Alirio Melendez, the former National University of Singapore researcher who has already retracted two papers in the midst of an investigation into about 70 of his publications, has had a third retracted a third.
Here’s the notice from the Journal of Cellular Physiology: Continue reading Third retraction arrives for Alirio Melendez, this one in the Journal of Cellular Physiology
A partial retraction has joined the ten retractions and five corrections of Anil Potti’s papers, this one of a 2008 paper in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. The move comes 14 months after the retraction of the Nature Medicine paper upon which much of the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics paper was based.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading A “retraction in part” for Anil Potti and colleagues, in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics
In 2010, a group of crystallographers immunologists and allergy researchers at the University of Salzburg published a paper in the Journal of Immunology claiming to have derived the structure of a birch pollen allergen.
That structure, however, caught the attention of Bernhard Rupp, an eminent crystallographer. In January of this year, Rupp submitted a paper to Acta Crystallographica Section F pointing out problems with it, which prompted the editors of the crystallography journal to contact the authors of the original paper a month later. Those authors, it turns out, agreed with Rupp, they write in a response to his paper published in the April 2012 issue of Acta Crystallographica Section F: Continue reading Protein structure retracted after investigation into “highly improbable features,” journal calls it fraud
The retraction count for Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher whom the University of Connecticut found to have committed 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data, has risen to eight with withdrawals by Free Radical Biology & Medicine and Free Radical Research.
The two Free Radical Biology & Medicine retractions, for “Expression of the longevity proteins by both red and white wines and their cardioprotective components, resveratrol, tyrosol, and hydroxytyrosol” (cited 38 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge) and “Redox regulation of resveratrol-mediated switching of death signal into survival signal” (cited 32 times), are carefully detailed and read the same way: Continue reading Three more retractions for resveratrol researcher Dipak Das, in free radical journals
A while back (last June, to be precise), we wrote about a group of Japanese endocrinologists who found a creative way to up their citation counts using duplicate publication. At the time, the researchers were docked a 2004 paper in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry & Molecular Biology that had self-plagiarized extensively from a 2003 article in Cell.
Well, skeptics of this new math take heart: The group’s publication total has fallen yet again. Turns out that 2003 paper — which has been cited 160 times, up from 144 when we checked last year, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — wasn’t quite up to snuff, either.
According to the retraction notice for the article, “The Chromatin-Remodeling Complex WINAC Targets a Nuclear Receptor to Promoters and Is Impaired in Williams Syndrome:” Continue reading Cell paper, once plagiarized, pulled for dodgy figures
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
The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has retracted three papers by Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher found to have committed more than 100 counts of fraud by the University of Connecticut.
Journal editor James Seiber writes: Continue reading Hold the broccoli, garlic, and wine: Three Dipak Das retractions appear in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
The Spanish press has picked up on the story of a prominent veterinary scientist in that country who has been accused of research misconduct.
According to El Pais, the researcher, Jesús Ángel Lemus, whose areas of interest include the effects of toxins on birds, ran into trouble in December when colleagues complained to the Ethics Committee of the Higher Council for Scientific Research about the reproducibility of his results and other problems. That triggered an inquiry by the CSIC into Lemus’ body of work, an investigation that, evidently, could not find a body.
Per El Pais (courtesy of Google Translate): Continue reading Spanish veterinary researcher under suspicion of creating “ghost” author, fabricating data
The American Heart Association, which publishes a number of journals, has issued an Expression of Concern about five papers in three of their publications, following allegations of image manipulation. All of the papers include Hiroaki Matsubara, of Kyoto Prefectural University, as a co-author.
The notice begins:
It has come to the attention of the American Heart Association (AHA), in a public manner, that there are questions concerning a number of figures in several AHA journals’ articles…
The “public manner” was three posts last year on the Abnormal Science blog, available here, here and here, alleging that images were manipulated in the manuscripts, and that histology slides were reused.
The notice continues: Continue reading Five papers by prominent cardiologist Hiroaki Matsubara subject to Expression of Concern
Anil Potti, the former Duke oncology researcher who has now retracted ten papers amid continuing investigations into his work, has been reprimanded by the Missouri medical board.
The reprimand, which was first reported by DukeCheck, became effective on March 6. In it, the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts noted that the North Carolina medical board had reprimanded Potti in November after he had Continue reading Missouri medical board reprimands Anil Potti