JAMA awaiting final OHRP decision on Harvard-led paper whose authors didn’t fully disclose risks to elderly

Earlier this month, the U.S. Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) told a group of researchers led by a Harvard Medical School professor that they hadn’t been forthcoming enough about the risks elderly subjects faced in their trial.

As the Boston Globe reported: Continue reading JAMA awaiting final OHRP decision on Harvard-led paper whose authors didn’t fully disclose risks to elderly

Tenth Potti retraction appears, in Clinical Cancer Research

Anil Potti and his colleagues have retracted another paper, “Characterizing the Clinical Relevance of an Embryonic Stem Cell Phenotype in Lung Adenocarcinoma,” originally published in the December 15, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

According to the notice: Continue reading Tenth Potti retraction appears, in Clinical Cancer Research

Three AHA journals retract lipid papers over “negligent” record-keeping, image issues and more

Three journals belonging to the American Heart Association are dealing with a data manipulation case involving a Japanese scientist who collaborated with some of the United States’ most prominent  cardiac specialists.

Circulation has retracted a 2008 article after the researchers said the lead author’s sloppy record-keeping prevented them from reproducing their experiments. We think there might be a bit more to the story.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Three AHA journals retract lipid papers over “negligent” record-keeping, image issues and more

Two mega-corrections for Anil Potti in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

Anil Potti can add two corrections to his less-and-less impressive publication record. The mega-corrections — part of what we are close to being ready to call a trend in errata notices — in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) are, however, quite impressive, each with at least a dozen points.

One of the corrections, for a paper cited 15 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, basically removes all references to chemotherapy sensitivity: Continue reading Two mega-corrections for Anil Potti in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

Anil Potti and colleagues retract ninth paper, this one in JCO

Former Duke oncology researcher Anil Potti has retracted another paper, marking his ninth withdrawal. The notice in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) reads:

“An Integrated Genomic-Based Approach to Individualized Treatment of Patients With Advanced-Stage Ovarian Cancer” by Holly K. Dressman, Andrew Berchuck, Gina Chan, Jun Zhai, Andrea Bild, Robyn Sayer, Janiel Cragun, Jennifer Clarke, Regina S. Whitaker, LiHua Li, Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Marks, Geoffrey S. Ginsburg, Anil Potti, Mike West, Joseph R. Nevins, and Johnathan M. Lancaster (J Clin Oncol 25:517-525, 2007)

The majority of the authors wish to retract this article because Continue reading Anil Potti and colleagues retract ninth paper, this one in JCO

Cell runs a lengthy correction, rather than retraction, for image problems

The journal Cell has an interesting — and somewhat puzzling — correction this month that we’ll add to our “mega-correction” file.

At issue is a paper, published in October, from the lab of Harvard’s Stephen Elledge, a noted genetics researcher, whose first author is a post-doc there named Michael Emanuele.

According to the notice, Emanuele (singled out, we note) seems to have been rather careless with the images used in the article, titled “Global Identification of Modular Cullin-RING Ligase Substrates”: Continue reading Cell runs a lengthy correction, rather than retraction, for image problems

Potti and colleagues retract 2008 JAMA paper

Anil Potti‘s retraction count is now eight with the withdrawal of a 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Here’s the notice, which appeared online in JAMA sometime yesterday: Continue reading Potti and colleagues retract 2008 JAMA paper

Blood retracts stem cell paper from Amy Wagers’ Harvard lab after 14 months of concern

More than 14 months after Blood issued a notice of concern about a paper by a Harvard stem cell scientist and her former post-doc, the journal has retracted the article.

Here’s the notice for the paper, “Osteolineage niche cells initiate hematopoietic stem cell mobilization,” by Shane Mayack and Amy Wagers: Continue reading Blood retracts stem cell paper from Amy Wagers’ Harvard lab after 14 months of concern

PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

A good carpenter never blames his tools. But for scientists, sometimes machines do go bad–with disastrous results. Consider the following:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has retracted two papers by researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States after the scientists learned that their results were based largely on a problem with their highly sensitive instruments.

Continue reading PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism

The Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine has retracted a 2011 paper after it was determined that the first author, then a post-doc at the University of Michigan, had plagiarized from another publication.

The first author of the retracted article, “Functionalization of titanium based metallic biomaterials for implant applications,” was the post-doc, Rahul Bhola, who received his PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and went to Michigan to work in the lab of Catherine Krull.

Fruit of that relationship was the paper — and here’s how that worked out: Continue reading Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism