Ivan Oransky

An Australian university cleared a cancer researcher of misconduct. He’s now retracted six papers.

The story of Levon Khachigian’s research is a long and winding tale.

One place to start would be in October 2009, when a paper co-authored by Khachigian — whose work at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has been funded by millions of dollars in funding from the Australian government, and has led to clinical trials, although more on that later — was retracted from Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The “corresponding author published the paper without the full consent or acknowledgement of all the researchers and would like to apologize for this error,” according to that notice. Continue reading An Australian university cleared a cancer researcher of misconduct. He’s now retracted six papers.

Weekend reads: Fishy research on fishes; was “Sokal Squared” misconduct?; the misuse of metrics

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The week at Retraction Watch featured a criminology professor who has had four papers retracted for plagiarism; a paper on fake news retracted for an error; and plagiarism in abstracts submitted to…a research integrity conference. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Fishy research on fishes; was “Sokal Squared” misconduct?; the misuse of metrics

Cribbing from Kribbe: UK criminology prof loses four papers for plagiarism

A professor of criminology at Middlesex University London has had four papers retracted because at least three of them cribbed significantly from a PhD thesis written by someone named Kribbe.

Three of the four retractions for the professor, Anthony Amatrudo, appear in International Journal of Law in Context. One of the notices reads: Continue reading Cribbing from Kribbe: UK criminology prof loses four papers for plagiarism

Former UAB natural products researcher up to a dozen retractions

A researcher who studied natural products for cancer at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB), had six papers retracted last month, bringing him to a total of 12.

Four of the recently retracted papers by Santosh Katiyar had appeared in PLOS ONE, and two had been published in Cancer Research. They have together been cited more than 250 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, and are on subjects including compounds found in grape seeds and green tea.

Here’s an example, from PLOS ONE, for “Green Tea Catechins Reduce Invasive Potential of Human Melanoma Cells by Targeting COX-2, PGE2 Receptors and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition:” Continue reading Former UAB natural products researcher up to a dozen retractions

Weekend reads: Conflict of interest debate roils on; fake peer review scams; amateur hour at journals

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper by a journalist in Australia whose work has prompted controversy; an energy researcher’s tally of retractions growing to 18; and a look at how journals are falling down on the job when it comes to duplication in their pages. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Conflict of interest debate roils on; fake peer review scams; amateur hour at journals

Wash U scientist admits to research misconduct, resigns post

A Washington University researcher has admitted to committing research misconduct in research involving eight U.S. government grants, according to a Federal watchdog, and resigned his position, according to the university.

Srikanth Santhanam, a staff scientist in the department of internal medicine’s division of gastroenterology at Washington University in St. Louis, “voluntarily admitted to engaging in research misconduct,” vice chancellor for research Jennifer Lodge told Retraction Watch. Santhanam resigned effective December 1, 2018, Lodge said. Continue reading Wash U scientist admits to research misconduct, resigns post

Journals are failing to address duplication in the literature, says a new study

How seriously are journals taking duplicated work that they publish? That was the question Mario Malički and colleagues set out to answer six years ago. And last month, they published their findings in Biochemia Medica.

The upshot? Journals have a lot of work to do. Continue reading Journals are failing to address duplication in the literature, says a new study

Energy researcher up to 18 retractions

A researcher in Malaysia is up to 18 retractions, for faked peer review and a host of other sins.

We first wrote about Shahaboddin Shamshirband, of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, in early 2017, because Elsevier had pulled, or planned to pull, nine of his papers. Jeffrey Beall, known for his list of possible predatory publishers, had raised questions about duplication by Shamshirband in 2016 on his now-defunct blog, ScholarlyOA.

The most recent retraction for Shamshirband was for “Soft computing methodologies for estimation of energy consumption in buildings with different envelope parameters,” a 2016 paper in Energy Efficiency. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Energy researcher up to 18 retractions

Journal retracts paper by controversial Australian journalist

The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) has retracted a 2003 paper that resulted from the PhD thesis of Maryanne Demasi, an Australian journalist whose reporting on statins and the risks of cancer from cell phones has been a lightning rod.

The move, for what the journal says was attempts to reuse images to represent different experiments, follows an investigation by the University of Adelaide into allegations of image manipulation in Demasi’s thesis. In the investigation, Demasi

Continue reading Journal retracts paper by controversial Australian journalist