Search Results for: oncotarget

Weekend reads: Another CDC journal in trouble; Web of Science company endorses Iraq awards; on the scarcity of peer reviewers

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.    Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require … Continue reading Weekend reads: Another CDC journal in trouble; Web of Science company endorses Iraq awards; on the scarcity of peer reviewers

Deputy department chair loses paper for image duplication, more retractions to follow 

An Elsevier journal has retracted a paper coauthored by a deputy department chair at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and says it plans to retract at least two more of his articles for image-related concerns. The 2022 paper, in Matrix Biology, describes the regulatory role of proteoglycans in remodeling of the cervix during pregnancy. According … Continue reading Deputy department chair loses paper for image duplication, more retractions to follow 

Misconduct investigation at U.S. military university uncovers image duplication

Authors affiliated with a federal health sciences university have lost three papers this year for image duplication following an investigation by the institution. And another journal has confirmed it will retract a fourth paper by some of the same authors. The “internal research misconduct investigation” conducted by the Uniformed Services University, or USU, in Bethesda, … Continue reading Misconduct investigation at U.S. military university uncovers image duplication

Chinese funding agency penalizes 25 researchers for misconduct 

In its second batch of misconduct findings this year, the organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has called out 25 researchers for paper mill activity and plagiarism.  The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, gives more than 20,000 grants annually in disciplines ranging from agriculture to cancer research. The NSFC … Continue reading Chinese funding agency penalizes 25 researchers for misconduct 

Apparent NCI director candidate wants ‘open, respectful’ post-publication peer review while promoting anonymous site that calls sleuths a ‘mob’

Brown University physician-scientist Wafik El-Deiry has been a longtime critic of the post-publication forum PubPeer, where 75 of his papers have been flagged. For example, in an April post on X, formerly Twitter, he stated, “It is not good that PubPeer has been weaponized and has become tyrannical.” In July 2024, he referred to the … Continue reading Apparent NCI director candidate wants ‘open, respectful’ post-publication peer review while promoting anonymous site that calls sleuths a ‘mob’

Paper with duplicated images retracted four months after concerns were raised

We write plenty of stories about lengthy investigations and long wait times for retractions. So we are always glad when we can highlight when journals act in a relatively timely fashion. The Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, published by Wiley on behalf of Kaohsiung Hospital in Taiwan, seemed to exhibit some urgency after a sleuth raised … Continue reading Paper with duplicated images retracted four months after concerns were raised

Chinese funding agency sanctions 26 researchers in latest misconduct report

The organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has issued misconduct findings against 26 researchers for violations ranging from breach of confidentiality to image manipulation, plagiarism, and buying and selling authorship.  The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, released the results of 15 misconduct investigations on April 11. Several of the … Continue reading Chinese funding agency sanctions 26 researchers in latest misconduct report

Journals investigating dozens of papers by leading Canadian urologists

A high-profile Canadian urologist received an editorial expression of concern for one of his papers this month, after anonymous comments on PubPeer flagged suspected data duplication in dozens of his articles.  By our count, sleuths have flagged 30 papers co-authored by Martin Gleave, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and co-founder … Continue reading Journals investigating dozens of papers by leading Canadian urologists

Cancer researcher admitted faking data

A former researcher at Nemours Children’s Health in Wilmington, Del., admitted to falsifying and incorrectly reporting data in at least two published studies, both of which were supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health. The studies have been retracted. The researcher, Valerie Sampson, reported herself to Nemours, which launched an inquiry into all … Continue reading Cancer researcher admitted faking data

Exclusive: One university’s three-year battle to retract papers with fake data

In 2021, the provost of the University of Maryland, Baltimore sounded the alarm about a troubling batch of papers from the lab of Richard Eckert, the former chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the institution.  The provost sent letters to the editors of seven journals calling out a string of serious … Continue reading Exclusive: One university’s three-year battle to retract papers with fake data