Category: by country

Cancer paper pulled due to “identical text” from one published 6 days prior; author objects

ClinCancRes_ak16Clinical Cancer Research is retracting a paper on the immunosuppressive effects of glioma due to “evidence of duplicate and/or redundant publication.”

According to the retraction notice, the 2010 paper bore exceeding similarities to another one published by the same group of researchers six days prior. That second paper appeared in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, which – like Clinical Cancer Research — is published by the American Association for Cancer Research. Apparently, a reader tipped off the AACR about the similarity.

The corresponding author on both papers, however, has objected to the decision: Continue reading Cancer paper pulled due to “identical text” from one published 6 days prior; author objects

“Evidence of data duplication” infects lung inflammation paper from Harvard and Yale

IAIA team of Harvard and Yale biologists have retracted an Infection and Immunity paper due to data duplication.

After the duplication came to light, the erroneous figures were corrected using original data, but the results affected “some of the manuscript’s conclusions.” An ethics panel subsequently recommended retraction, according to the journal, and the authors agreed.

The paper, “NOD2 Signaling Contributes to Host Defense in the Lungs against Escherichia coli Infection,” analyzed the role of the gene NOD2 in the lung inflammatory response against the bacteria Escherichia coli. It has been cited by 15 other papers, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Figure 2B of the paper was previously corrected in 2012, but the retraction is for data duplication in figures 5F and 6A. Here’s the full retraction note: Continue reading “Evidence of data duplication” infects lung inflammation paper from Harvard and Yale

“Significant concerns” and formal investigation unwind Nature Nanotech sequencing paper

NatureNanoFollowing “significant concerns” raised by outside researchers and a formal university investigation, a group of authors in Taiwan has retracted a Nature Nanotechnology paper on DNA sequencing after they “could not reproduce the results of the work,” or even provide “a complete set of raw data for the original experiments.”

The paper, “DNA sequencing using electrical conductance measurements of a DNA polymerase,” describes a technology to sequence single DNA molecules — a technique that the authors, all based at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, suggest could be used to “cheaply and quickly” sequence DNA.

Concerns about the paper’s data were first raised in May 2013 by the community, according to an editorial from the journal. Then, the journal asked the university to investigate, says “Notes on a retraction”: Continue reading “Significant concerns” and formal investigation unwind Nature Nanotech sequencing paper

Fungus among us, but what kind? Typing error spawns retraction for mushroom paper

natprodresAs every mushroom lover knows, weekend mycology is no sport for the lily-livered. Tasty species often look awfully like their deadly cousins. Turns out, typing can even be problematic for the experts.

Natural Products Research is retracting a 2014 paper on shelf fungus because… well, it wasn’t about shelf fungus after all.

The paper, “Chemical constituents: water-soluble vitamins, free amino acids and sugar profile from Ganoderma adspersum,” was written by Ibrahim Kivrak, a food chemist at Mugla Sitki Kocman University in Mugla, Turkey. It analyzed the nutritional components of G. adspersum, and found, per the abstract:

Continue reading Fungus among us, but what kind? Typing error spawns retraction for mushroom paper

“I hold my hands up”: PubPeer criticisms spark a biochemist’s offer to retract

MPIn a back-and-forth on PubPeer, a researcher appears to have offered to retract a paper after commenters challenged the use of identical control bands on a gel.

A person writing as Virginia Commonwealth University biochemist Paul Dent admitted the control bands of his 2007 Molecular Pharmacology paper, “Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Modulates Prostate Cancer Cell Survival after Irradiation or HMG CoA Reductase Inhibitor Treatment,” were duplicated “for comparison purposes,” but stated he was “in no way attempting to ‘intentionally manipulate the data.’”

In response, Dent appeared to offer to pull the paper, about using a hormone to help kill prostate cancer cells:

Continue reading “I hold my hands up”: PubPeer criticisms spark a biochemist’s offer to retract

Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures

JImmunolThe Journal of Immunology is retracting a 2006 article about the role of exosomes in pregnancy at the behest of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, following a misconduct investigation that “determined multiple figures” in the paper were falsified.

First author Douglas Taylor is a pioneer in exosome biology, having discovered the release of exosomes from tumor cells in the 1970s.

The retracted paper identified “significant quantitative and qualitative differences in released exosomes” in the placentas of fetuses delivered prematurely compared to those delivered without complications at term, particularly relating to immune regulation.  It has been cited 150 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction note (which is paywalled – tsk, tsk): Continue reading Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures

Another “first author has accepted responsibility” retraction from immunity journal

IAIScientists have pulled their 2013 Infection and Immunity paper after a reader noticed duplicated data in three figures, and the first author was “unable to provide the original data used to construct the figures,” according to the journal’s editor-in-chief.

According to the retraction note, “the first author has accepted responsibility for these anomalies” — similar to another recent retraction from the same journal, also due to image duplication reported by a reader (apparently the journal has one or more careful readers).

The paper, “Pseudomonas aeruginosa Outer Membrane Vesicles Modulate Host Immune Responses by Targeting the Toll-Like Receptor 4 Signaling Pathway,” concerns the role of outer membrane vesicles excreted by the bacteria to incite an inflammatory response in mice. It was written by authors at the University of North Dakota, Sichuan University in China, and the University of Chicago, and has been cited six times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the complete retraction note:

Continue reading Another “first author has accepted responsibility” retraction from immunity journal

“A decision of misconduct was reached”: Two lung papers expire

JofAnesthTwo papers about the molecular underpinnings of lung damage are being retracted following an investigation at Oita University in Japan, which revealed that images from both papers had been used to depict “different experimental conditions” in a third paper (which has not been retracted).

It’s not clear which of the authors were the subject of the investigation. The two retracted papers, “Nafamostat mesilate inhibits the expression of HMGB1 in lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury” in the Journal of Anesthesia and “Coexpression of HSP47 Gene and Type I and Type III Collagen Genes in LPS-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis in Rats” in Lung, both originally published in 2007, share the same first author — Satoshi Hagiwara, whose affiliation is listed as the Department of Brain and Nerve Science, Anesthesiology, Oita University Faculty of Medicine. The papers have been cited 13 times and 12 times, respectively, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Hagiwara is also the first author on the third paper that contains the duplicated images.

The first retraction notice reads:

Continue reading “A decision of misconduct was reached”: Two lung papers expire

More “unsubstantiated conclusions” partially sink another origin of life paper

OrigLife_ak17A trio of researchers based in Russia is asking to pull another set of figures and a table from a 2008 paper on modeling ATP formation after an investigation found the fourth researcher – the first author on the paper — “falsified or fabricated” the data they reflect.

The paper, in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, is the second partial retraction from many of the same authors for the same reason. Both journals also issued erratum notices, which read quite similarly. Here’s the latest note:

Continue reading More “unsubstantiated conclusions” partially sink another origin of life paper

Article on suicide in Egypt retracted for double publication

JForensicSci_ak9A 2012 article published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences is being retracted because of an “overlap with a previous publication by the same authors.”

The corresponding author, Heba Yassa, a lecturer at Assiut University in Egypt, readily explained in an email exchange that the mix-up was due to a miscommunication with the editor of another journal, which she believed was not going to publish the article. “I know accidentally that the editor…published the article.”

The article, which examined suicides in one of the largest provinces in Egypt between 2005 and 2009, found rates had gone up since 1987, and men tended to use more violent methods than women.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Article on suicide in Egypt retracted for double publication