Category: biochemical pharmacology

Journal retracts nine papers in one day by author under investigation at the Weizmann Institute

On April 27, the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) retracted nine papers by a researcher based in Israel, including some dating back to 2000.

The reason: Image manipulation.

Michal Neeman, vice president of The Weizmann Institute of Science, told us that the researcher, Rony Seger, is under investigation following an allegation of misconduct affecting papers in multiple journals.

So far, we’ve found 11 retractions for papers by Seger, a molecular biologist. In the notices, the authors state they have “full confidence” in the findings, and in many instances have replicated the work.

According to Neeman:

Continue reading Journal retracts nine papers in one day by author under investigation at the Weizmann Institute

Journal retracts 7 papers by MD Anderson cancer researcher long under investigation

aggarwal
Bharat Aggarwal

An MD Anderson Cancer Center researcher who has been under investigation by the institution for at least several years has had seven papers retracted from a single journal.

Bharat Aggarwal told us in 2012 that MD Anderson was investigating his work, but in 2013 threatened to sue us for reporting on the case. Aggarwal is no longer listed in the MD Anderson directory, and an email to him there bounced.

This week, Biochemical Pharmacology retracted seven studies of which he is the only common author, noting the “data integrity has become questionable.” The papers have been cited a total of more than 500 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge; one has been designated as “highly cited.” Here are the seven retractions: Continue reading Journal retracts 7 papers by MD Anderson cancer researcher long under investigation

University of Sao Paulo fires professor after a retraction for plagiarism

February has turned out to be a bad month for people found guilty of plagiarism. On Friday, we covered the case of the German foreign defense minister who lost his PhD after his university became aware he had copied passages from newspaper stories into his thesis.

And now we’ve learned that the University of Sao Paolo Paulo (USP) dismissed a full professor earlier this month after an investigation into a study he retracted last year because parts of it had been plagiarized. It has also stripped one of the professor’s former students of her PhD. Continue reading University of Sao Paulo fires professor after a retraction for plagiarism