Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy who has faced criminal charges for research misconduct for more than five years, has had six more papers retracted, for a total of 21.
The latest six retractions are all from Cancer Research. An example, for “Haploinsufficiency of the Hmga1 Gene Causes Cardiac Hypertrophy and Myelo-Lymphoproliferative Disorders in Mice,” a paper first published in 2006: Continue reading Alfredo Fusco, facing misconduct charges in Italy, up to 21 retractions
A researcher who is facing a criminal investigation in Italy for research misconduct has seen five more papers retracted, for a total of 16 15.
Molecular and Cellular Biology has retracted four papers published between 1987 to 2001 by Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy; the Journal of Virology retracted one 1985 paper. Fusco was first author on two papers and last author on three. Both journals are published by The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), which issued identical retraction notices for all five papers, mentioning “evidence of apparent manipulation and duplication.”
Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher now at the Ohio State University, who has been dogged by misconduct allegations, co-authored one of the papers. Croce now has eight retractions.
Here’s the notice presented for all five retractions: Continue reading Retraction count for Italian researcher swells to 15 as five papers fall
This weekend, Carlo Croce had some reprieve from the misconduct accusations that have followed him for years (recently described in a lengthy article in the New York Times) and that have prompted his university to re-open an investigation. On Sunday, he received a prestigious award from the American Association for Cancer Research, honoring his work.
But the moment may have been short-lived. Today, Croce received two expressions of concern (EOCs) from PNAS for two well-cited papers published over a decade ago, on which Croce — chair of the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics at The Ohio State University (OSU) — is last author. The two EOCs cite concerns over duplicated bands. What’s more, another journal recently decided to retract one of his papers, citing figures that didn’t represent the results of the experiments.
PNAS chose to issue EOCs, rather than retractions or corrections, because the authors didn’t agree that the bands were duplicated, according to executive editor Diane Sullenberger. She explained how the journal learned of the issues with the two papers: Continue reading Journals retract paper, flag two others by cancer doc under investigation
Today isn’t a great day for Carlo Croce, chair of the department of cancer biology and genetics at The Ohio State University (OSU).
The New York Times has a lengthy article detailing the misconduct accusations that have swirled around Croce for years. We’ve covered many, but The Gray Lady obtained documents that show there have been many more.
The story mentions a 2013 letter from Ohio State University to pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis (which we reported on in 2014), acknowledging Francis’s allegations against Croce. However, in the letter, an administrator said OSU saw no reason to investigate Croce.
The story didn’t stop there, as the Times reports:
Continue reading Cancer researcher has dodged accusations for decades (and has a new correction)
A cancer biologist has retracted a 2016 News & Views article in a Nature journal, alleging that the journal tried to censor his writing by asking him to remove passages that criticized another journal (Cell).
Carlo Croce, the sole author of the article in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology from Ohio State University in Columbus, described the journal’s actions to us as “disgusting” and “worrisome.”
A spokesperson from the journal sent us this statement:
We regret that this situation occurred. We cannot comment beyond the retraction notice.
This isn’t Croce’s first retraction (we just found another recent one, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, over image problems). He’s also co-authored multiple papers with Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy who has nine retractions under his belt, and is undergoing criminal investigation for scientific misconduct.
Here’s the retraction notice, published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology on October 4: Continue reading Cancer biologist says Nature journal “censored” his News & Views, retracts it
Consider this: Fragments of a PLOS ONE paper overlap with pieces of other publications. The authors used them without credit and without quotation marks.
This sounds an awful lot like plagiarism — using PLOS‘s own standards, even. But the journal isn’t calling it plagiarism. They’ve labeled this an instance of “text overlap,” a spokesperson told us, based on the amount of material that the paper shares with others.
The last author — Carlo Croce, who has two retractions under his belt — denies that he plagiarized, and says that his university has cleared him of a plagiarism charge from an anonymous whistleblower.
PLOS fixed this case last year with a correction notice — not the common course of action for a case of confirmed plagiarism. Take a look at the notice for yourself:
Continue reading When does “overlap” become plagiarism? Here’s what PLOS ONE decided
Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy who has been under criminal investigation for scientific misconduct, has earned his ninth retraction.
Retraction number nine, by The Journal of Clinical Investigation, is for duplicating data from another publication — which has also faced questions on PubPeer about image manipulation, along with many other papers by Fusco.
The retraction note for “The RET/PTC-RAS-BRAF linear signaling cascade mediates the motile and mitogenic phenotype of thyroid cancer cells” explains that the journal is pulling the paper even though the authors claim that they can reproduce the data:
Continue reading Cancer researcher earns 9th retraction, for image duplication
Alfredo Fusco, the researcher in Italy who is under criminal investigation and has had seven papers retracted, has lost yet another study.
The investigation, which came to light in late 2013, had focused on eight papers thought to demonstrate evidence of image manipulation.
The latest paper, in the European Journal of Cancer, studied mice with a genetic alteration associated with lipomas (benign fatty growths) in humans.
Here’s part of the notice for “Expression of a truncated Hmga1b gene induces gigantism, lipomatosis and B-cell lymphomas in mice”: Continue reading Cancer researcher under investigation in Italy notches eighth retraction
Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy under criminal investigation, now has a seventh retraction for manipulated images.
Here’s the notice for “Retraction: Identification of new high mobility group A1 associated proteins,” to which not all of the authors agreed: Continue reading Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction
Alfredo Fusco, who is under criminal investigation in Italy for scientific fraud, has had two more papers retracted.
Both are in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). Here are the two studies: Continue reading Cancer researcher facing criminal inquiry up to six retractions