Category: basic life sciences retractions

Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation

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Susana González

A promising early career researcher has been dismissed from her post at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain, following “an alleged ongoing fraud,” according to El Pais.

We don’t know what exactly the internal investigation into Susana González’s work found; El Pais relied on anonymous sources, and the CNIC confirmed only that they dismissed her on February 29th. There are allegations against her work on PubPeer, but we don’t know what role those played in the investigation.

(We had the story translated; here’s a PDF of the article in English.)

González denies that she committed misconduct, the paper reports:

Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation

When misconduct strikes: A fictional tale

Raw dataPernille Rørth is not your typical novelist. She was a scientist for 25 years and was also editor-in-chief of the EMBO Journal for five years. But now, she’s written a novel – Raw Data – about an incident of misconduct that forces a top lab in Boston to retract a prominent Nature paper. The novel exposes how scientists – even the most well-intentioned – can crack under the intense pressure of such a career-killing event. (There’s even a twist at the end.) We spoke to Rørth about her novel, and what she wants it to achieve.

Retraction Watch: Misconduct is – thankfully – a relatively rare event in science. Why write a novel about it? Continue reading When misconduct strikes: A fictional tale

Sample tampering leads to plant scientist’s 7th retraction

Jorge Vivanco
Jorge Vivanco

Plant scientist Jorge Vivanco has earned his seventh retraction, after an investigation found data from soil samples were “intentionally fabricated by a third party.”

Vivanco and his former postdoc Harsh Bais made a name for themselves by discovering the secret behind a nasty invasive plant: It secretes a harmful form of catechin, which kills everything around it, suggesting it could serve as a new herbicide. The findings earned the researchers a story in the New York Times.

In the newly retracted paper, published in 2005, first author Laura Perry — then a postdoc at Colorado State University — further explored the role of the plant-killer, working with Vivanco as the last author. However, when a team working in the building next door had trouble finding catechin in their samples, Perry took another look, and concluded that her samples had been tampered with.

In other words, Perry told us:   Continue reading Sample tampering leads to plant scientist’s 7th retraction

Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist

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Bharat Aggarwal

A cancer researcher who recently retired from MD Anderson Cancer Center —  and also recently lost seven papers from one journal following a multi-year investigation — is one of the world’s top scientists, according to a new ranking.

In Thomson Reuters Web of Science’s 2015 list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Bharat Aggarwal’s name tops the section for Pharmacology and Toxicology (see p. 89). In all fairness, the list is presented in alphabetical order, and seven of Aggarwal’s papers have each been cited at least 1,000 times. But in addition to his recent seven retractions, he has has six corrections, two unexplained withdrawals, and two Expressions of Concern.

We contacted Thomson Reuters Web of Science to inquire, and a spokesperson told us: Continue reading Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist

EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant

Sonia Melo
Sonia Melo

Sonia Melo, the recipient of an early career award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who fell under investigation after one of her papers was retracted, has now lost the grant.

On the EMBO release announcing the nine awardees of the 2015 Installation Grants, there now appears an asterisk beside Melo’s name. At the bottom of the page, this message appears: Continue reading EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant

Death camp dog satire retracted when German journal wasn’t in on joke

Screen Shot 2016-03-01 at 2.46.54 PMTotalitarianism and Democracy has removed a paper claiming that German Shepherds belonging to guards at the Berlin Wall descended from dogs used at concentration camps, after learning that the paper was a work of satire, The Guardian reports.

The paper, and its author, are the creation of the anonymous group “Christiane Schulte and friends.”

This isn’t the first hoax we’ve seen in publishing: Don’t forget journalist John Bohannon, who submitted hundreds of fake papers to open access journals, and more recently conjured up a study that showed chocolate helps you lose weight. (And, of course, a paper in a Romanian magazine that listed porn star Ron Jeremy and Michael Jackson among its references.) Like many other hoaxers, the group say in a statement their purpose was to shine light on problems in academic publishing.

The latest victim: a Dresden-based journal, The Guardian explains:

Continue reading Death camp dog satire retracted when German journal wasn’t in on joke

Entire paper about cell division plagiarized

Chinese med jA paper about the role of specific proteins in the separation of newly replicated chromosomes is being retracted from the Chinese Medical Journal, after editors found out that the entire article was plagiarized.

The study, “MreBCD Associated Cytoskeleton is Required for Proper Segregation of the Chromosomal Terminus during the Division Cycle of Escherichia Coli,” names Feng Lu as the corresponding author and claims that the work was done in his lab at the Medical School of Henan University in Henan, China. The misappropriation came to light when a member of Lawrence Rothfield’s lab at the University of Connecticut saw the paper after it was published online last April, and realized that it was an exact replica of an unpublished paper that Rothfield’s own lab had produced.

Here’s the retraction note from the journal: Continue reading Entire paper about cell division plagiarized

Upon discovering several errors, authors retract gastric cancer paper

mmr_12_4After finding several errors in their paper about the molecular activity underlying gastric cancer, the authors unanimously decided to retract it.

According to the retraction note, three figures in the paper had β‑actin bands that were omitted, interchanged, or both.

The retraction note provides the details:

Continue reading Upon discovering several errors, authors retract gastric cancer paper

Journals flag 6 papers, request investigation of New Jersey university biologists

Two journals have published six expressions of concern for a pair of biologists at Rowan University, and are asking the university to undertake an investigation.

We contacted the editors of the two journals — Journal of Cell Science and Biology Open — who both said they decided to flag the papers after a reader raised concerns about potential re-use of blot images. The six papers are co-authored by John G. Pastorino, a molecular biologist at Rowan University in New Jersey and Nataly Shulga, whose LinkedIn identifies her as a research specialist at the same institution. According to the nearly identical notes, the journals (which share a publisher) undertook a review of the original data, but “felt unable to resolve this matter.”

The expressions of concern — five from the  Journal of Cell Science and one from Biology Open — include pretty much the same text. Here’s the note that appeared in JCS:

Continue reading Journals flag 6 papers, request investigation of New Jersey university biologists

STAP stem cell researcher Obokata loses another paper

Nature protocols

The first author of two high-profile Nature retractions about a technique to easily create stem cells has lost another paper in Nature Protocols.

Haruko Obokata, once “a lab director’s dream,” according to The New Yorker, also had her PhD revoked from Waseda University last fall.

After learning of concerns that two figures are “very similar” and “some of the error bars look unevenly positioned,” the rest of the authors were unable to locate the raw data, according to the note. The journal could not reach Obokata for comment before publishing the retraction.

“Reproducible subcutaneous transplantation of cell sheets into recipient mice” has been cited 21 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. It was published in June 2011, soon after Obokata earned her PhD. 

Here’s the note:

Continue reading STAP stem cell researcher Obokata loses another paper