Chemist in India loses seven papers, blames outsourcing of images

A chemistry researcher in India has had seven of his papers retracted after the publisher concluded that some images in the papers showed “unexpected similarities” or had been duplicated.

The retraction notices, issued in late March by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the U.K., all state that: 

The authors informed the Editor that the characterization of the original samples was outsourced, and they do not have the original raw data for the published results.

Given the significance of the concerns about the validity of the data, and the lack of raw data, the findings presented in this paper are not reliable.

The corresponding author, Dhanaraj Gopi of Periyar University in Tamil Nadu, had several papers flagged on PubPeer starting in 2019, including some that have not been retracted. 

On a PubPeer thread about image problems in a 2016 paper in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik noted that one figure “strongly resembles an apple crumble pie with a cloned crust.”

Gopi replied, admitting that there had been “inadvertent misrepresentation of images in our paper due to errors in the assembly of figure panels, which were reshuffled during revision or resubmission.” 

He added: 

Since We have no expertise in biology, We got in touch with [the] biological institution. So, we are strongly apologizing for this unintentional error. Mostly, these type[s] of errors happen due to the outsourcing [of] images. In this regard, we assure you that this mistake will not happen anymore. Also, we are in the process of correcting this in the journal. And we hope that this error does not change the interpretation of the results or the conclusions of the work in this journal. 

(A subsequent correction issued for the paper said the authors reperformed the experiments to rectify the problem.) 

Bik expressed puzzlement at Gopi’s comments: 

Does this mean that certain figures in this paper were created by outsourcing experiments? And that the authors do not have any expertise [in] what these experiments are showing?

Could the authors please clarify which of the figures in this paper were outsourced and to which institute or company?

Could the authors also please clarify which part of their paper they do not have expertise in, and which parts of the paper they feel they are not responsible for?

These duplications within figures are really, really hard to explain by simple mistakes, so any clarification on what actually happened here would be welcome.

We reached out to Gopi, but have not heard back. 

Six of the retracted papers were published in RSC Advances. The remaining was published in Journal of Materials Chemistry B. 

An RSC spokesperson told Retraction Watch: 

As this investigation is now complete, no further articles from this group are currently under investigation. We were originally alerted to potential issues with these articles by a reader and we are grateful for the ongoing support of our community in highlighting any concerns.

Here is a list of the retracted papers:

• “Electrodeposition of a porous strontium-substituted hydroxyapatite/zinc oxide duplex layer on AZ91 magnesium alloy for orthopedic applications” (37 citations, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science) 
• “Single walled carbon nanotubes reinforced mineralized hydroxyapatite composite coatings on titanium for improved biocompatible implant applications” (41 citations) 
• “Investigation on corrosion protection and mechanical performance of minerals substituted hydroxyapatite coating on HELCDEB-treated titanium using pulsed electrodeposition method” (39 citations)
• “Investigation of anticorrosive, antibacterial and in vitro biological properties of a sulphonated poly(etheretherketone)/strontium, cerium co-substituted hydroxyapatite composite coating developed on surface treated surgical grade stainless steel for orthopedic applications” (44 citations)
• “Ball flower like manganese, strontium substituted hydroxyapatite/cerium oxide dual coatings on the AZ91 Mg alloy with improved bioactive and corrosion resistance properties for implant applications” (31 citations)
• “Fabrication of divalent ion substituted hydroxyapatite/gelatin nanocomposite coating on electron beam treated titanium: mechanical, anticorrosive, antibacterial and bioactive evaluations” (37 citations)
• “Smart rose flower like bioceramic/metal oxide dual layer coating with enhanced anti-bacterial, anti-cancer, anti-corrosive and biocompatible properties for improved orthopedic applications” (15 citations)

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