Category: luxembourg retractions

“There has been negligence”: Biologist banned for one year by German funding agency

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Jens Christian Schwamborn

As a consequence for academic “negligence” which resulted in two retractions, biologist Jens Schwamborn was banned from seeking funding from German funding agency DFG for one year.

The ban — which ended in March, 2015 — was the result of an investigation by DFG and the University of Münster, which reviewed the issues that led to retractions of two papers about neuron development, one in The EMBO Journal, and another in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. 

Here’s the official statement on the ban, sent to us by Head of Communications Britta Schlüter at the University of Luxembourg, where Schwamborn now works:

Continue reading “There has been negligence”: Biologist banned for one year by German funding agency

JBC retraction on neuron development marks second for two biologists

JBCTwo biologists have retracted a second paper on the development of neurons, but that’s about all we know.

The 2007 paper from the Journal of Biological Chemistry, “The Interaction of mPar3 with the Ubiquitin Ligase Smurf2 Is Required for the Establishment of Neuronal Polarity,” concerns the role of a protein, mPar3, in neuron development. It has been cited 29 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

We don’t know why this one was retracted, because JBC (as usual) offered no explanation in its retraction note:

Continue reading JBC retraction on neuron development marks second for two biologists

Oncogene to retract breast cancer paper following years-old misconduct investigation

Oncogene is retracting a 2010 paper on the molecular details of breast cancer cells as they undergo metastasis following an investigation that discovered the first author had committed misconduct.

The thing is, the investigation concluded in 2012, and the paper — “miR-661 expression in SNAI1-induced epithelial to mesenchymal transition contributes to breast cancer cell invasion by targeting Nectin-1 and StarD10 messengers” — isn’t being retracted until next week.

According to Lucinda Haines, senior publishing manager at Nature Publishing Group, the paper will be retracted June 29.

We heard from Iris Behrmann, Head of the Life Sciences Research Unit at the University of Luxembourg:

Continue reading Oncogene to retract breast cancer paper following years-old misconduct investigation

University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction

gliaA study published in Glia is being retracted following a university investigation that found “incorrect and, therefore, misleading” results in a number of figures.

Here’s the notice for  “Jagged1 regulates the activation of astrocytes via modulation of NFκB and JAK/STAT/SOCS pathways” by Eleonora Morga, Laila Mouad-Amazzal, Paul Felten, Tony Heurtaux, Mike Moro, Alessandro Michelucci, Sebastien Gabel, Luc Grandbarbe, and Paul Heuschling: Continue reading University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction

After Luxembourg firing, U. Eastern Finland reportedly looking into Carlberg, too

The news isn’t getting any better for Carsten Carlberg. Earlier this month, Carlberg received a pink slip from the University of Luxembourg in the wake of a data fraud scandal involving a former student named Tatjana Degenhardt. As we wrote last November, journals retracted two of Carlberg’s papers after Degenhardt was found to have fabricated data. Although Degenhardt worked at the University of Kuopio (now the University of Eastern Finland), and Carlberg was not accused of wrongdoing, officials in Luxembourg decided that the mess threatened the public image of their fledgling institution and fired him.

We’d assumed that the University of Eastern Finland considered the matter finished, and that what happened in the Grand Duchy would stay in the Grand Duchy. But we were wrong. Continue reading After Luxembourg firing, U. Eastern Finland reportedly looking into Carlberg, too

Carsten Carlberg out at University of Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg has fired researcher Carsten Carlberg after concluding that his name was a drag on the institution.

Here’s an English  translation of an article about the firing, which many readers were kind enough to forward to us: Continue reading Carsten Carlberg out at University of Luxembourg

U. Luxembourg official offers more detail — or tries to — on Carsten Carlberg case

We’re continuing to try to find out more about the developing story surrounding Carsten Carlberg. Carlberg, as we have reported, was senior author on two papers retracted last year because one of the authors, a graduate student in Carlberg’s lab at the University of Eastern Finland  (formerly Kuopio), fabricated data.

Carlberg holds a dual appointment with the University of Luxembourg, which recently announced the results of a months-long investigation into his behavior.

We have been relying on unofficial translations of a May 20th statement by university officials such as this one, by a generous Retraction Watch reader: Continue reading U. Luxembourg official offers more detail — or tries to — on Carsten Carlberg case

*Grad student’s misdeeds may cost prof Carsten Carlberg a job

In November, we reported on two retractions in Cell and the Journal of Molecular Biology involving misconduct in the lab of biochemist Carsten Carlberg, of the University of Eastern Finland, in Kuopio.

Carlberg also holds an appointment in computational biology at the University of Luxembourg, which last year launched an investigation — at his behest, he says — into the case. Well, the officials in Luxembourg finally have spoken, and Carlberg, it seems, may soon be out of his job there, the Tageblatt newspaper reports.

Carlberg, to our knowledge, has never been accused of ethical violations in the case, and the inquiry didn’t change that. Rather, the bad actor appears to be his former post-doc graduate student in Finland, Tatjana Degenhardt. But the University of Luxembourg may seek to dismiss Carlberg after concluding that, as the senior author of the two retracted articles, he bore responsibility for the validity of the results and, by implication, the deception.

Ironically, Carlberg says he asked the school to undertake the investigation even though none of Degenhardt’s research had been conducted using that school’s resources. In an email today to Retraction Watch, he writes: Continue reading *Grad student’s misdeeds may cost prof Carsten Carlberg a job

More on the latest Cell retraction: PI says a graduate student was at fault

Carsten Carlberg

This morning we reported on a new retraction in Cell involving fraud from a lab in Finland, which led us to a second retraction of a paper by the same group in the Journal of Molecular Biology. The first author on both papers was Tatjana Degenhardt, who at the time was a graduate student in the lab of Carsten Carlberg, professor of biochemistry at the University of Kuopio.

A few minutes ago Retraction Watch spoke with Carlberg, who had this to say about Degenhardt: Continue reading More on the latest Cell retraction: PI says a graduate student was at fault

Cell retraction for bogus images in genetics paper reveals another, in Journal of Molecular Biology

Call it bad luck, but the journal Cell has been victimized again by image manipulation. For the second time this month, the publication has retracted a paper whose authors acknowledged that one of them had played around with the figures.

Published in August 2009, the paper, “Population-Level Transcription Cycles Derive from Stochastic Timing of Single-Cell Transcription,” has been cited 16 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. It purported to show using computer modeling that

transcriptional cycling, i.e., periodic assembly of transcription factors and their cofactors and the resulting cyclical accumulation of mRNA, may stem from stochastic timing and sequential activation of transcription in individual cells.

The authors, from several European institutions, presented experimental data to back up their computer model, including multiple figures. Some of those, they now admit, were fabricated — to the point where the whole paper collapsed: Continue reading Cell retraction for bogus images in genetics paper reveals another, in Journal of Molecular Biology