by journal – Page 2 – Retraction Watch

Genomics pioneer George Church earns first retraction for anti-aging gene therapy paper

A paper coauthored by geneticist George Church has been retracted following an internal review at a university where several coauthors are based.

The article appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022. The work supports an anti-aging gene therapy developed by BioViva, a company for which Church serves as an adviser. The paper’s authors claim cytomegalovirus (CMV) can be a gene therapy vector for a treatment for “aging-associated decline” that can be inhaled or injected monthly.

The work has been cited 41 times, two of which are citations from corrections to the article, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Fighting coordinated publication fraud is like ‘emptying an overflowing bathtub with a spoon,’ study coauthor says

The observed and forecasted growth rate of paper mill papers outpaces corrective measures, a new study finds. *R. Richardson et al./PNAS 2025*

Systematic research fraud has outpaced corrective measures and will only keep accelerating, according to a study of problematic publishing practices and the networks that fuel them.

The study, published August 4 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined research fraud carried out by paper mills, brokers and predatory publishers. By producing low quality or fabricated research, selling authorship and publishing without adequate quality control and peer review, respectively, these three groups were well known to produce a large volume of fraudulent research.

“This is a great paper showing how much fraud there is in the scientific literature. The paper also looks at different methods on how to detect problematic papers, networks and editors,” Anna Abalkina, a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and creator of the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, said.

Frontiers to retract 122 articles, links thousands in other publishers’ journals to “unethical” network

The publisher Frontiers has begun retracting a batch of 122 articles across five journals after an investigation found a network of authors and editors engaged in “unethical actions” such as manipulating citations and reviewing papers without disclosing conflicts of interest.

The publisher’s research integrity team has identified more than 4,000 articles linked to the network in journals owned by seven other companies, according to a company statement. The team said it is willing to share details and the methodology of their investigation with other publishers upon request. The company is a member of the STM Hub, a platform publishers use to share such information.

After 15 years of controversy, Science retracts ‘arsenic life’ paper

*Science* has retracted a 2010 paper describing a strain of bacteria that purportedly substituted arsenic for phosphorus, an element present in all known life.
*Science*/AAAS

Fifteen years after publishing an explosive but long-criticized paper claiming to describe a microbe that could substitute arsenic for phosphate in its chemical makeup, Science is retracting the article, citing “expanded” criteria for retraction.

The authors stand by their findings and disagree with the retraction, and contend the decision doesn’t reflect best practices for publishers.

Many scientists, including David Sanders, a biologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. who has previously argued for the paper’s retraction in posts for Retraction Watch, believe the paper’s results were simply the result of contamination of the authors’ materials. He told us he was “glad” to see the retraction.

Misconduct investigation at U.S. military university uncovers image duplication

Authors affiliated with a federal health sciences university have lost three papers this year for image duplication following an investigation by the institution. And another journal has confirmed it will retract a fourth paper by some of the same authors.

The “internal research misconduct investigation” conducted by the Uniformed Services University, or USU, in Bethesda, Md., found “several falsified or inappropriately duplicated images” and “images from previously published articles,” according to two of the retraction notices. USU, an institution focused on military medicine and part of the U.S. Department of Defense, acknowledged our multiple requests for comment about the investigation but did not provide a statement.

In January, Retraction Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request about the investigation. The Department of Defense acknowledged our request on January 7, noting the agency has 4,552 open requests that are processed in the order in which they are received.

Director of Cambridge toxicology institute retracts paper for potential image manipulation

Twelve years after sleuths flagged problematic images in a 2009 paper, the authors — including the head of a UK research institute — have retracted the article.

The paper, published in Genes & Development, has been cited 126 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

According to the June 1 retraction notice, the authors retracted the paper because of “anomalies in the data presented” in multiple figures. “The issues relate to potential instances of image manipulation, including undisclosed splicing, lane flipping, and lane and panel duplications in the preparation of these figures.”

Wake Forest cancer lab blames ‘honest mistakes’ for retractions

A prominent cancer research lab is up to three retractions and six corrections for “highly similar” images in papers published between 2018 and 2022.

The lab is led by Kounosuke Watabe at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Watabe holds one of three Wake Forest professorships all funded by a $2.8 million donation for cancer research in 2016.

Each of the retractions and corrections came after sleuth Kevin Patrick raised concerns about the articles on PubPeer in May 2024. Patrick, who identified instances of images in Watabe lab papers being “more similar than expected,” told Retraction Watch he wasn’t confident whether the image duplication could be attributed to misconduct. “I am never sure which is worse, misconduct or a pattern of errors. Neither seem to inspire confidence in the published results,” he said.

Watabe did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Retraction for ‘unsound’ analysis was ‘disproportionate and discouraging,’ author says

The editors of Scientific Reports have retracted an article on burnout because the statistical analysis of its main finding was “unsound.” But the authors dispute the editors’ take on the statistics and claim a mistake in the paper triggered an unfair review.

For the paper, published in November, the authors measured concentrations of cortisol in hair samples from nearly 500 healthcare workers in Buenos Aires to study the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on chronic stress and burnout. The analysis hinged on a statistical method called mediation analysis.

“Mediation analysis is a method to understand how one thing causes another by looking at what happens in between,” said lead author Federico Fortuna, of the Institute of Physiopathology and Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Buenos Aires. “In our study, we examined whether depersonalisation mediates the relationship between hair cortisol — a biological stress marker — and emotional exhaustion, a key psychological symptom of burnout.”

When it comes to conflicts of interest, affiliations are apparently no smoking gun

Seven papers on various aspects of vaping and cigarettes published in Toxicology Reports listed each authors’ affiliation – the tobacco company Philip Morris International – when they originally appeared in the journal between 2019 and 2023. And all but one article disclosed the funding for the research originated from the company.

That apparently wasn’t enough for the journal.

Toxicology Reports has issued a correction to add those affiliations as a conflict of interest. The statements were “missing or incorrect” in the original papers, according to the correction notice, published in the June 2025 issue of Toxicology Reports. In addition to reiterating that the authors work for PMI, the correction also adds to the conflict of interest statements that the authors were funded by the company and used its products in the research.

Viral paper on black plastic kitchen utensils earns second correction

The authors of a paper that went viral with attention-grabbing headlines urging people to throw out their black plastic kitchen tools have corrected the work for a second time.

But a letter accompanying the correction suggests the latest update still fails “to completely correct the math and methodological errors present in the study,” according to Mark Jones, an industrial chemist and consultant who has been following the case. “The errors are sufficient to warrant a restating of the abstract, sections of the paper and conclusions, if not a retraction.”

The paper, “From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling,” originally appeared in Chemosphere in September. The study authors, from the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future and the Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, looked for the presence of flame retardants in certain household plastic items, including toys, food service trays and kitchen utensils.

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