Retractions are rolling along for numerous scientists affiliated with the Jining First People’s Hospital in Shandong, China, who were sanctioned in December for research misconduct such as tampering with data and fabricating research.
My laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School studies genetic diseases that affect the skeletal system. We became interested in the protein osteocalcin after Gerard Karsenty at Columbia University reported in several papers using knockout mice – mice lacking the genes which produce osteocalcin – that osteocalcin is a bone-derived hormone that affects glucose metabolism, insulin production, male fertility, muscle mass, and cognition. If osteocalcin functions similarly in humans, then osteocalcin becomes an exciting and clinically important protein.
To independently confirm these findings, we created our own osteocalcin knockout mouse strain. We examined glucose metabolism and male fertility in our mice and found none of the effects reported by Karsenty and colleagues; we reported our findings in May 2020. A group in Japan created a third osteocalcin knockout mouse strain which also failed to confirm Karsenty and colleagues’ findings.
In earlier years my laboratory also could not independently confirm other results reported by the Karsenty group: a paper I co-authored in 2011 found no evidence of the Wnt co-receptor LRP5 affecting blood serotonin levels, contrary to what Karsenty’s lab published.
A rheumatologist was suspended from a professional society and his license to practice medicine was threatened after he raised concerns about data manipulation in a published study for which he recruited patients, according to documents seen by Retraction Watch.
Fayad alleged that the researchers tested patient samples multiple times and used a mix of old and new values in their analysis. After he reported his concerns to the journal and then the university, which both concluded that they could not confirm or refute his allegations, he has faced apparent retaliation, including the suspension of his membership in the Lebanese Society of Rheumatology.
In comments to Retraction Watch, the corresponding author for the study noted that the two investigations did not find data manipulation, and said the issue was “based on a background of personal and professional conflicts.”
This week, Nature reported on two institutional reports that found scientists in Carlo Croce’s cancer research lab at The Ohio State University had committed research misconduct including plagiarism and data falsification.
Another institutional investigation directed at Croce did not find he committed research misconduct but did identify problems with how he managed his lab, according to Nature.
Springer Nature has retracted a 2020 chapter in a digital book – along with a related introduction – after a judge in Ireland ruled that the paper defamed another researcher and two attorneys.
Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports has retracted four papers by a researcher in Saudi Arabia who claims “irrelevant reviewers” just couldn’t understand “a new area of statistics.”
Here’s the notice for one of the articles, “Neutrosophic statistical test for counts in climatology,” which appeared in September 2021 and has been cited once, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science:
Kyoto University is recommending retraction for five papers by a former botany researcher there after an institutional inquiry turned up evidence of fraud.
The investigation of Lianwei Peng, who left the school in May 2011, found 11 images had been manipulated in the papers, according to a press release. The corresponding author on all five papers, Toshiharu Shikanai, may face disciplinary action, the university’s statement said.
Shikanai’s faculty page at Kyoto University, shown here in an archived snapshot from November 2020, now bears a message that “the requested page cannot be found.”
A Springer Nature journal has retracted a paper on hepatitis C infection it had previously corrected for problematic data – but in between the editors declared the case closed.
Some two years later, Alexander Magazinov – a data sleuth about whom we’ve written before – posted concerns on PubPeer about the article and three other papers by members of the group.
A pharmacology researcher with four retractions appears to have left the University of Pennsylvania, where he had worked for at least 30 years and won more than $7 million in NIH grants.
The school’s faculty page for William Armstead, who held a research professorship in Anesthesiology and Critical Care, now bears only the statement that “Dr. Armstead may no longer be affiliated with the Perelman School of Medicine.” Penn Medicine has not responded to our request for comment.
In May, we reported that Armstead was up to four retractions after the Journal of Neurotrauma had retracted three articles at the researcher’s request.
A group of nanotechnology researchers in Iran is up to nine retractions after losing four papers in a go for problematic figures.
The work was led by Abolfazl Akbarzadeh, a medicinal chemist at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, who has spent time as a visiting professor at Boston University and UCLA. Commenters on PubPeer including Elisabeth Bik and “Hoya camphorifolia” have raised questions about the papers, with posts dating back to November 2020.
The latest retractions involve articles that appeared in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology, a Taylor & Francis title. Evidently, the papers appear to have had…artificial data.
