Category: oxford university press

Two more retractions appear for prominent MIT cancer researcher Robert Weinberg

genes and developmentTwo identical retraction notices have popped up for MIT professor Robert Weinberg, a highly-cited cancer researcher who had a retraction and a correction in 2013, both in Cancer Cell. 

These two new retractions, in Genes and Development, stem directly from another paper by Weinberg and colleagues in Cell that will apparently be retracted, as the “same analytical methodology was used,” according to the notices [see bottom of the post for an update].

Weinberg is highly regarded, and at least 20 of his papers have been cited over a thousand times.

First author Scott Valastyan was a promising postdoc at the time of the paper’s publication. He was a 2011 Runyon Fellow at Harvard, a three-year, $156,000 award for outstanding cancer postdocs. He doesn’t seem to have published anything since 2012, though he is listed as a joint inventor with Weinberg on patents filed in 2009 and 2014.

Here are the notices for “Concomitant suppression of three target genes can explain the impact of a microRNA on metastasis” (cited 73 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge) and “Activation of miR-31 function in already-established metastases elicits metastatic regression” (cited 54 times), both paywalled: Continue reading Two more retractions appear for prominent MIT cancer researcher Robert Weinberg

A ewe-turn: Researchers lose sleep, and paper, over miscounted sheep

Suspicious sheep via John Haslam
Suspicious sheep via John Haslam

A group of Chinese cardiologists at Capital Medical University have done a quick ewe-turn, pulling a paper after mixing up both the author order and wrongly reporting how many sheep were killed in the making of this experiment.

We covered another retraction from the CMU cardiology department in September. The sheep paper was published in October.

Here’s the notice for “Mosaic tissue-engineered porcine pulmonary artery valved conduit: long-term follow-up after implantation in an ovine model”: Continue reading A ewe-turn: Researchers lose sleep, and paper, over miscounted sheep

Three more retractions appear for Florida ob-gyn under investigation

University of Florida
Nasser Chegini via University of Florida

Two Oxford journals have now put out three more retractions for ob-gyn and former University of Florida professor Nasser Chegini, who has been under ORI investigation since at least 2012. That makes a total of five retractions, by our count.

Here is the notice for “The expression profile of micro-RNA in endometrium and endometriosis and the influence of ovarian steroids on their expression” in Molecular Human Reproduction: Continue reading Three more retractions appear for Florida ob-gyn under investigation

“Significant” copying forces retraction of sternotomy paper

icatsInteractive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery has yanked a 2005 sternotomy paper by a group of researchers who plagiarized from an earlier article on the subject.

The article, “The complications of repeat median sternotomy in paediatrics: six-months follow-up of consecutive cases,” came from a team at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, England, and has been cited eight times, according to Scopus.

Here’s the notice:

Continue reading “Significant” copying forces retraction of sternotomy paper

Kidney journal pulls abstract for author issues

ndtcoverNephrology Dialysis Transplantation has retracted a 2014 meeting abstract by a group of researchers on Crete whose ranks were inflated by one.

The abstract, titled “GENOTYPE (A) OF ENOS GENE AND R229Q MUTATION OF NPHS2 APPEARS TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH A WORSE OUTCOME IN PATIENTS WITH IGA NEPHROPATHY,” was presented at the European Renal Association-European Dialysis Association’s annual meeting.

Here’s what it reported: Continue reading Kidney journal pulls abstract for author issues

Heart journal pulls paper for image manipulation

cardresCardiovascular Research has retracted a 2010 paper by a group of prominent cardiology researchers in Brazil.

The reason: Image manipulation — which the authors say didn’t materially affect the conclusions of the paper.

The article, “FAK mediates the activation of cardiac fibroblasts induced by mechanical stress through regulation of the mTOR complex,” came from a group led by Ana Paula Dalla Costa, from the State University of Campinas.

Here’s the abstract of the study, which has been cited 19 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Heart journal pulls paper for image manipulation

Heart paper will go on, but only in the first of two journals it was published in

Cardiovascular ResearchA cardiovascular group has retracted a conference proceeding abstract, because it too closely resembled a paper they published prior to the conference.

The last author is baffled as to why the journal couldn’t have made that call before they published the abstract.

Here’s the notice for “Increased beta-adrenergic inotropy in ventricular myocardium from Trpm4 knockout mice”: Continue reading Heart paper will go on, but only in the first of two journals it was published in

Publisher updates with more info on staph retraction

cidWe brought you this story last week, about a paper on drug resistant staph being retracted for a lab error. Now, we’ve got an update from Rachel Safer, senior editor for medical journals at Oxford University Press, where the paper was published.

Apparently, the researchers “inadvertently relied upon the use of a test system that was not approved for the microorganism studied in their paper,” leading to the retraction, and the corresponding author of the study wasn’t initially all that responsive:

Continue reading Publisher updates with more info on staph retraction

87% of bugs resistant to antibiotics? Not so fast, as staph paper yanked after staff mistake

What could have been a truly scary study about drug resistant staph infections in hospitals has been retracted due to a lab error.

6.coverResearchers at a community hospital in Pittsburgh claimed that the commonly quoted 3% rate of staph that is resistant to ceftriaxone and sensitive to methicillin was drastically understated. However, an “honest error in the interpretation of a key lab test” called the findings into question.

Here’s the abstract: Continue reading 87% of bugs resistant to antibiotics? Not so fast, as staph paper yanked after staff mistake

Article about alcohol withdrawal withdrawn

A stumble in data preparation earned a retraction for a paper on delirium tremensalcohol_and_alcoholism, a life-threatening side effect of alcohol withdrawal that spans a wide range of symptoms, including hallucinations and seizures.

Though the initial retraction notice was extremely unhelpful, the author stepped in to give us a better picture of the errors that led to the paper’s demise.

Here’s the notice from Alcohol and Alcoholism about “Biochemical Predictors of Delirium Tremens in Patients in Alcohol Withdrawal”:

Continue reading Article about alcohol withdrawal withdrawn