Sometimes, an Expression of Concern says a heck of a lot without — as befits the genre — coming to a particular conclusion. Take this (paywalled)* example describing a paper from a group at Huazhong Science and Technology University, Wuhan, China: Continue reading Expression of Concern reveals journal editors bending over backward to give authors benefit of the doubt
Category: image manipulation
Misconduct at Oxford prompts retraction of insulin paper
Cell Metabolism has retracted a 2006 article by a group of researchers at Oxford in England after an investigation concluded that the first author had committed misconduct.
The paper, “Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase: A key role in insulin secretion,” came from the lab of Frances Ashcroft, a world-renowned expert on ion channels. (We’ve written about Ashcroft’s lab before.)
According to the abstract: Continue reading Misconduct at Oxford prompts retraction of insulin paper
Kidney researcher in Switzerland who lost professorship for data manipulation loses two papers
A kidney researcher in Switzerland was lost his professorship in October for manipulating data has retracted two papers.
Pascale Meier left CHUV and University of Lausanne last fall, and this week agreed to leave his clinical position at Valais Hospital after the hospital found “irregularities in the management of nephrology department and hemodialysis funds,” the Swiss media is reporting.
And yesterday, two retractions appeared in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Here’s the notice (sadly, behind a paywall) [see update at end of post]: Continue reading Kidney researcher in Switzerland who lost professorship for data manipulation loses two papers
Shigeaki Kato notches retractions 16 and 17, in PNAS
Shigeaki Kato has two more retractions, both in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Here’s one of the notices: Continue reading Shigeaki Kato notches retractions 16 and 17, in PNAS
Data manipulation knocks bird virus paper off perch
The Journal of Virology has retracted a 2010 article on avian viruses marred by signs of bogus data.
The paper, “Avian Reovirus Nonstructural Protein p17-Induced G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest and Host Cellular Protein Translation Shutoff Involve Activation of p53-Dependent Pathways,” came from a group at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, in Pingtung, China. It purported to find that: Continue reading Data manipulation knocks bird virus paper off perch
Out of the running: Dodgy blots prompt retraction of paper on marathoning and cell death
A group of exercise researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata has lost their May 2010 paper in BMC Physiology on the effects of marathon running on blood cells, because of figure irregularities.
The article, “The effect of marathon on mRNA expression of anti-apoptotic and pro-apoptotic proteins and sirtuins family in male recreational long-distance runners,” purported to find that marathoning arrested apoptosis, or programmed cell death. It has been cited 13 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to this press release: Continue reading Out of the running: Dodgy blots prompt retraction of paper on marathoning and cell death
Fourth retraction results from Cardiff investigation
Researchers have retracted a fourth paper following an investigation at Cardiff University that found evidence of image manipulation by a researcher named Rossen Donev.
Here’s the notice for “The mouse complement regulator CD59b is significantly expressed only in testis and plays roles in sperm acrosome activation and motility,” a paper first published in Molecular Immunology in 2008: Continue reading Fourth retraction results from Cardiff investigation
Five more retractions appear for Shigeaki Kato
Shigeaki Kato, the former University of Tokyo endocrinology researcher who resigned in 2012 and has retracted at least ten papers, by our count, has five more retractions.
Here are the papers, all in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC): Continue reading Five more retractions appear for Shigeaki Kato
University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction
A study published in Glia is being retracted following a university investigation that found “incorrect and, therefore, misleading” results in a number of figures.
Here’s the notice for “Jagged1 regulates the activation of astrocytes via modulation of NFκB and JAK/STAT/SOCS pathways” by Eleonora Morga, Laila Mouad-Amazzal, Paul Felten, Tony Heurtaux, Mike Moro, Alessandro Michelucci, Sebastien Gabel, Luc Grandbarbe, and Paul Heuschling: Continue reading University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction
Former NIH scientist falsified images in hepatitis study: ORI
A former postdoc at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) committed misconduct in a study of hepatitis by falsely claiming that data from a single trial subject were actually from more than a dozen different people, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has found.
The investigation was prompted by allegations made by readers of the paper. Baoyan Xu made what the ORI called “a limited admission” that “some better looking strips were repeatedly used as representatives for several times [sic].”
According to a report of the ORI’s findings to be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, the paper, “Hybrid DNA virus in Chinese patients with seronegative hepatitis discovered by deep sequencing, published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): Continue reading Former NIH scientist falsified images in hepatitis study: ORI