A lead researcher at UC Davis has lost three decades-old papers from the same journal for image duplication, and the journal says it is investigating more.
Allen Gao, director of research for the Department of Urologic Surgery at the institution is first author on the papers, published in The Prostate.
The journal retracted the articles – published in 2002, 2004 and 2009 – in February. The papers have been cited 42, 71, and 27 times respectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
All three notices reference a third party who alerted the journal to image duplication issues. The retraction notices for the 2002 and 2009 papers also reference image reuse by different articles with some of the same authors. “Each article in which these images appear describes different experimental conditions,” the 2002 notice reads.
Gao did not respond to our request for comment.
A spokesperson for Wiley, which publishes The Prostate, told Retraction Watch the journal was investigating “additional concerns flagged via PubPeer associated with” Gao.
Sleuth Elisabeth Bik pointed out image irregularities on PubPeer for two of the retracted papers, although the Wiley spokesperson did not respond to our question about whether the third party listed in the notices referenced these comments. Gao has more than 20 papers with comments on PubPeer, most of which reference image manipulation and duplication concerns, with several described on the blog For Better Science.
The three retracted papers share coauthor Soo Ok Lee, a former researcher with the University of Rochester. Lee and Gao were affiliated with the same universities at the time of each publication. Lee has four previous retractions in the Retraction Watch database, as well as six corrections and an expression of concern, all related to image issues, several of which we previously reported. Lee did not respond to our request for comment.
Two papers by Lee and Gao have been amended in Oncogene, a Springer Nature title. One article, published in 2003, received an expression of concern for image duplication and shared images with one of the newly retracted papers, according to the notice. The other, a 2023 paper, received a correction on April 10 for “inadvertent” image duplication.
A representative for UC Davis told us the university was “conducting a review of this matter” but was “unable to comment on specific allegations at this time.”
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