An architecture professor at the University of Arizona has been sanctioned — lightly — for plagiarizing from the thesis of one of her masters’ students.
According to a report in the Arizona Daily Star, the professor, Susannah Dickinson: Continue reading Arizona prof plagiarizes student’s thesis, gets reprimanded, but keeps her job
Molecular Vision has issued “full retractions” for a trio of articles by a group of eye researchers. All of the articles were led by Azza El-Remessy, director of the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy’s clinical and therapeutic graduate program.
As much as that is, there might be more still with this case.
The first paper, from 2000, was titled “Regulation of interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP) gene expression by cAMP in differentiated retinoblastoma cell.” Its abstract states: Continue reading Molecular Vision retracts three papers from University of Georgia group with error-ridden images
The publisher Frontiers has issued a Statement of Concern about a paper denying that HIV causes AIDS, and has launched an investigation into how the paper was published in the first place.
The paper, “Questioning the HIV-AIDS hypothesis: 30 years of dissent,” is written by Patricia Goodson of Texas A&M University and was published on September 23 in Frontiers in Public Health. As Tara Smith, who blogged about the paper yesterday, notes: Continue reading Publisher issues statement of concern about HIV denial paper, launches investigation
The recent retraction of a paper in Science Translational Medicine reporting “one of the biggest things to happen” in narcolepsy research has claimed a bystander: A letter that commented on the no-longer-landmark article.
The authors of the letter are with GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine division. Here’s the new notice: Continue reading Downstream effects: Comment on retracted narcolepsy paper retracted
A group of liver researchers from the University of Pittsburgh has earned a pair of corrections in Hepatology for image problems.
The team was led by George K. Michalopoulos, chair of the department of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
One article, “Excessive hepatomegaly of mice with hepatocyte-targeted elimination of integrin linked kinase following treatment with 1,4-bis [2-(3,5-dichaloropyridyloxy)] benzene,” appeared in January 2011. According to the notice: Continue reading Hepatology issues corrections in two papers from Pitt liver group
Last month, PubPeer announced that a scientist had threatened to sue the site for defamation. At the time, all PubPeer would say was that the “prospective plaintiff” is a US researcher” who was “aggrieved at the treatment his papers are getting on our site.”
Today, PubPeer revealed the that the prospective plaintiff was Fazlul Sarkar, a distinguished professor of pathology at Wayne State University in Detroit. Sarkar’s attorney, Nicholas Roumel, tells us that Sarkar had a job offer from the University of Mississippi, which rescinded it after seeing comments about his work on PubPeer.
We asked to see the letter rescinding the offer, but Roumel said he couldn’t send it because he and Sarkar are “in the process of making a claim against them.”
We also asked if there was an investigation into Sarkar’s work. Roumel told us:
As for any investigation, federal regulations make such things strictly confidential, so I can’t comment either way.
According to a post on PubPeer: Continue reading Scientist threatening to sue PubPeer claims he lost a job offer because of comments
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has ruled in a case we’ve been following for nearly two years — and which seems to have been launched after Retraction Watch readers took a careful look at figures from what appeared to be an unrelated case.
Takao Takahashi and Makato Suzuki, both former postdocs at a cancer research center at UT-Southwestern, both “knowingly, intentionally, and recklessly falsified data” in a total of 10 papers, according to the ORI. Takahashi, now at Gifu University in Japan, was responsible for fakery in four papers, while Suzuki, now at Kumamoto University Hospital, also in Japan, falsified data in six.
We reported on the retraction of the four Takahashi papers, and one of the Suzuki papers, in November 2012. At that time, Adi Gazdar, the head of the lab where the researchers worked, told us that
Continue reading Former UT-Southwestern cancer researchers faked data in 10 papers: ORI
We brought you this story last week, about a paper on drug resistant staph being retracted for a lab error. Now, we’ve got an update from Rachel Safer, senior editor for medical journals at Oxford University Press, where the paper was published.
Apparently, the researchers “inadvertently relied upon the use of a test system that was not approved for the microorganism studied in their paper,” leading to the retraction, and the corresponding author of the study wasn’t initially all that responsive:
Continue reading Publisher updates with more info on staph retraction
When retraction notices and expressions of concern appear, particularly those that are opaque, we try our best to find out what’s behind them, whether it’s better explanations or the steps that led to moves. Today, we have one story in which we’ve been able to learn a lot more than usual.
In April, Bas van Steensel, Wendy Bickmore, Thomas Cremer, and Kerstin Bystricky sent a letter to about 80 leading labs in nuclear organization and steroid receptor biology. It began (we’ve added some relevant links): Continue reading A PNAS expression of concern appears — and so does its revealing backstory
The author of a doctoral dissertation on veterans education has lost the paper — and a mention of the work in a roster of theses — because he lifted text from a previously published dissertation from a student at another institution.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Dissertation in transition: Plagiarism leads to delisting of education thesis, lost PhD