Category: kenji okajima

Kenji Okajima retraction count grows to five

Kenji Okajima
Kenji Okajima

We’ve been following the case of Kenji Okajima, a professor at Nagoya City University in Japan who was suspended for six months following an investigation into work in his lab. Bits of the story — including at least one other university investigation, and scrutiny of Okajima’s colleagues, one of whom was fired — have been dribbling out for almost two years since a retraction notice in the Journal of Neuroscience.

In all, it looks as Nagoya found evidence of misconduct in 19 papers. The Journal of Neuroscience retraction appeared in 2011, and another showed up in the Journal of Immunology last year. Now there are three more: One in Translational Research and two in Blood.

Here’s the notice from Translational Research: Continue reading Kenji Okajima retraction count grows to five

Japanese universities find pair of researchers guilty of misconduct in 19 papers

Kenji Okajima

We have an update in the case of two Japanese scientists who first came to our attention when they retracted a 13-year-old paper in the Journal of Neuroscience last year. Shortly after that, we learned, thanks to a report in Sankei Shimbun and a helpful Retraction Watch reader, that some 17 papers were being investigated.

It now appears that 19 papers by the two researchers, Kenji Okajima and Naoki Harada, ended up under scrutiny.

Nagoya City University said last week that their investigation had concluded that Okajima and Harada committed misconduct. The university dismissed Harada, whom they found guilty of misconduct in at least eight of the papers. The investigation couldn’t find any evidence that Okajima was directly involved, but suspended him for six months because he supervised the work. Continue reading Japanese universities find pair of researchers guilty of misconduct in 19 papers

Group under investigation retracts second paper, claims errant figure was just a placeholder

The authors of a 2010 Journal of Immunology paper have retracted it, saying that part of one of the figures was actually a placeholder from another experiment.

According to the retraction notice for “Stimulation of FcgRI on Primary Sensory Neurons Increases Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I Production, Thereby Reducing Reperfusion-Induced Renal Injury in Mice” by Naoaki Harada, Juan Zhao, Hiroki Kurihara, Naomi Nakagata, and Kenji Okajima: Continue reading Group under investigation retracts second paper, claims errant figure was just a placeholder

Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing

We have updates on the two mysterious Journal of Neuroscience retractions we reported on yesterday. One is that we have learned that there is a university investigation into the work of one of the teams that retracted one of the studies. More on that in a bit.

Two, the journal’s editor, John Maunsell, responded to our request for comment, and we’re quoting his entire email (with annotation) because we think it raises important issues: Continue reading Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing

Journal of Neuroscience retracts two, one 13 years old

The June 8 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience includes two retractions:

The notices are completely uninformative. They read: Continue reading Journal of Neuroscience retracts two, one 13 years old