The carcasses are piling up.
Jesús A. Lemus now has eight retractions. Here’s the notice for the most recent: Continue reading Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction
Category: authorship issues
Med student loses paper when former boss claims right to data
As a first-year medical student at the University of California, San Diego, Jessica Tang already has an impressive CV. Her name has appeared on ten papers in the medical literature, including three in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. On one of these she was the sole author.
Except that one doesn’t exist anymore. But the reason for the retraction does not appear to involve shoddy work by the researcher. Rather, Tang failed to appreciate the politics of the lab in which she worked — and it cost her.
Continue reading Med student loses paper when former boss claims right to data
Retraction seven appears for Jesús Lemus
The retractions keep coming for Jesús A. Lemus. Here’s the notice for retraction seven, in Molecular Ecology: Continue reading Retraction seven appears for Jesús Lemus
Chemical engineer apologizes for “deliberate lapse,” retracts two papers from Croatian journal
A professor of chemical engineering in India has retracted two papers after what he called a “deliberate lapse” of submitting the work without the knowledge of his co-author.
The two papers by Kailas L. Wasewar, then an associate professor in the Chemical Engineering department of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in Nagpur, India — he appears to be at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee now — appeared in 2006 in consecutive issues of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Quarterly, the official journal of the Croatian Society of Chemical Engineers, Slovenian Chemical Society and Austrian Association of Bioprocess Technology.
The retraction notice appeared in the December issue, following a 27 November letter to the editor: Continue reading Chemical engineer apologizes for “deliberate lapse,” retracts two papers from Croatian journal
University of La Laguna ethics committee finds evidence of misconduct in chemists’ papers
A committee at the University of La Laguna (ULL), in Spain’s Canary Islands, has found evidence of misconduct by two chemists in at least two papers. One of those authors had already been forced to retract a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).
The story is complicated. Here’s a try at telling it: Continue reading University of La Laguna ethics committee finds evidence of misconduct in chemists’ papers
Environmental engineer loses paper after co-authors say he didn’t have permission to publish it
An environmental engineer at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University has been forced to retract a paper amid an ethics committee investigation into whether he had the right to publish it.
The Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology retracted a study from the Vitaly Gitis lab just months after its publication: Continue reading Environmental engineer loses paper after co-authors say he didn’t have permission to publish it
“Additionally, the authors were unable to identify” co-author: Another retraction for Lemus
We’ve been following the case of Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher with five retractions and two expressions of concern under his belt so far for suspected data fabrication and including a fake author on his papers.
Yes, a fake author. When this story first broke, El Pais called Javier Grande a ” ghost with a good academic background with at least six scientific publications in international journals.”
Grande’s — and Lemus’s — publication count declined by one more yesterday, as Environmental Microbiology retracted a 2007 paper: Continue reading “Additionally, the authors were unable to identify” co-author: Another retraction for Lemus
“This publication should be ignored”: Authorship issues, flawed data fell neuro-oncology paper
The Journal of Neuro-Oncology wants you to ignore the following paper: “A single chain (scFv425):sTRAIL fusion protein with specificity for the EGF receptor is effective in vitro but not in an in vivo brain tumor animal model.”
The 2007 article, from a group in The Netherlands, suffered from two fatal problems. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “This publication should be ignored”: Authorship issues, flawed data fell neuro-oncology paper
Two Moriguchi stem cell papers being retracted
It was, as Nature News wrote last month, a story that “seemed too good to be true:”
Stem-cell transplant claims debunked
Transplant of induced pluripotent stem cells to treat heart failure probably never happened
Hisashi Moriguchi, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, had claimed a result that would have put him years ahead of researchers toiling in stem cell research. But the claims were met with a great deal of doubt — to say the least — and the story began to unravel when Harvard, where Moriguchi said he’d done the work, denied it had ever taken place.
And as expected, the retractions have now started. Today, a Nature Publishing Group journal said they would be retracting two papers, “A therapeutic method for the direct reprogramming of human liver cancer cells with only chemicals” and “Successful cryopreservation of human ovarian cortex tissues using supercooling.” The notices for the Scientific Reports papers will both say the same thing: Continue reading Two Moriguchi stem cell papers being retracted
Bitter authorship issues prompt Expression of Concern in rheumatology journal
A difficult authorship dispute, involving two journals and at least two continents, has led to an Expression of Concern in the Brazilian Journal of Rheumatology.
Here’s the Expression of Concern: Continue reading Bitter authorship issues prompt Expression of Concern in rheumatology journal