Caught Our Notice: After ORI flags a paper by former grad student, university flags another

Via Wikimedia

Title: The L3MBTL3 Methyl-Lysine Reader Domain Functions As a Dimer

What Caught Our Attention: Six months ago, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) determined that former graduate student Brandi Baughman had doctored 11 figures in a PLOS ONE article, which was retracted shortly after.  The PLOS ONE paper listed two affiliations for Baughman — the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC); now UNC has triggered a second retraction of a paper co-authored by Baughman, also due to research misconduct. Although the ORI notice makes no mention of this additional paper, the agency recently took a “targeted approach” by not issuing comprehensive findings of misconduct for one researcher, in order to conserve resources. Of course, sometimes universities make findings that don’t meet the ORI’s bar, too.

Journal: ACS Chemical Biology

Authors: Brandi M. Baughman, Samantha G. Pattenden, Jacqueline L. Norris, Lindsey I. James, and Stephen V. Frye

Affiliations: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA

The Notice:

Based on a review conducted by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it was determined that the Western blot results shown in Supporting Information, Figure S6 of this article are unreliable as a result of research misconduct. The authors retract this article accordingly. The original Article was published on 08/28/2016 and retracted on 12/19/2017.

Date of Article: August 2016

Times Cited, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science: 7

Date of Notice: December 19, 2017

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