We have an update on the case of Pankaj Dhonukshe, a scientist about whom we reported in November. Utrecht University has found that Dhonukshe, a former researcher at the Dutch university, committed “a violation of academic integrity” in work that led to a number of papers, including one published in Nature and once since retracted from Cell.
Here’s the university’s statement: Continue reading Utrecht University finds “violation of academic integrity” by former researcher
In yesterday’s Weekend Reads, we highlighted a piece by Hope Jahren explaining why she wouldn’t agree to a Q&A with Nature. We found out after Weekend Reads had posted that the story had moved on, so here’s an update.
Jahren was objecting — as did a number of people — to a letter published in Nature earlier in the week by Lukas Koube of Sherman, Texas, which began: Continue reading Nature apologizes for publishing letter dismissing need for gender balance
Shikeagi Kato, an endocrinology researcher who resigned from the University of Tokyo in March 2012 amid an investigation that concluded 43 of his papers should be retracted, has retracted five more papers.
The newest is in this week’s Nature, for “GlcNAcylation of a histone methyltransferase in retinoic-acid-induced granulopoiesis,” a paper first published in 2009. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Shigeaki Kato notches five more retractions, including one in Nature
A 2005 Nature study that has vexed one of its authors since 2007 is finally being retracted.
The notice for “Dance reveals symmetry especially in young men,” by William M. Brown, Lee Cronk, Keith Grochow, Amy Jacobson, C. Karen Liu, Zoran Popovic´& Robert Trivers, says very little: Continue reading At long last, disputed dance study retracted from Nature
Nature has retracted a controversial 2012 paper by a group from Johns Hopkins University which has been the subject of a protracted public dispute.
The article, “Functional dissection of lysine deacetylases reveals that HDAC1 and p300 regulate AMPK,” came from the lab of Jef Boeke, a celebrated biochemist. But a former lab member, Daniel Yuan, who was fired by Hopkins in late 2011 after 10 years at the institution, had repeatedly raised questions about the validity of the findings. Those concerns eventually made their way into the Washington Post, prompting this response from the university. Continue reading Nature yanks controversial genetics paper whose co-author was found dead in lab in 2012
Two of three authors in Argentina of a 2002 paper purporting to show evidence of bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic age have retracted it after subsequent research suggested their estimates were off.
Here’s the notice for “Bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic:” Continue reading Authors retract Nature paper on bird-like footprints thought to date to Late Triassic
We’ve often found that when some authors refuse to sign retraction notices, there’s a much bigger story than terse notices let on. And a retraction in this week’s Nature of a 19-year-old paper is a shining example of that.
Here’s the brief notice for “Oligosaccharide ligands for NKR-P1 protein activate NK cells and cytotoxicity,” a 1994 paper by researchers from the UK and the Czech Republic that had already been subject to a 1996 correction: Continue reading Retraction of 19-year-old Nature paper reveals hidden cameras, lab break-in, evidence tampering
Last month, Ivan met David Vaux at the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity in Montreal. David mentioned a retraction he published in Nature, and we thought it would be a great guest post on what it’s like to retract one of your own papers in an attempt to clean up the literature.
In September 1995 Nature asked me to review a manuscript by Bellgrau and co-workers, which subsequently appeared. I was very excited by this paper, as it showed that expression of CD95L on Sertoli cells in allogeneic mismatched testes tissue transplanted under the kidney capsule was able to induce apoptosis of invading cytotoxic T cells, thereby preventing rejection. As I wrote in a News and Views piece, the implications of these findings were enormous – grafts engineered to express CD95L would be able to prevent rejection without generalized immunosuppression.
In fact, I was so taken by these findings that we started generation of transgenic mice that expressed CD95L on their islet beta cells to see if it would allow islet cell grafts to avoid rejection and provide a cure for diabetes in mismatched recipients.
Little did we know that instead of providing an answer to transplant rejection, these experiments would teach us a great deal about editorial practices and the difficulty of correcting errors once they appear in the literature. Continue reading Why I retracted my Nature paper: A guest post from David Vaux about correcting the scientific record
The second of two corrections by McGill researcher Maya Saleh for what a university committee called “intentionally contrived and falsified” figures has run in Nature.
We reported in January that the McGill committee concluded that
two figures in [a] Nature paper had been “intentionally contrived and falsified.” One of those figures was duplicated in a PNAS paper, which also contained an image that had incorrectly labeled some proteins.
The committee recommended corrections for both of the papers. The PNAS correction ran in February. Now, the Nature Corrigendum has appeared: Continue reading Nature corrects figures McGill committee found had been “intentionally contrived and falsified”
A cell biologist at University College London (UCL) who has had one paper retracted and another corrected has been cleared of misconduct by the university.
The news, first reported by Times Higher Education, comes after a retraction of a paper by Giulio Cossu prompted by pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis that we wrote about in January.
Here’s the full text of UCL’s statement on the investigation: Continue reading UCL finds errors in work by biologist Cossu, but no “deliberate intention to mislead”