Category: by author

Melendez notches retraction 14, Lemus now stands at 12

int j biochem mol bioTwo researchers who have appeared frequently on Retraction Watch have racked up another retraction each.

This is the fourteenth retraction for Alirio Melendez, who was found guilty of misconduct by the National University of Singapore but denies the allegations. Here’s the notice in The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology for “Environmental toxicogenomics: A post-genomic approach to analysing biological responses to environmental toxins,” a paper published in Environmental Research and cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Melendez notches retraction 14, Lemus now stands at 12

Controversial Seralini GMO-rats paper to be retracted

food and chemical toxicologyA heavily criticized study of the effects of genetically modified maize and the Roundup herbicide on rats is being retracted — one way or another.

The paper — by Gilles Seralini and colleagues — was published in Food and Chemical Toxicology last year. There have been calls for retraction since then, along with other criticism and a lengthy exchange of letters in the journal. Meanwhile, the paper has been cited 28 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, and the French National Assembly (their lower house of Parliament) held a long hearing on the paper last year, with Seralini and other scientists testifying.

Now, as reported in the French media, the editor of the journal, A. Wallace Hayes, has sent Seralini a letter saying that the paper will be retracted if Seralini does not agree to withdraw it.

Here’s most of the November 19 letter, including Hayes’ proposed retraction notice: Continue reading Controversial Seralini GMO-rats paper to be retracted

Cell update: Co-corresponding author let go from Belgian university; retraction notice language changed

cell november 2013We’ve learned more about the circumstances behind a Cell retraction that we covered last week.

First, one of the two corresponding authors left the institution where he most recently worked. Belgium’s VIB Ghent told us that Pankaj Dhonukshe was no longer employed there and said: Continue reading Cell update: Co-corresponding author let go from Belgian university; retraction notice language changed

Authors retract Cell paper amid ongoing investigation

cell november 2013The authors of a 2012 paper in Cell have retracted it after discovering “serious issues with several figures.”

Here’s the notice for “A PLETHORA-Auxin Transcription Module Controls Cell Division Plane Rotation through MAP65 and CLASP:” Continue reading Authors retract Cell paper amid ongoing investigation

Retraction appears for Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation

jci nov 13The first retraction has appeared for Alfred Fusco, a leading cancer researcher in Italy under criminal investigation for fraud.

Here’s the notice from the Journal of Clinical Investigation: Continue reading Retraction appears for Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation

mBio retracts anthrax paper whose authors say they misinterpreted findings

journal_logomBio, whose editor, Arturo Casadevall, has contributed greatly to our knowledge about why articles are retracted, has an interesting retraction of its own.

The journal — a publication of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Academy of Microbiology — is pulling a 2011 paper by a trio of researchers from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Li Tan, Mei Li and Charles L. Turnbough Jr. The article was titled “An Unusual Mechanism of Isopeptide Bond Formation Attaches the Collagenlike Glycoprotein BclA to the Exosporium of Bacillus anthracis.” The paper, which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web Knowledge, purported to show that:

Continue reading mBio retracts anthrax paper whose authors say they misinterpreted findings

“Just significant” results have been around for decades in psychology — but have gotten worse: study

qjepLast year, two psychology researchers set out to figure out whether the statistical results psychologists were reporting in the literature were distributed the way you’d expect. We’ll let the authors, E.J. Masicampo, of Wake Forest, and Daniel Lalande, of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, explain why they did that:

The psychology literature is meant to comprise scientific observations that further people’s understanding of the human mind and human behaviour. However, due to strong incentives to publish, the main focus of psychological scientists may often shift from practising rigorous and informative science to meeting standards for publication. One such standard is obtaining statistically significant results. In line with null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), for an effect to be considered statistically significant, its corresponding p value must be less than .05.

When Masicampo and Lalande looked at a year’s worth of three highly cited psychology journals — the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; and Psychological Science — from 2007 to 2008, they found: Continue reading “Just significant” results have been around for decades in psychology — but have gotten worse: study

JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

jbc1113The Journal of Biological Chemistry has a fairly gory correction — we’d call it a mega-correction — for a 2010 paper by Levon Khachigian, an Australian researcher whose studies of a new drug for skin cancer recently were halted over concerns about possible misconduct, including image manipulation. As we reported earlier this year, Khachigian has already lost four papers, including one in the JBC — which the journal simply noted had “been withdrawn by the authors.”

The new correction involves the article “c-Jun regulates shear- and injury-inducible Egr-1 expression, vein graft stenosis after autologous end-to-side transplantation in rabbits, and intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins,” which Khachigian wrote with Jun Ni and Alla Waldman. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

Irony alert: Forensic experts have paper retracted for plagiarism

ijmbrTime to roll out the irony meter again.

A group of scientists from Uttar Pradesh, India, who study forensic bioinformatics have had a paper retracted for something that can generally be detected with a specialized form of forensic software: Plagiarism.

Here’s the notice for Kumar Ajay, Singh Neetu, Gaurav S.S. “Forensic Bioinformatics: An innovative technological advancement in the field of Forensic Medicine and Diagnosis,” signed by O.A. Sofola, editor-in-chief: Continue reading Irony alert: Forensic experts have paper retracted for plagiarism

Fernández genetics paper in limbo over data concerns

annrevgenAriel Fernández, the protein researcher whose theories of drug design lately have come in for questioning, has lost a paper, at least for the moment.

The article, “Supramolecular Evolution of Protein Organization,” appeared online in Annual Reviews of Genetics prior to print. It lists Fernández’s affiliation as ProWD Sciences, in Madison, Wisc. Not much exists on the web about that company, however, except an under-construction site. (ProWD, by the way, is short for PROtein-Water-Dehydron, Fernández’s area of interest.)

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Fernández genetics paper in limbo over data concerns