Author: Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Botanist pair’s paper retracted, others questioned on PubPeer

Plant Science TodayA plant sciences journal has pulled a 2016 paper for manipulated images after the study came under question at PubPeer.

According to the notice, the authors claim that the images were supplied by a “service provider;” the editor-in-chief of the journal told us he doesn’t have any details on this third party’s identity.

The first author of the retracted paper in Plant Science Today — Dibyendu Talukdar, from the University of Calcutta in West Bengal, India — has several other papers being questioned on PubPeer. His co-author, Tulika Talukdar, who is based at Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy Government College in West Bengal, India, according to her ResearchGate page, is a co-author on three of these papers. According to the present paper, however, Tulika Talukdar is affiliated with Raja Peary Mohan College, which is part of the University of Calcutta.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Botanist pair’s paper retracted, others questioned on PubPeer

Author, among others, loses four papers for “compromised” peer review

Annals of human geneticsJournals have retracted four papers from an author after uncovering evidence the peer review process had been compromised. Three papers have all common authors. 

In one notice, issued last month, Annals of Human Genetics said it had reason to believe the paper had been reviewed by unqualified reviewers. Last year, another journal, Molecular Biology Reports, pulled two papers by the same group — all based at the China Medical University in Shenyang — all for peer-review issues. Additionally, Molecular Biology Reports also retracted another paper co-authored by Peng Liu last year, which did not include her other colleagues on the three other papers. All papers describe the epigenetic changes — modifications in expressions of genes — that may underlie cancer.

Here’s the retraction notice in the Annals of Human Genetics, published June 27: Continue reading Author, among others, loses four papers for “compromised” peer review

Did an author retract a paper at company’s behest? Retraction notice says yes, author now says no

Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 15.59.31

The author of a paper whose retraction notice says it was pulled at the behest of a company now says that wasn’t the case.

It’s a bit difficult to get this story straight: Although the retraction notice says a company complained the 2006 paper was “giving business inputs to their competitors,” the corresponding author told us no one asked him to retract the paper. Instead, he said, he was concerned about the inclusion of plant materials that belong to a previous employer, and did a “poor job” of explaining the reason for retraction. But since the results of the paper remain valid, Santosh Rajput — now a plant breeder at Dryland Genetics LLC in Ames, Iowa — told us he regrets asking to retract it:

Continue reading Did an author retract a paper at company’s behest? Retraction notice says yes, author now says no

One patient, two case reports: Journal retracts the latter

Case Reports in Obstetrics and GynecologyA journal has retracted a case report after discovering it had already been reported.

The paper — about an “extremely rare” instance where a fetus was diagnosed with both a form of dwarfism and a chromosomal condition known as Klinefelter syndrome — was retracted from Case Reports in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CROG).

The first author of the paper told us the report was the result of a “big misunderstanding” between her and a former colleague, and she alerted the journal as soon as she noticed the case had already been reported in BMC Pediatrics.

Here’s the retraction notice for the paper: Continue reading One patient, two case reports: Journal retracts the latter

1st retraction for biologist who doctored 40+ images, received funding ban

JBC CoverThe Journal of Biological Chemistry has retracted a paper that was one of eight flagged in a recent investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The investigation — which concluded that a biologist had falsified or fabricated more than 40 images — resulted in a five-year funding ban. 

In May, the ORI announced that John Pastorino, an erstwhile cell biologist at Rowan University in New Jersey, falsified and/or fabricated eight of his published papers (and one unpublished one). Nataly Shulga is a co-author on all eight papers. Six of those eight papers had already received expressions of concern (EOC).

The first retraction to result from the investigation is one of the two published papers that had not been tagged by an EOC. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading 1st retraction for biologist who doctored 40+ images, received funding ban

Authors pull Mol Cell paper for “inappropriate manipulation” of data

Molecular CellThe authors of a Molecular Cell paper have retracted it due to issues with multiple figures — including one with evidence of “intentional misconduct.”

According to the authors’ institution, IMIM in Barcelona, all co-authors are aware of the retraction. The penultimate author — Antonio García de Herreros — retracted three papers in May from the Journal of Biological Chemistry for reusing images to represent different experiments, and recently corrected multiple figures in a Journal of Cell Science paper over “possible duplications and/or splices.”

Here’s the newest retraction notice: Continue reading Authors pull Mol Cell paper for “inappropriate manipulation” of data

Researcher committed misconduct “recklessly,” says investigation

American Journal of Physiology Renal PhsyiologyA physiology journal has retracted a paper after an institutional investigation found that portions of the work had been falsified by the first author.

According to the notice issued by the American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology (AJP), the last author initiated the investigation at the University of Houston in Texas, which found the first author — Mousa Abkhezr — to be guilty of falsifying and duplicating images. 

We’ve obtained a copy of the investigation report, which concluded that Abkhezr committed misconduct “recklessly,” and the paper must be retracted. Although the report noted that Abkhezr argued that the problems stemmed from an honest error, the investigation committee ruled that data from the retracted paper cannot be included in his doctoral thesis.

The last author told us there is a separate ongoing “academic honesty enquiry” into Abkhezr’s dissertation. 

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Researcher committed misconduct “recklessly,” says investigation

Investigation raises questions about top cancer researcher’s work

Journal of Pathology

A prominent pancreatic cancer researcher has lost a meeting abstract and corrected a Nature paper following an institutional investigation.

Queen Mary University of London determined that, in an abstract by Thorsten Hagemann, “elements of the study summarised by this abstract are not reliable.” Hagemann has recently issued a correction to a 2014 Nature paper he co-authored, which also cited the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) investigation, noting there was “reason to question the provenance of the data.”

Hagemann is currently the medical director of Immodulon Therapeutics, and has long been recognized for his work in the field, including a three-year grant of £180,000 from the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund in 2013.

Here’s the retraction notice from the The Journal of Pathology, regarding an abstract from the 7th Joint Meeting of the British Division of the International Academy of Pathology and the Pathological Society of Great Britain & Ireland: Continue reading Investigation raises questions about top cancer researcher’s work

Do publishers add value? Maybe little, suggests preprint study of preprints

ArXiv

Academic publishers argue they add value to manuscripts by coordinating the peer-review process and editing manuscripts — but a new preliminary study suggests otherwise.

The study — which is yet to be peer reviewed — found that papers published in traditional journals don’t change much from their preprint versions, suggesting publishers aren’t having as much of an influence as they claim. However, two experts who reviewed the paper for us said they have some doubts about the methods, as it uses “crude” metrics to compare preprints to final manuscripts, and some preprints get updated over time to include changes from peer-reviewers and the journal.

The paper, posted recently on ArXiv, compared the text in over 12,000 preprint papers published on ArXiv from February 2015 to their corresponding papers published in journals after peer review.

The authors report in their paper, “Comparing published scientific journal articles to their pre-print versions:” Continue reading Do publishers add value? Maybe little, suggests preprint study of preprints

Engineering journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review

The Open Mechanical Engineering Journal

An engineering journal has retracted two papers for faked or rigged peer review, but authors of one of the papers are objecting to the retraction. 

The first author of that paper told us he and his co-authors “absolutely disagree” with the retraction, and are prepared to use “legal means” to safeguard their “rights and interests.” He added: 

…my paper was published by normal ways, I don’t know why the peer review process was compromised and what the journal found in its investigation.

Here’s the retraction notice, which is similar for both papers: Continue reading Engineering journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review