The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has asked a journal to retract two papers after revealing a former employee manipulated data.
The report does not name the individual nor the journal, but notes that they work in a molecular field, and are currently employed by a university outside The Netherlands.
According to a news release about the report: Continue reading Leiden requests two retractions over misconduct
Many figures in four papers by a research team in Malaysia contain duplication or manipulation, a university committee has found, calling for multiple retractions.
We learned about issues with three of the papers, including one in Scientific Reports, earlier this week when they were the talk of Twitter. As journals issued expressions of concern, and an expert wondered how the papers passed peer review at all, the first author, a researcher at the University of Malaya (UM), denied allegations of duplication.
UM was alerted to allegations of misconduct in the Scientific Reports paper last Saturday, and according to a statement published today:
Continue reading Figures questioned online were manipulated, says Malaysia investigation
Multiple investigations have been launched into allegations of blatant duplications by a research group in Malaysia.
Last week, users alleged on Twitter that three papers by the same team included pictures of cells that were copied and pasted. First author Nima Samie, affiliated with University of Malaya in Malaysia, denied the accusations — but both the Malaysian government and now two journals sees cause for further investigation.
Frontiers in Pharmacology published an expression of concern this morning:
An Italian court has acquitted a gastroenterologist who was accused of fraud and embezzlement.
An earlier institutional investigation into Stefano Fiorucci, based at the University of Perugia in Italy, found that he had manipulated images in publications that he allegedly used to win two million Euros of funding. The story, which has dragged on for years, has resulted in four retractions and nine expressions of concern for publications authored by Fiorucci.
Fiorucci’s lawyer, Stefano Bagianti, told us: Continue reading Researcher accused of fraud, embezzlement acquitted by Italian court
Biologists are retracting three papers after the journal concluded they contain reused images, designed to represent different experiments. The authors stand by the conclusions, some of which they say have been “extensively validated.”
The Journal of Biological Chemistry used image analysis software to evaluate the images, first published at least a decade ago. Unfortunately, the raw data behind the problematic images were not available. The authors have also corrected a fourth paper in another journal, and wrote on PubPeer that they are working with journals to address concerns in three more.
The papers share two authors: Mireia Duñach at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Antonio García de Herreros at the Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques. A representative of the Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques told us it is looking into Garcia de Herreros’s work.
We’ll start with “β-Catenin N- and C-terminal tails modulate the coordinated binding of adherens junction proteins to β-catenin,” which has been cited 45 times since it was published in 2002, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. The retraction notice says:
Continue reading Authors reused images in three papers, concludes journal probe
An investigation at Taipei Medical University found that an author made “serious mistakes” when preparing a manuscript.
The journal prompted the university to investigate the paper, which looks at the role of a protein in repairing arteries after an injury.
The retraction notice explains:
Continue reading Author “committed serious mistakes,” finds Taipei investigation
A week after announcing that a researcher formerly at the University of Chicago had faked the results of more than 70 experiments, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity announced yesterday that one of his colleagues also falsified data.
According to the ORI, Karen D’Souza Continue reading Fraudster’s colleague faked data, too
A former researcher at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago faked dozens of experiments and images over the course of six years, according to a new finding from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
Ricky Malhotra, who studied heart cells, admitted to committing misconduct at both institutions, the ORI said in its report of the case. The fakery involved three National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications, one NIH progress report, one paper, seven presentations, and one image file. Despite an investigation at the University of Michigan, where Malhotra was from 2005-2006, he continued this falsification at [University of Chicago], after the [University of Michigan] research misconduct investigation was completed,” according to the ORI. The agency found that he Continue reading Heart researcher faked 70+ experiments, 100+ images
New evidence suggests a retracted paper was felled not by intentional manipulation — as it first appeared — but by a software glitch.
In 2014, we reported that Biochemical Journal had retracted a paper on suspicion it contained “shoddy Photoshopping” — someone appeared to have blacked out a control lane in one figure. Now there’s evidence that it wasn’t done on purpose: An investigation at Duke into eight papers, including the Biochemical Journal paper, did not find evidence of misconduct; lead author Paul Kuo, currently chair of surgery at Loyola Medicine, told us that a glitch in the software caused the black box. Nevertheless, the journal does not plan to un-retract the paper. Continue reading Software glitch — not intentional manipulation — sunk immunology paper, says author
PLOS ONE has retracted a paper after editors learned that some of the images had been manipulated using Photoshop.
First author of the paper, Chuan Li, confirmed that he was responsible, and told Retraction Watch he apologizes for his “low-level mistake.”
Zhongfu Ni, last author of the paper from the China Agricultural University in Beijing, told us that all the co-authors agree with the retraction.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading PLOS ONE pulls maize paper with Photoshopped images