Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism

The Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine has retracted a 2011 paper after it was determined that the first author, then a post-doc at the University of Michigan, had plagiarized from another publication.

The first author of the retracted article, “Functionalization of titanium based metallic biomaterials for implant applications,” was the post-doc, Rahul Bhola, who received his PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and went to Michigan to work in the lab of Catherine Krull.

Fruit of that relationship was the paper — and here’s how that worked out:

The Editors have determined that this article should be retracted due to plagiarism.

Krull did not respond to a request for comment. But Judith Nowack, associate vice president for research risks at Michigan, gave us a few details on the case.

Nowack said the complaint about the lifted material came this summer from the author of the plagiarized paper, a researcher in Europe. Her office brought the matter to the journal, which responded promptly, she said.

Indeed. Given the protracted delays we’ve seen in other cases of plagiarism, the journal seems to have handled the matter fairly quickly.

Nowack said Bhola has left the university and that she knows of no other suspect papers.