nature retractions – Retraction Watch

Nature paper retracted after one investigation finds data errors, another finds no misconduct

Nature has retracted a paper on melanoma after an investigation by the journal found issues with data that rendered certain results statistically insignificant. A separate institutional investigation concluded misconduct wasn’t involved, the lead author says.

The research behind the article, published in April 2016, was conducted in the lab of Ashani Weeraratna, then at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. The paper has been cited 332 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The study investigated how the tumor microenvironment affected the spread of young versus aged cells.

An editorial investigation found some results in a figure were “no longer statistically significant, which affects the conclusions about therapy resistance,” according to the October 29 retraction notice. The inquiry also found “several errors in image and source data consistency,” as well as errors with the sample numbers given in the original study.

‘All authors agree’ to retraction of Nature article linking microbial DNA to cancer

A 2020 paper that claimed to find a link between microbial genomes in tissue and cancer has been retracted following an analysis that called the results into question.

The paper, “Microbiome analyses of blood and tissues suggest cancer diagnostic approach,” was published in March 2020 and has been cited 610 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. It was retracted June 26. The study was also key to the formation of biotech start-up Micronoma, which did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Rob Knight, corresponding author and researcher at the University of California San Diego, also did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Nature retracts highly cited 2002 paper that claimed adult stem cells could become any type of cell

Nature has retracted a 2002 paper from the lab of Catherine Verfaillie purporting to show a type of adult stem cell could, under certain circumstances, “contribute to most, if not all, somatic cell types.”

The retracted article, “Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow,” has been controversial since its publication. Still, it has been cited nearly 4,500 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science – making it by far the most-cited retracted paper ever.

In 2007, New Scientist reported on questions about data in the Nature paper and another of Verfaille’s articles in Blood. Nature published a correction that year.

The errors the authors corrected “do not alter the conclusions of the Article,” they wrote in the notice.

Former Stanford president retracts Nature paper as another gets expression of concern

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University who resigned earlier this year after an institutional research misconduct investigation, has retracted a paper from Nature. The journal’s editorial office marked another of Tessier-Lavigne’s articles with an expression of concern.

The two Nature papers – which have together been cited more than 1,000 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science – were among five the university investigation examined on which Tessier-Lavigne was the principal author. The other three have been retracted – two from Science and one from Cell. In a statement posted to his lab website July 19, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he planned to correct the two papers in Nature.

The retracted article, “APP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspases,” appeared in 2009. It has been cited 816 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The retraction notice stated:

Nature pulls study that found climate fears were overblown

It was that rarest of things: a sliver of good news about climate change.

According to calculations published last year in Nature, our planet was keeping pace, and then some, with rising emissions from tropical forest clearance by gobbling up more and more atmospheric carbon.

“What we can mainly prove is that the worst nightmare scenarios of an impaired carbon sink have not yet materialised and that the news is not quite as bad,” Guido van der Werf, a professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said in a press release at the time.

His coauthor Dave van Wees added:

Nature editors retract influential cancer paper with “unreliable” data

Editors at Nature have retracted a 2015 paper on breast cancer metastases citing trouble with the data in the supplementary materials.

The paper, “The hypoxic cancer secretome induces pre-metastatic bone lesions through lysyl oxidase,” was first published in May 2015 and has been cited 352 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

This marks the second retraction for corresponding author Janine Erler, a professor in cancer biology at the University of Copenhagen. As previously reported by Retraction Watch, Nature in 2020 pulled a 2006 paper on which she was first author because of “image anomalies” and the absence of original data. Two other papers co-authored by Erler have been corrected and one additional paper has an expression of concern.

Exclusive: NIH researcher resigned amid retractions, including Nature paper

A tenure-track investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a division of the National Institutes of Health, resigned in March, as questions mounted about her work, Retraction Watch has learned.

Jennifer Martinez has retracted at least two papers, including a 2016 Nature paper with the chair of the immunology department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and has another marked with an expression of concern.

The retraction is the first for Douglas R. Green of St. Jude, although he’s had a handful of corrections and two other papers he published in Nature have been questioned by scientists who couldn’t replicate the results.

After a postdoc at St. Jude, Martinez led an independent research program at NIEHS in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina since 2015, according to an online CV. She resigned from NIEHS in March and a federal research watchdog is looking into her work, a spokesperson told us:

Authors retract second Majorana paper from Nature

A year after retracting a Nature paper claiming to find evidence for the elusive Majorana particle that many hope would have paved the way for a quantum computer, a group of researchers have retracted a second paper on the subject from the same journal.

In the August 2017 paper “Epitaxy of advanced nanowire quantum devices,” Erik Bakkers of QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology, in The Netherlands, and colleagues claim that the work is a “substantial materials advancement that paves the road for the first Majorana braiding experiments.” The paper has been cited 189 times, earning it a “highly cited paper” designation from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

But the Majorana story has been unraveling after other physicists began raising questions. In March 2021, the group retracted a Nature paper. That was followed by an expression of concern for related work in Science in July, and another expression of concern in Science in December.

NASA researchers retract Nature paper on climate change and evapotranspiration

The authors of a 2021 Nature paper on how climate change might affect the amount of evaporation from the earth’s land surface have retracted the article after learning of a crucial error in their analysis.

The crux of the paper, titled “A 10 per cent increase in global land evapotranspiration from 2003 to 2019,” was the finding that:

Variability in global land evapotranspiration is positively correlated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The main driver of the trend, however, is increasing land temperature. Our findings provide an observational constraint on global land evapotranspiration, and are consistent with the hypothesis that global evapotranspiration should increase in a warming climate.

In other words, according to the authors – from a pair of NASA labs in California and Maryland – the rate of evapotranspiration over that 17-year-period was twice as high as previous estimates. As the lead author, Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell, said in this press release (Wayback Machine link) from NASA:

Researcher leaves Wistar Institute as he retracts a Nature paper

A group of researchers at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia have retracted a paper in Nature for data discrepancies and inconsistencies — as well as missing data. And one of the corresponding authors has left the institution, Retraction Watch has learned.

The paper, “IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance,” was published in December 2020 and has been cited 7 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the notice:

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