Category: by paywall status

8th retraction appears for researcher who faked patient records

S00219150An 8th paper has been retracted for Anna Ahimastos, a heart researcher who faked patient records.

It’s the last in a chain of retractions that were the result of an investigation by her former workplace, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute in Australia. As with the others, she did not agree to the retraction.

The investigation found fabricated patients records in some papers; in other papers, such as the newly retracted 2010 study in Atherosclerosis, the original data source could not be verified.  The latest retraction — “A role for plasma transforming growth factor-β and matrix metalloproteinases in aortic aneurysm surveillance in Marfan syndrome?” — followed up on a previous clinical trial, examining how a blood pressure drug might help patients with a life-threatening genetic disorder.

That previous trial — which also included 17 patients with Marfan syndrome treated with either placebo or perindopril — has been retracted from JAMA; the New England Journal of Medicine has also retracted a related letter.

The latest retraction note conveys similar information to the other perindopril/Marfan syndrome retractions: Continue reading 8th retraction appears for researcher who faked patient records

Johns Hopkins investigation leads to retraction of two lung papers, one highly cited

showCoverImageAn investigation at Johns Hopkins University has uncovered several issues with the figures in two papers on a lung disease linked to smoking, one of which is highly cited.

The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is retracting both papers, which examine the role of protein NRF2 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But both contain spliced and duplicated figures, among other issues.

Both papers — which share a total of five authors — received an expression of concern in 2014, after the corresponding author noticed anomalies in the figures. That same year, PubPeer commenters had begun raising questions about some of the figures in one of the papers.

A spokesperson for Johns Hopkins declined to say whether the investigation considered if the errors were the result of misconduct.

All authors agreed with the retraction, except for one who couldn’t be located. Here’s more from the retraction note for both papers:

Continue reading Johns Hopkins investigation leads to retraction of two lung papers, one highly cited

Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

1-s2.0-S0168365907X02700-cov150hA journal is Journals are retracting three papers after a biomaterials researcher duplicated his own work, sometimes using the same figures to describe different experiments.

Two of the papers are on bone regeneration; one is about targeting tumors. In addition to issues with figures, two one of the retraction notes explain that the papers contain “widespread plagiarism of text” from other papers by the researcher, Hossein Hosseinkhani.

Hosseinkhani is currently affiliated with the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology; when he did the work in the now retracted papers, published in 2004 and 2007, he was based at Kyoto University Hospital and then National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.

The Journal of Controlled Release published all three two of the papers. Here’s the retraction note for “Bone regeneration through controlled release of bone morphogenetic protein-2 from 3-D tissue engineered nano-scaffold,” which has been cited 118 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Continue reading Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

Investigation leads to 5th retraction for drug researcher

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 6.05.21 PMA pharmaceutical researcher has received his fourth and fifth retractions for duplicating papers.

Last we saw Giuseppe Derosa on this blog, he was notching retractions after publishing results from the same clinical trial in six different papers; as part of that fallout, a journal has pulled a fourth paper associated with the trial.

Here’s the note for “Effects of an olmesartan/amlodipine fixed dose on blood pressure control, some adipocytokines and interleukins levels compared with olmesartan or amlodipine monotherapies,” which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:  Continue reading Investigation leads to 5th retraction for drug researcher

Researchers plagiarized chapter of doctoral thesis in mol bio paper

mol cell biochemA journal has pulled a paper about the molecular details of different types of adipose tissues after learning the researchers had plagiarized much of a Ph.D. thesis.

The researchers copied from former Ph.D. student Bettina Meissburger’s doctoral thesis in a 2013 paper in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. The retraction note for “Adipose stromal-vascular fraction-derived paracrine factors regulate adipogenesis” provides the name of Meissburger’s thesis: Continue reading Researchers plagiarized chapter of doctoral thesis in mol bio paper

JACS imaging paper “under editorial review”

Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 2.02.27 PM

The Journal of the American Chemical Society has issued an expression of concern over “the presentation of results” in a 2014 paper about a new probe for use in imaging.

We haven’t heard back from the journal nor the authors of the paper, so there’s not much we can officially say about what the journal is investigating.

Here’s the text from the expression of concern:
 Continue reading JACS imaging paper “under editorial review”

After 10 years, a whistleblower is vindicated. Here’s why he kept going.

Stefan Franzen
Stefan Franzen

Stefan Franzen doesn’t give up. Ten years ago, he began to suspect the data behind his colleagues’ research about using RNA to make palladium nanoparticles, a potentially valuable tool that ended up as a Science paper. Recently, the National Science Foundation (NSF) decided to cut off funding for Bruce Eaton and Dan Feldheim — currently at the University of Colorado at Boulder — and last week, Science retracted the paper. We talked to Franzen, based at North Carolina State University (NCSU), about his decade-long efforts, and how it feels to be finally vindicated.

Retraction Watch: How did you first begin to suspect the findings by Eaton and Feldheim?

Stefan Franzen: Starting in early 2005, I was collaborating with Drs. Eaton and Feldheim at NCSU, thanks to two joint grants from the W.M. Keck Foundation and NSF. During a group meeting in December of 2005, a graduate student showed electron microscopy data that were inconsistent with the assignment of the particles as palladium. Over time, we kept producing more data that called their findings into question; in April 2006, a postdoc showed that the hexagonal particles could be obtained without RNA. By then, I could see that there was a significant discrepancy between what was written in the articles and what was done and observed in the laboratory.

RW: How did you report your concerns?

Continue reading After 10 years, a whistleblower is vindicated. Here’s why he kept going.

Labor pains study brought into this world twice

YJPAI_v16_i6_COVER.inddA group of authors published two articles about one study on pain during childbirth, so one journal is retracting it.

This may seem like a standard case of salami slicing — but this one comes with a nearly 600-word commentary co-authored by the editors of the two journals in question.

The commentary lays out — in a refreshingly transparent way — exactly why the journals came to a joint decision to retract one of the papers:

Continue reading Labor pains study brought into this world twice

2014 ORI finding results in retraction of cancer paper with manipulated images

Mol Can TherA paper flagged in an Office of Research Integrity notice more than one year ago has finally been retracted. According to the notice, the paper includes images manipulated by author H. Rosie Xing, a former University of Chicago cancer researcher.

The main conclusions of the paper are affected by the ORI finding, according to the retraction note from Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. But otherwise, the note contains information that was available in the ORI finding, published in December 2014.

“Pharmacologic Inactivation of Kinase Suppressor of Ras1 Sensitizes Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor and Oncogenic Ras-Dependent Tumors to Ionizing Radiation Treatment” has been cited seven times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — twice since the ORI finding came out.

The retraction note explains which images were affected by the manipulation:

Continue reading 2014 ORI finding results in retraction of cancer paper with manipulated images

Investigation prompts 5th retraction for cancer researcher for “unresolvable concerns”

3.coverAn investigation at the University of New South Wales in Australia has led to a fifth retraction for a cancer researcher long accused of misconduct, due to “unresolvable concerns” with some images.

As we reported in December, UNSW cleared Levon Khachigian of misconduct, concluding that his previous issues stemmed from “genuine error or honest oversight.” Now, Circulation Research is retracting one of his papers after an investigation commissioned by UNSW was unable to find electronic records for two similar images from a 2009 paper, nor records of the images in original lab books.

Again, the retraction note affirms that this is not a sign of misconduct:

UNSW has not attributed any instance of research misconduct or responsibility for the unavailability of the original data to Professor Khachigian or to any of the authors of the publication.

Here’s the retraction note in full for “Angiotensin II-Inducible Smooth Muscle Cell Apoptosis Involves the Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor, GATA-6 Activation, and FasL-Fas Engagement:” Continue reading Investigation prompts 5th retraction for cancer researcher for “unresolvable concerns”