A group at the University of Texas Southwestern led by Adi F. Gazdar that found evidence of inappropriate image manipulation in a number of their papers has retracted its seventh and eighth studies.
Here’s the notice for 2005’s “Aberrant methylation profile of human malignant mesotheliomas and its relationship to SV40 infection,” in Oncogene: Continue reading UT-Southwestern cancer researchers up to 8 retractions
This one’s a little circular: The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, a SAGE journal, has retracted an author’s response to a letter to the editor that was never published. The original paper, “Intravenous sodium bicarbonate therapy in severely acidotic diabetic ketoacidosis,” is unaffected by the retraction.
According to the notice: Continue reading Drug journal jumps the gun on publishing response to comment
A pair of University of Utah researchers who both left their posts last year following an investigation into problems with their work have had another paper retracted from Cell Metabolism.
The investigation found “reckless disregard” in papers in which Ivana De Domenico was first author. She left the university at the end of June 2013, and and her lab head, Jerry Kaplan, retired at the same time.
Here’s the notice for 2008’s “The Hepcidin-Binding Site on Ferroportin Is Evolutionarily Conserved:” Continue reading Former University of Utah researchers, one guilty of “reckless disregard,” have another paper retracted
Bharat Aggarwal, the MD Anderson researcher who has threatened to sue Retraction Watch for writing about issues in his papers, has corrected another study.
Here’s the notice for “Induction of Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis by the Proteasome Inhibitor PS-341 in Hodgkin Disease Cell Lines Is Independent of Inhibitor of Nuclear Factor-κB Mutations or Activation of the CD30, CD40, and RANK Receptors:” Continue reading Cancer researcher who threatened to sue Retraction Watch corrects another paper
The following post was written by a former research fellow in the lab of Piero Anversa to whom we’ve promised confidentiality. Anversa has previously told us that he cannot comment because of an ongoing investigation.
Regular readers of Retraction Watch will note the recent news regarding the work conducted in the laboratory of Piero Anversa at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. In the early 2000s, his laboratory published a series of papers regarding the regenerative qualities of bone marrow-derived and cardiac-resident “stem cells.”
Those initial findings, as well as the research conducted since those early studies, have always been surrounded by controversy, as many have been unsuccessful in efforts to replicate their results. Controversy among competitors is not uncommon in our profession, but this particular one has blossomed into a formal investigation of their findings, and has, to date, led to the retraction of one paper and an expression of concern about another. Continue reading Braggadacio, information control, and fear: Life inside a Brigham stem cell lab under investigation
Courtesy of a Freedom of Information Act request, The Boston Globe has a very good piece detailing what investigators found had actually happened in the Marc Hauser lab before the former Harvard psychology researcher resigned in 2011 and was found guilty of misconduct by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in 2012.
The Globe requested the 2010 report Harvard sent the ORI. Here’s a summary:
The 85-page report details instances in which Hauser changed data so that it would show a desired effect. It shows that he more than once rebuffed or downplayed questions and concerns from people in his laboratory about how a result was obtained. The report also describes “a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation of results and shading of truth” and a “reckless disregard for basic scientific standards.”
The Globe quotes key passages from the report: Continue reading “Misrepresentation,” “reckless disregard for basic scientific standards”: Hauser report reveals details of misconduct
Science has retracted two papers by Frank Sauer, of the University of California, Riverside, after the university found evidence of serious image manipulation.
Here’s the notice, signed by Science editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt: Continue reading Science retracts two papers for image manipulation
We’ve been following the case of Amine Bahi, a neuroscience researcher in the United Arab Emirates who has managed something unusual in the annals of Retraction Watch: Three different retractions for three completely different reasons. One was for “legal issues,” another was for lack of IRB approval, and the third was for using RNAs from the wrong species.
Now, Bahi’s co-authors have repeated the last of those studies with the right RNAs, and have republished their paper in the same journal, Biological Psychiatry — but without Bahi.
The retraction notice for “Blockade of Protein Phosphatase 2B Activity in the Amygdala Increases Anxiety- and Depression-Like Behaviors in Mice” now includes this final paragraph: Continue reading Researchers repeat retracted study, republish in same journal sans first author
A former Harvard postdoc who was found guilty of faking data at Oxford as a student did the same thing at Harvard, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
We first wrote about Helen Freeman in February, when we covered a retraction in Cell Metabolism that said the UK’s Medical Research Council had found that she committed misconduct while working as a student at Oxford. Today, a Federal Register notice from the ORI reports that Freeman faked images in a manuscript submitted to Nature while she was working on federally funded grants at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
From the ORI’s report: Continue reading Serial fakery: Researcher found to have committed misconduct at Harvard and Oxford
The Kyodo News service has reported that Haruko Obokata has agreed to retract one of the two Nature papers on an easy method of making stem cells.
According to the report: Continue reading Obokata agrees to retract one of two STAP stem cell papers in Nature: Reports