming retraction

Tereza Cristina Cardoso da Silva

A veterinary researcher with three retracted papers and one marked with an expression of concern has another retraction on the way, Retraction Watch has learned. 

The first retraction for Tereza Cristina Cardoso da Silva, of the University of São Paulo State in Brazil, came in 2019. As we reported at the time, the retracted paper, about herpesvirus infections in cattle, had reused an image from an earlier paper describing experiments with chicken cells. (We would apologize for the headline of that post, but we just couldn’t resist.)

Since then, Cardoso has lost two more papers for similarly reusing images of different species of animals, and had another article flagged with an expression of concern that mentions an institutional investigation into her work which culminated in a “Disciplinary Administrative Procedure.” A fourth retraction is in the works, per an email we were copied on from a journal editor to the whistleblower who identified another image reused between species. 

Continue reading Veterinary researcher banned from journal after fourth forthcoming retraction