Category: image manipulation

“Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

Screen Shot 2014-12-19 at 5.52.16 PMFrontiers in Pharmacology has retracted a paper on baicalin, an antioxidant sold in health food stores, because it had both “incorrect data and invalid statistical analyses.”

A comment on PubPeer notes that one of the figures (see image to the right) contains two similar-looking flow cytometry images labeled with different values, which could be what the retraction is hinting at.

Here’s the notice for “Baicalin induced dendritic cell apoptosis in vitro”: Continue reading “Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

Bernasconi_Premio_Roche2012_small
Riccardo Bernasconi

Most of the authors of two Molecular Cell papers have retracted them after becoming aware of inappropriate image manipulation by the first author of both — who refused to sign the notices.

One of the papers, “Role of the SEL1L:LC3-I Complex as an ERAD Tuning Receptor in the Mammalian ER,” earned first author Riccardo Bernasconi, who successfully defended his PhD in 2010, the STSBC-Roche Diagnostics award in 2012. Here’s the notice for that paper: Continue reading Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”

embo journalJens Christian Schwamborn, a stem cell researcher at the University of Luxembourg, is retracting a 2007 paper on how to grow brain cells.

The paper, “Ubiquitination of the GTPase Rap1B by the ubiquitin ligase Smurf2 is required for the establishment of neuronal polarity,” was published while Schwamborn was at Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universität Münster in Germany. An anonymous critic had sent questions about the study to Germany’s DFG in the middle of last year, and later to Paul Brookes, who posted them on PubMed Commons.

Those criticisms match the problems listed in the detailed notice: Continue reading Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”

Stem cell researcher Hanna “working…to correct the unfortunate and inadvertent mistakes” in papers

jacob
Jacob Hanna

Jacob Hanna of Israel’s Weizmann Institute has been a media darling for years, including as a member of the 2010 Technology Review 30 under 35 for his work with stem cells.

However, questions have been mounting about his research, both on PubPeer (which has critical comments for 15 papers he’s an author on) and in other stem cell labs, who have not been able to reproduce much of Hanna’s work.

We asked Hanna about a PubPeer entry specific to a 2005 paper in Blood. Commenters have accused the authors of figure manipulation and possible data republication. Here’s a figure from that post: Continue reading Stem cell researcher Hanna “working…to correct the unfortunate and inadvertent mistakes” in papers

Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

proteomicsAlfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy under criminal investigation, now has a seventh retraction for manipulated images.

Here’s the notice for “Retraction: Identification of new high mobility group A1 associated proteins,” to which not all of the authors agreed: Continue reading Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

JCI lymphoma paper retracted after authors can’t find underlying data to explain duplicated bands

Screen Shot 2014-11-25 at 5.12.55 PMA paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation has been retracted for manipulated images, including duplicated bands in a Western blot.

Take a look at figure one to the right and see if you can spot all the doubles.

Click here for a more zoomable image.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading JCI lymphoma paper retracted after authors can’t find underlying data to explain duplicated bands

COPD paper in JCI retracted following PubPeer critiques

jciA 2011 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation whose PubPeer entry we highlighted in September has been retracted.

Here’s the notice for “Denitrosylation of HDAC2 by targeting Nrf2 restores glucocorticosteroid sensitivity in macrophages from COPD patients,” a 2011 paper by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Imperial College: Continue reading COPD paper in JCI retracted following PubPeer critiques

PubPeer strikes again: Leukemia paper retracted for image duplications

bbaIn July, a PubPeer commenter called out a paper in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta for image duplication; by September, the paper was retracted for the exact reason detailed in the anonymous comment.

Here’s the notice for “Effect of ST3GAL 4 and FUT 7 on sialyl Lewis X synthesis and multidrug resistance in human acute myeloid leukemia,” a paper initially published in June: Continue reading PubPeer strikes again: Leukemia paper retracted for image duplications

Second retraction appears for arcade game-like image manipulation

Image via Wikimedia Commons
Image via Wikimedia Commons

In June, we reported on a retraction in Current Biology that came after a number of PubPeer commenters suggested that the authors had engaged in figure manipulation, memorably comparing watching the published videos to playing the old-school arcade game “Space Invaders.”

Now a second paper from the same team has been retracted from Biology Open after the authors “were unable to repeat the results.” The journal was unable to get in touch with first author Livana Soetedio, whom the University of Illinois at Chicago found had fabricated the data and images in both publications.

Here’s the notice for “Targeting of vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor 2, VPAC2, a secretin family G-protein coupled receptor, to primary cilia”: Continue reading Second retraction appears for arcade game-like image manipulation

Retraction appears for faked study of Novartis anti-cancer compound

Raymond Sawaya, director of MD Anderson’s brain tumor program, presents Jun Fu with the 2014 Caroline Ross Endowment Fellowship.
Raymond Sawaya, director of MD Anderson’s brain tumor program, presents Jun Fu with the 2014 Caroline Ross Endowment Fellowship.

A paper by a former postdoc at MD Anderson Cancer Center who “admitted to knowingly and intentionally falsifying” a figure has been retracted.

In August, the Office of Research Integrity announced that it had sanctioned Jun Fu for faking data in a study of the results of a mouse study of NVP-HSP990, a Novartis compound designed to fight brain tumors. Here’s the notice for the study in question, published in Cancer Research:
Continue reading Retraction appears for faked study of Novartis anti-cancer compound