Author: Ivan Oransky

Duke sued over Potti case

Anil Potti, courtesy Duke

From the “not terribly surprising” department: Eight patients — or their estates — who enrolled in clinical trials at Duke overseen by Anil Potti and colleagues have sued the university.

The 90-page lawsuit, which names Duke, Potti, Potti’s boss Joseph Nevins, CancerGuide Diagnostics (in which Potti and Nevins had an interest), among others, does a thorough job of documenting the case. In particular, it reviews the history of the trials, which were stopped in 2009, restarted, and then stopped for good as more and more issues came to light. It emphasizes, as you would expect, that Duke and the Potti team were warned repeatedly about problems in their work, notably by Keith Baggerly and a colleague.

Potti and colleagues have, as Retraction Watch readers will remember, now retracted five papers.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Thomas Henson, told Raleigh-Durham’s ABC11: Continue reading Duke sued over Potti case

Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Last week, we reported on an uniformative retraction notice in Molecular Biology and Evolution (MBE), an Oxford University Press (OUP) title, that the publisher wanted $32 to read. To OUP’s credit, they quickly acknowledged that the retraction hadn’t been handled properly.

Earlier this week, OUP’s senior publisher for journals Cathy Kennedy followed up with some welcome news: Continue reading Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Anil Potti failed to disclose corporate ties in yet-to-be-retracted JAMA papers

Anil Potti, the former cancer researcher whose work has become the subject of intense scrutiny that has already led to the retraction of five papers, didn’t tell the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) about two very relevant corporate relationships he had when he published papers there, Retraction Watch has learned.

JAMA has published two papers by Potti and colleagues: 2008’s “Gene Expression Signatures, Clinicopathological Features, and Individualized Therapy in Breast Cancer,” and 2010’s “Age- and Sex-Specific Genomic Profiles in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.”

The Cancer Letter, which has been way out front in the Potti case, first reported Potti’s relationships with Eli Lilly and CancerGuide Diagnostics (formerly Oncogenomics, Inc.). As The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, reported last September, the two companies cut their ties with Potti in July 2010 after allegations of misconduct and lying about a Rhodes Scholarship came to light.

But that was after the two papers were published, and Potti had relationships with both since 2006. As The Chronicle notes, he was a director at CancerGuide Diagnostics (formerly Oncogenomics, Inc.), and Continue reading Anil Potti failed to disclose corporate ties in yet-to-be-retracted JAMA papers

Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Sometime last year, the University of Zurich’s Erik Postma was reading a paper in Science titled “Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations” when he realized something.

The authors, led by Joseph Tomkins of the University of Western Australia, had made a mistake.

Postma set to writing a “Technical Comment,” the way that Science usually deals with criticism of a paper’s methods. He sent his first draft to the Tomkins group: Continue reading Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Tune to NPR this weekend to hear Retraction Watch on “On The Media”

This week’s episode of NPR’s “On The Media” features a conversation about retractions between Ivan and co-host Brooke Gladstone. You can listen online, or find a station that carries the program.

The show also includes an interview about retractions with Jonah Lehrer.

Earlier: Retraction Watch on NPR’s Science Friday. Listen here (with transcript).

Montreal Heart Institute researcher dismissed following two retractions for image manipulation

A Montreal Heart Institute researcher who retracted two papers less than a month ago has been fired from his post.

Zhiguo Wang, who had been funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Canadian Diabetes Association, studied the genes linked to heart rhythm abnormalities, among other subjects. Wang also has an appointment at the University of Montreal.

As first reported in Retraction Watch, Wang withdrew two papers for the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) in the journal’s August 12 issue. The story was quickly picked up by Postmedia and the CBC. At the time, Wang told us: Continue reading Montreal Heart Institute researcher dismissed following two retractions for image manipulation

Remember the $32 opaque retraction notice? Molecular Biology and Evolution removes paywall

On Tuesday, we reported on the case of a retraction notice in Molecular Biology and Evolution, an Oxford University Press (OUP) journal, that had three problems: Continue reading Remember the $32 opaque retraction notice? Molecular Biology and Evolution removes paywall

Author of retracted Molecular Biology and Evolution paper explains opaque notice that’ll still cost you $32

A completely unhelpful retraction notice appears in the September issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution for “Investigating the Role of Natural Selection on Coding Sequence Evolution in Salmonids Through NGS Data Mining,” a paper first published in March.

Here’s the entire notice for the paper — which has been removed completely from the journal’s site, we should mention: Continue reading Author of retracted Molecular Biology and Evolution paper explains opaque notice that’ll still cost you $32

The $240,000 retraction: Scientist responsible gives back company shares

In December, we reported on how a Swedish company that was about to go public dealt with a retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that formed some of the basis of their work. The company, Wnt Research, was scheduled to go public on November 26, 2010, but after the retraction appeared on November 11, they postponed the initial public offering (IPO), and let every investor that had expressed an interest know about the retraction.

We thought the company’s moves demonstrated a remarkable transparency. Now we learn that the scientist responsible for the errors that led to the retraction has given back the shares which he or she was given when the company was founded. The company announced the news in a press release last week: Continue reading The $240,000 retraction: Scientist responsible gives back company shares

Imperial committee to weigh “validity” of Ahluwalia’s PhD following second retraction

Earlier this week, we reported on the retraction of another paper by Jatinder Ahluwalia, whose record of misconduct has left marks at Cambridge and University College London. Today, a spokesperson for Imperial College London, where the soon-to-be-retracted work formed the basis of Ahluwalia’s PhD, tells Retraction Watch that a committee will review Ahluwalia’s doctorate: Continue reading Imperial committee to weigh “validity” of Ahluwalia’s PhD following second retraction