Category: authorship issues

HIV paper retracted after authors recommend a colleague as a reviewer

Nothing like a little home cooking.

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy (GVT) has retracted a paper by a group of Pakistani authors who recommended one of their colleagues as a reviewer for their manuscript.

That’s not all: According to the journal, the researchers apparently also misappropriated data from a previous study.

The article in question, “Structure based sequence analysis & epitope prediction of gp41 HIV1 envelope glycoprotein isolated in Pakistan,” was published in June 2012. The first author is  Syyada Samra Jafri, who we see as being at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading HIV paper retracted after authors recommend a colleague as a reviewer

Updates: Journal of Climate adds info about withdrawn hot temps paper, chemistry journal corrects retraction notice

We have a few updates on stories we’ve covered.

In June, we wrote about the withdrawal of a paper claiming that temperatures in the last 60 years were warmest in the last 1,000 years. At the time, we reported, following posts by others, that the authors had been made aware of errors in their work and were withdrawing it to correct their calculations.

For several months, the page housing the Journal of Climate study read:

The requested article is not currently available on this site.

It still does. But another page that should house the paper now reads, as commenter Skiphil notes: Continue reading Updates: Journal of Climate adds info about withdrawn hot temps paper, chemistry journal corrects retraction notice

Two Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Advances retractions, for unreliable results, surprised author

Authors of two separate studies in RSC Advances — RSC is the Royal Society of Chemistry — have retracted their papers.

Here’s one notice, for “Laser-induced gold/chitosan nanocomposites with tailored wettability applied to multi-irradiated microfluidic channels:” Continue reading Two Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Advances retractions, for unreliable results, surprised author

Feeling sheepish: Another retraction for Lemus, of study of whether livestock can spread chlamydia to birds

Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work has been the subject of a misconduct inquiry, has another retraction for his CV. It’s his third, according to our count.

The newest retraction is from PLoS ONE:
Continue reading Feeling sheepish: Another retraction for Lemus, of study of whether livestock can spread chlamydia to birds

Walk (back) an Egyptian (vulture): Another paper by Spanish vet under scrutiny retracted

With apologies to the Bangles for this post’s title, we have another vulture-related retraction from Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose results have come into question.

This one involves a paper that appeared in PLoS ONE in 2009, titled “Susceptibility to Infection and Immune Response in Insular and Continental Populations of Egyptian Vulture: Implications for Conservation.”

According to the notice: Continue reading Walk (back) an Egyptian (vulture): Another paper by Spanish vet under scrutiny retracted

Hip, hip, hooray! Hip journal retracts paper that had, well, everything wrong with it

Sometimes, you just gotta retract.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Outcome of short proximal femoral nail antirotation and dynamic hip screw for fixation of unstable trochanteric fractures. A randomised prospective comparative trial,” originally published in Hip International in 2011 by a group of researchers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi: Continue reading Hip, hip, hooray! Hip journal retracts paper that had, well, everything wrong with it

Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s co-author removed from paper

The Ulrich Lichtenthaler publication record continues to unravel.

Lichtenthaler has retracted six papers, and a frequent co-author’s name has been removed from a recent paper in the Journal of Product Innovation Management. The paper, “The Performance Implications of Dynamic Capabilities: The Case of Product Innovation,” went online on June 12 of this year. Its abstract now includes this note: Continue reading Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s co-author removed from paper

Misconduct burns authors of wax paper, leads to sharply worded retraction notice

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A is retracting a 2010 paper whose authors misappropriated data, forged an author name — and got a pretty strong backhand slap for the trouble.

The paper, “Green waxes, adhesives and lubricants,” which refers to eco-friendly materials, not Halloween-friendly slimes, was published by a group of researchers from China and Canada. Problem was, the one from Canada evidently didn’t know she was listed on the manuscript, and a big chunk of the work had been misappropriated from her university.

As the notice explains: Continue reading Misconduct burns authors of wax paper, leads to sharply worded retraction notice

Journal retracts protein paper from scientist who misused deceased mentor’s data

It seemed like a touching tribute when Jiasheng Diao dedicated his 2009 article, “Crystal Structure of Butyrate Kinase 2 from Thermotoga maritima, a Member of the ASKHA Superfamily of Phosphotransferases,” in the Journal of Bacteriology to a deceased mentor, Miriam Hasson.

Before her death in January 2006, of a brain tumor, Hasson and her husband, David Sanders, made up a power-team of protein researchers at Purdue.

Hasson was an X-ray crystallographer while Sanders is a biochemist, and together they would map out the structure and function of proteins. One of their projects  was a  collaboration funded by a grant to Sanders from the National Science Foundation. By the time Diao joined, the effort had already led to butyrate-kinase crystals — albeit of poor quality, Sanders said.

When Hasson died, Sanders — with his institution’s blessing — took control of her data. That made sense, since their labs had collaborated closely. Indeed, they occasionally shared post-docs, including Diao, who had started with Hasson on a project looking at a protein called butyrate kinase but then moved over to Sanders’ lab as the work evolved. Continue reading Journal retracts protein paper from scientist who misused deceased mentor’s data

Correcting The Anatomical Record: Article pulled after former student lifted lab findings

The Anatomical Record, the official organ of the American Association of Anatomists, weighs its acceptances on “the quality of the research, its originality and significance to our readership.”

So it’s not surprising that when it gets duped, it gets angry.

Consider the following retraction notice that appeared recently in the publication for an article it ran early 2010: Continue reading Correcting The Anatomical Record: Article pulled after former student lifted lab findings