Category: expression of concern

A 14-year-old paper has earned an expression of concern after an anonymous whistleblower found evidence of image duplication in the work. 

The authors have had images from several more papers flagged on PubPeer. The corresponding author, Kelly McMasters, is chair of the Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD Department of Surgery at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. 

The 2010 paper, “Adenovirus-mediated expression of truncated E2F-1 suppresses tumor growth in vitro and in vivo,” appeared in Cancer. It has been cited 12 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

Continue reading ‘Mistakes were made’: Paper by department chair earns expression of concern as more questioned

An Elsevier journal has issued just over 100 expressions of concern for papers published by a group of researchers led by the French microbiologist Didier Raoult, who also notched a new retraction – his tenth – in a separate publication.

As we and others have reported, Raoult’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic drew intense scrutiny from data sleuths, most notably Elisabeth Bik – whose critiques, which extended beyond his COVID studies, were met with vicious online trolling and a legal complaint filed by Raoult himself. 

The allegations prompted an ethics investigation by the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products into Raoult’s research during his tenure at the IHU Méditerranée Infection, in Marseille, which he led between 2011 and his retirement as director in 2022. That inquiry found “serious shortcomings and non-compliances with the regulations for research involving the human person.”

The 101 expressions of concern come for papers Raoult and his colleagues published in New Microbes and New Infections. Here’s an example of one of the EoC’s, for “Genome sequence and description of Anaerosalibacter massiliensis sp. nov.,” which Raoult’s group published in March 2016:

Continue reading Embattled researcher Didier Raoult earns more than 100 expressions of concern and another retraction

A paper that led to hopes that Microsoft might one day build a quantum computer has “shortcomings” that do not rise to the level of misconduct, according to an expert panel convened by the University of Copenhagen.

The paper, originally published in March 2020 in Science, earned an expression of concern in 2021 following critiques of the work from two researchers, Sergey Frolov and Vincent Mourik. This week, Science editor in chief Holden Thorp replaced the expression of concern with an editor’s note referring to a new report from a panel of experts at the University of Copenhagen, saying  “we are alerting readers to this report while we await a formal decision on the matter from the Danish Committee on Research Misconduct.”

The panel’s report, dated Feb. 15, 2024, describes several of what it calls “shortcomings” but says “the excluded data did not undermine the paper’s main conclusions.” They also conclude the authors did not engage in “gross negligence” or scientific misconduct.

The last author of the Science paper, Charles Marcus, of the University of Washington, in Seattle, and the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, told Retraction Watch he and his colleagues followed the recommendations by posting: 

Continue reading Science ‘Majorana’ particle paper earns another editor’s note as expert committee finds no misconduct

Science has rescinded an expression of concern it issued one month ago after the authors provided data that “addressed concerns about the integrity of the paper.” 

The journal had published the expression of concern for the 2021 article “Light-induced mobile factors from shoots regulate rhizobium-triggered soybean root nodulation” after two separate readers contacted the editorial team about an issue in the paper, as we reported at the time. The expression of concern noted that “that data presented in Fig. 5 assessed GmNSP1 expression rather than GmNIN expression.”

The article has been cited 43 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The journal is publishing the newly submitted data as a correction, as well as an editor’s note explaining the removal of the expression of concern. The new notice states: 

Continue reading Science rescinds expression of concern issued last month

A paper published in Science two years ago has been flagged with an expression of concern while the editors give the authors a chance to correct a data issue identified by two different readers. 

“Light-induced mobile factors from shoots regulate rhizobium-triggered soybean root nodulation,” was published in September 2021 and has been cited 43 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The notice, published today, states: 

Continue reading Science paper marked with expression of concern after readers pointed out data issue

Mere days after tweets went viral pointing out  that the purported error bars in one figure of a paper were really just the capital letter T, the publisher has marked it with an expression of concern. [12/22/22: The paper has now been retracted; see an update on this post.]

And that’s not all that’s strange about the paper. 

The July 2022 article, “Monitoring of Sports Health Indicators Based on Wearable Nanobiosensors,” was published in a special issue of the journal Advances in Materials Science and Engineering, a Hindawi title. 

The article purports to show that using nanoparticles can better measure the biochemical fitness levels of elderly people than other methods. 

Continue reading A paper used capital T’s instead of error bars. But wait, there’s more!