Category: author objections

More questions arise over gene-editing tool

13238A new letter signed by 20 researchers is casting additional doubts on the validity of a potentially invaluable lab tool — and alleges the lab that produced the initial results turned them away when they tried to replicate its findings in mammalian cells.

In a letter published this week in Protein & Cell, the researchers add their voices to the critics of the gene-editing technique, first described earlier this year in Nature Biotechnology.

The researchers outline their attempts to apply the technique — known as NgAgo — to a variety of cell types, which fell short:

Continue reading More questions arise over gene-editing tool

Authors retract paper lacking approval to study asthma in athletes

british-journal-of-sports-medicineThe authors of a 2014 study about asthma in Norwegian athletes have retracted it after realizing they hadn’t obtained proper approval from an ethical committee.

The study’s first and corresponding author of the study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine — Julie Stang from the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences in Oslo — told us the authors had struggled to obtain ethical approval for the research, but believed the issue had been resolved.

However, earlier this year, a member of an ethical committee wrote an article in the Norwegian press about his concerns regarding the study, which tested the effects of three drugs on top athletes’ breathing. In it, he said the Regional Committees for medical and health professional research ethics (REC) had not approved the study, as members were concerned the presumably healthy athletes were being exposed to drugs used to treat asthma, which could enhance their performance. 

Stang has denied that the study had anything to do with boosting athletic performance.

Stein Evensen, the committee member who wrote the article, declined to comment beyond the published text. So we’ve gotten the kronikk article translated from Norwegian using One Hour Translation. It reads: Continue reading Authors retract paper lacking approval to study asthma in athletes

Researcher denies faking reviews for 5 newly retracted papers

engineering-failure-analysisJournals have retracted five papers by a materials researcher based in Poland after concluding the peer-review process had been faked. 

According to the retraction notices — which all appear in Elsevier journals and contain the same text — the papers were accepted due to “positive advice of at least one faked reviewer report,” which were submitted from fictitious email accounts for reviewers suggested by the author.

All five studies were solely authored by Mariusz Książek, who is based at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in Poland, and has denied any wrongdoing.

A spokesperson from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology confirmed that the university “has taken legal actions.” 

Książek told Retraction Watch why he doesn’t agree with the decision to retract his papers: Continue reading Researcher denies faking reviews for 5 newly retracted papers

Journal pulls plug on paper that predicts person’s death, against authors’ objections

frontier-in-human-neuroscienceSome people can look at an old photograph of a person — say, of your grandmother in elementary school — and tell whether the person is today alive or dead, according to a paper published last spring.

If that sounds too weird to be true…well, it might be. The journal editors have retracted the paper for not having enough evidence to back up its claims, despite the authors’ objections.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Prediction of Mortality Based on Facial Characteristics,” published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience:

Continue reading Journal pulls plug on paper that predicts person’s death, against authors’ objections

Two journals, same name: Did one editor retract the other’s paper?

amphibian-and-reptile-conservationTwo journals sharing the same title — allegedly due to an “academic divorce” between the founders — are giving two different accounts to why a paper may (or may not) have been retracted.

Confused yet? We are.

Here’s what we can piece together. The journal Amphibian and Reptile Conservation once had two editors, Craig Hassapakis and Robert Browne; both names appear on the same cover of a 2011-2012 issue of the journal, as librarian Jeffrey Beall noted in a blog post published last year. But since then, there seems to have been an “academic split” between the two (as defined by Beall), and each now publishes a different version of the publication named Amphibian and Reptile Conservation.

Recently, we came across a 2013 paper co-authored by Browne marked “Retracted” on the version of the site founded by Craig Hassapakis. Browne’s version of the journal can be found here. 

Meanwhile, the study’s first author, Omar Fadhil Al-Sheikhly from the University of Baghdad in Iraq, claims the paper was never retracted in the first place: Continue reading Two journals, same name: Did one editor retract the other’s paper?

Neuro journal pulls paper due to doubts over authors’ identities

international-journal-of-neuroscienceA neuroscience journal has retracted a 2015 study after noticing the author list changed from submission to publication.

According to the retraction notice in the International Journal of Neuroscience, “conflicting messages” were conveyed between the study’s alleged two lead authors, causing the journal to doubt the provenance of the paper.

All the study’s authors are listed as affiliated with The People’s Hospital of Laiwu City in Shandong, China.

Here’s the retraction notice, issued earlier this year: Continue reading Neuro journal pulls paper due to doubts over authors’ identities

Who wrote this chem paper? Author claims her name was removed without consent

Spectrochimica ActaA researcher is claiming that her former PhD students impersonated her to remove her name as a co-author on a 2015 study.   

According to an editor’s note, published in Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, the journal received confirmation from all three authors that the aforementioned researcher should be removed from the author list during proofing stage. However, the researcher whose name was omitted — Nahid Nishat of the Jamia Millia Islamia in Jamia Nagar, New Delhi, India — later contacted the journal claiming that she didn’t okay this move.  

Nishat told Retraction Watch that she believes the two listed authors on the paper wrote to the journal on her behalf to remove her name:  Continue reading Who wrote this chem paper? Author claims her name was removed without consent

Authors pull malaria study after arguing over the results

journal-of-advanced-pharmaceutical-technology-researchResearchers have retracted a study about malaria infections in India after follow-up research unveiled problems with the data and set off a dispute among the authors.

According to the notice, when the authors continued their research on the same topic, some of the new data raised concerns about what was reported in the 2010 paper. That set off a “number of disputes between authors,” which led them to retract the paper.

This account was supported by the study’s first and corresponding author, Naitik Trivedi, from the A.R. College of Pharmacy & G.H. Patel Institute of Pharmacy in Anand, Gujarat, India. Trivedi told us he believes the previous study didn’t include some relevant parameters, which affected the results. 

Trivedi noted that all the authors agree to the retraction, adding: Continue reading Authors pull malaria study after arguing over the results

Chem paper “the product of intentional, knowing, or reckless falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism”

rsc-advancesA journal has retracted a study after an institutional investigation concluded that it was riddled with misconduct.

According to the retraction notice in RSC Advances, the first author submitted the paper without the knowledge of the other two co-authors, and the paper was falsified, fabricated, and plagiarized. The notice cites a probe at the University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville — where all three listed authors are based — that concluded the study’s findings were invalid.

We asked a UT spokesperson if the first author, Sammy Eni Eni, was still based at the institution, and received this response: Continue reading Chem paper “the product of intentional, knowing, or reckless falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism”

Cancer biologist says Nature journal “censored” his News & Views, retracts it

nature-reviews-clinical-oncologyA cancer biologist has retracted a 2016 News & Views article in a Nature journal, alleging that the journal tried to censor his writing by asking him to remove passages that criticized another journal (Cell). 

Carlo Croce, the sole author of the article in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology from Ohio State University in Columbus, described the journal’s actions to us as “disgusting” and “worrisome.”

A spokesperson from the journal sent us this statement:

We regret that this situation occurred. We cannot comment beyond the retraction notice.

This isn’t Croce’s first retraction (we just found another recent one, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, over image problems). He’s also co-authored multiple papers with Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy who has nine retractions under his belt, and is undergoing criminal investigation for scientific misconduct.

Here’s the retraction notice, published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology on October 4: Continue reading Cancer biologist says Nature journal “censored” his News & Views, retracts it