Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections: Continue reading PubPeer Selections: “Too remarkable to believe;” a super-duplicate publication; what was acceptable in 2002?
Author: Ivan Oransky
Retractions follow revelations of misconduct by diabetes biotech
Several months after a drug company cancelled development of a potential diabetes cure because it found evidence that a biotech they had recently acquired had committed misconduct in studies of the drug, two retractions of relevant studies have appeared.
The research involves DiaPep277, which, as Josh Levy explained here in September, “would cause the immune system to stop attacking beta cells,” the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. But Hyperion Therapeutics, which had acquired DiaPep277 developer Andromeda Biotech in June, announced in September that it had
uncovered evidence that certain employees of Andromeda Biotech, Ltd., which Hyperion acquired in June 2014, engaged in serious misconduct, including collusion with a third-party biostatistics firm in Israel to improperly receive un-blinded DIA-AID 1 trial data and to use such data in order to manipulate the analyses to obtain a favorable result.
The retractions are both of papers published in Diabetes Care in May 2014. Here’s the notice for “Treatment of Recent-Onset Type 1 Diabetic Patients With DiaPep277: Results of a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Phase 3 Trial:” Continue reading Retractions follow revelations of misconduct by diabetes biotech
Weekend reads: “Plagiarism is for losers;” the retraction war; a step back for science in 2014
Welcome to our last Weekend Reads of 2014. This week featured our second annual Top 10 Retractions list. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: “Plagiarism is for losers;” the retraction war; a step back for science in 2014
The top 10 retractions of 2014
As they did last year, our friends at The Scientist asked us to contribute our list of top 10 retractions in 2014. Here’s our list, from Anversa to Zaman. Continue reading The top 10 retractions of 2014
Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study
One of the complaints about peer review — a widely used but poorly studied process — is that it tends to reward papers that push science forward incrementally, but isn’t very good at identifying paradigm-shifting work. Put another way, peer review rewards mediocrity at the expense of breakthroughs.
A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Kyle Silera, Kirby Leeb, and Lisa Bero provides some support for that idea.
Here’s the abstract: Continue reading Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study
Paper that formed basis of study retracted earlier this year retracted itself, from Science
Back in May, we reported on a retraction from Molecular Cell that referred to a 2012 study the same group had published in Science. (A few weeks later, the lab head told us just how painful the process was.)
Now, the Science paper has been retracted. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Paper that formed basis of study retracted earlier this year retracted itself, from Science
Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice
Most of the authors of two Molecular Cell papers have retracted them after becoming aware of inappropriate image manipulation by the first author of both — who refused to sign the notices.
One of the papers, “Role of the SEL1L:LC3-I Complex as an ERAD Tuning Receptor in the Mammalian ER,” earned first author Riccardo Bernasconi, who successfully defended his PhD in 2010, the STSBC-Roche Diagnostics award in 2012. Here’s the notice for that paper: Continue reading Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice
Weekend reads: Authorship for sale, STAP stem cell scandal finally over?
This was a week of stem cell retractions, fake peer reviews, legal threats, and we announced that we’ve been awarded a $400,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:Continue reading Weekend reads: Authorship for sale, STAP stem cell scandal finally over?
Are companies selling fake peer reviews to help papers get published?
Faked peer reviews — a subject about which we’ve been writing more and more recently — are concerning enough to a number of publishers that they’ve approached the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to work together on a solution.
In the past, we have reported on a number of cases in which authors were able to submit their own peer reviews, using fake email addresses for recommended reviewers. But what seems to be happening now is that companies are offering manuscript preparation services that go as far as submitting fake peer reviews. And that, no surprise, worries publishers.
Here’s COPE’s statement out today: Continue reading Are companies selling fake peer reviews to help papers get published?
Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”
Jens Christian Schwamborn, a stem cell researcher at the University of Luxembourg, is retracting a 2007 paper on how to grow brain cells.
The paper, “Ubiquitination of the GTPase Rap1B by the ubiquitin ligase Smurf2 is required for the establishment of neuronal polarity,” was published while Schwamborn was at Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universität Münster in Germany. An anonymous critic had sent questions about the study to Germany’s DFG in the middle of last year, and later to Paul Brookes, who posted them on PubMed Commons.
Those criticisms match the problems listed in the detailed notice: Continue reading Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”