Adam Marcus

Public health journal “seeking further expert advice” on January paper about COVID-19 PCR testing by high-profile virologist

After a petition from nearly two dozen people in Europe, the United States and Asia, a public health journal says it is investigating an article it published last January about a way to detect the virus that causes COVID-19.

[Please see an update on this post.]

The paper, “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR,” appeared in Eurosurveillance. It was received on January 21 and accepted on January 22, a remarkably quick turnaround under normal circumstances, although not unheard of during the pandemic. It has been cited well over 800 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

The senior author of the work was Christian Drosten, of the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, who became something of a celebrity virologist — the Anthony Fauci of Germany — in the early days of the pandemic. As Science reported in late April, Drosten’s podcast, Coronavirus Update, became the most popular podcast in Germany, garnering more than 1 million downloads per episode.

Bad, Medicine: Journal publishes doubly-brutal retraction notice

A journal has retracted a paper it published earlier this year for pretty much every sin under the sun, scoring an own-goal in the process.

The article, “Effects and safety of tanreqing injection on viral pneumonia: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis,” was led by Yue Qiu, of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and appeared in Medicine on September 11.

The tl;dr version of this post: We have questions.

COVID-19 pneumonia paper earns expression of concern — for being similar to a pre-pandemic article

Researchers in China have received an expression of concern for a recent paper on COVID-19 pneumonia after editors were alerted to suspicious similarities between the tables in the article and those in a 2018 study by members of the same group.

In case you missed that: The pandemic started long after 2018.

A year after a federal misconduct finding, a cancer researcher loses a paper

A cancer specialist formerly affiliated with Boys Town National Research Hospital in Nebraska who was found to have committed misconduct in nearly 20 grant applications and papers has lost an article in Scientific Reports — a year after his misconduct case became public.

According to the journal, which, to its credit, flagged the paper with an editor’s note last February, the delay stemmed from efforts to verify information that was not part of the official inquiry.

The article, “Type IV collagen α1-chain noncollagenous domain blocks MMP-2 activation both in-vitro and in-vivo,” was written by a group led by Yakkanti Akul Sudhakar, whose name — last, at least — might be familiar to RW readers.

In November 2019, Sudhakar — who also has published as Sudhakar Yakkanti and Akulapalli Sudhakar — was sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity for:

Stem cell researchers lose two more papers, making three

A Hindawi journal has retracted two 2013 papers by a group of stem cell researchers in China over issues with the images in the articles, bringing their count to three.

Here’s the notice for “Side-by-Side comparison of the biological characteristics of human umbilical cord and adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells,” by Lili Chen and colleagues from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan:

Subtraction by addition: A journal expresses concern again — but this time, with feeling

A journal published by the Royal Society in the United Kingdom has issued an updated expression of concern for a 2018 paper by a mathematician whose work has been the subject of intense scrutiny on this website and elsewhere. But the notice is less of a statement of problems than a rationalization.

The paper, “Quantum correlations are weaved by the spinors of the Euclidean primitives,” was written by Joy Christian, of the “Einstein Centre for Local-Realistic Physics in Oxford.” In May 2018, the journal issued an initial EoC about the article, stating:

Stem cell researcher’s retraction count may near two dozen

A stem cell researcher in Japan could end up with 23 retractions after officials at his former institution confirmed that he’d committed research misconduct in nearly two dozen papers.

According to a report released last week by Aichi Gakuin University, Nobuaki Ozeki misused images, fabricated data and recycled text in 20 papers. Ozeki has had 19 papers retracted to date, 17 of which are described in the analysis. The latest report — an offshoot of one in 2018 that found he had committed misconduct in three papers — expands Ozeki’s liability to 22 articles.

Ozeki has roughly 40 indexed journal articles on his CV, however, and journals may decide to conduct their own investigations into his work. Articles in the International Journal of Medical Sciences, Differentiation, and the Journal of Endodontics were named in the report but so far remain intact.

Psychologist’s paper retracted after Dutch national body affirms misconduct findings

A cognitive psychologist in Germany has lost one of two papers slated for retraction after her former institution found her guilty of misconduct.

In a 2019 report, Leiden University found that Lorenza Colzato, now of TU Dresden, had failed to obtain ethics ethics approval for some of her studies, manipulated her data and fabricated results in grant applications. Although the institution did not identify Colzato by name, Retraction Watch confirmed her identity.

The Leiden report — the conclusions of which were affirmed by the Netherlands Board on Research Integrity last month — called for the retraction of two papers by Colzato and her co-authors, three of whom acted as whistleblowers in the case. As the trio told us in an interview last December:

Nature Communications looking into paper on mentorship after strong negative reaction

A Nature journal has announced that it is conducting a “priority” investigation into a new paper claiming that women in science fare better with male rather than female mentors.

The article, “The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance,” appeared in Nature Communications on November 17, and was written by a trio of authors from New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi.

According to the abstract:

Science retracts paper co-authored by high-profile scientist and former Dutch minister

Science has retracted a 13-year-old paper, five years after data sleuth Elisabeth Bik first raised questions about issues with the images in the article.

The paper, “Secondary siRNAs result from unprimed RNA synthesis and form a distinct class,” appeared in 2007 and was written by a group of researchers in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The senior author of the study was Ronald Plasterk, founder of Frame Cancer Therapeutics in Amsterdam and once a minister in the Dutch government. The article has been cited at least 300 times, according to Clarivate Analytics Web of Science.

It also drew Bik’s attention. In 2015, she posted — as Peer 1 — on PubPeer about her concerns with one of the figures in the paper. Other commenters joined in, including to point out similarities between images in the Science paper and two other articles from members of the group.

Bik said the paper:

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