Category: image manipulation

Lab gadfly PETA pressures AACR, gets retraction from sanctioned scientist

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) may not be on most scientists’ list of Facebook friends, but we’re grateful to them for a hat tip. Several days ago, we were approached by Justin Goodman, associate director of PETA’s laboratory investigations department, with a new twist on an old story.

First, a little history: In September 2009, the Office of Research Integrity sanctioned an ex-Vanderbilt cancer researcher named Nagendra S. Ningaraj. According to the agency, Ningaraj Continue reading Lab gadfly PETA pressures AACR, gets retraction from sanctioned scientist

Mori, now up to 11 retractions, was dismissed in August over fraud matter

We’ve been honored by all the attention Retraction Watch has been getting for breaking the story of Naoki Mori—the Japanese virologist who recently received a 10-year publishing ban from the American Society of Microbiology over concerns that he manipulated his images. Mori’s retraction count is now up to 11, we’ve been able to report with help from loyal Retraction Watch tipsters.

So in that spirit, we have to give credit to Dennis Normile at ScienceInsider, for advancing the story a bit. As Normile reports today, Nori lost his job at University of the Ryukyus in August and has resorted to “legal mediation” to get it back. (We’ve been unsuccessful in reaching Mori.) Continue reading Mori, now up to 11 retractions, was dismissed in August over fraud matter

Four more Bulfone-Paus paper retractions accepted

About two weeks ago, we reported on the first retraction of a paper co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, whose work at her Research Center Borstel lab is being investigated for misconduct. On Friday, Borstel announced that journals had accepted four more retractions of papers by Bulfone-Paus’s group.

Three of those papers are in the Journal of Immunology (citations according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge): Continue reading Four more Bulfone-Paus paper retractions accepted

Fraud by Naoki Mori claims another paper, this one in a journal whose board he sits on

Late last month we wrote about a handful of retractions involving Naoki Mori, a promising Japanese cancer researcher who appears to have built a CV with the help of fabricated evidence.

The fraud earned Mori a 10-year publishing ban from the American Society of Microbiology, which publishes Infection and Immunity. There were two other retractions in Blood, from the American Society of Hematology.

Now, another journal has joined the party. Continue reading Fraud by Naoki Mori claims another paper, this one in a journal whose board he sits on

Paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus to be retracted

At least one of the dominoes may be falling from a scandal at Research Center Borstel.

Retraction Watch has learned that one of six papers that an investigation found to include data manipulation will be retracted by the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. The paper, “ATP induces P2X7 receptor-independent cytokine and chemokine expression through P2X1 and P2X3 receptors in murine mast cells,” includes Silvia Bulfone-Paus as a co-author. The retraction notice will appear in the March issue of the journal, editor Luis Montaner told Retraction Watch today.

Bulfone-Paus is at the center of a complex case, and we’ll refer you to Nature‘s excellent coverage. As Nature reported last month: Continue reading Paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus to be retracted

Update on Small retraction: Co-author says failed follow-up led to detection of tech’s fraud

We have a little more information on the lab-tech case out of the University of Chicago that we reported on last week. A brief summary: The journal Small retracted a 2007 paper on a method of producing insulin-secreting cells after one of the co-authors, a technician named Matthew Connors, was found to have fabricated a key figure. Connors has had a long career as a lab tech and his name has appeared on several published articles.

Reached by e-mail, Milan Mrksich, a chemistry professor at Chicago and a co-author of the retracted paper– as well as an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute — told us that the fraud surfaced during follow-up research: Continue reading Update on Small retraction: Co-author says failed follow-up led to detection of tech’s fraud

Japanese virologist hit with publishing ban after widespread data manipulation

A leading Japanese virologist has received a 10-year publishing ban from the American Society of Microbiology after many of his published articles were found to have evidence of data manipulation.

In its January 2011 issue, Infection and Immunity, an ASM title, is retracting five articles by the researcher, Naoki Mori, of the University of Ryukyus in Okinawa. The articles, published between 2000 and 2009, involve work on Helicobacter pylori which Nori conducted with co-authors from the United States and elsewhere. Some of the studies listed co-authors from drug companies, including Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim, although it’s not clear whether the companies helped support any of the research.

Despite the impending holidays, Ferric Fang, editor of Infection and Immunity, graciously and quickly replied to our request for comment yesterday (as he has before, about another paper in Nature involving fraud): Continue reading Japanese virologist hit with publishing ban after widespread data manipulation

Small problem: Nano-micro journal pulls diabetes paper with phony figure

Readers of this blog are aware that many of the retractions we’ve covered involve the misadventures of post-docs. That makes some superficial sense: post-docs, after all, are trainees, and therefore might be more likely to make mistakes. They’re also hungry to break into their chosen specialty, and how better to do that than by producing spectacular results? (None of this is to say that post-docs are by nature incompetent or venal — only that the raw ingredients exist for typecast villainy.)

But one figure about whom we haven’t written (to the best of our knowledge) is the career lab tech — until today.

Matthew Connors was working as a tech at the University of Chicago (Chief Research Technologist, on his online resume) when he became a co-author on a 2007 study, published in the journal Small, purporting to show a technique for encapsulating pancreatic islet cells in a coating that’s opaque to the immune system. As the researchers explained: Continue reading Small problem: Nano-micro journal pulls diabetes paper with phony figure

Update on a Best Of retraction: Elsevier edits notice suggesting renaming Israel “historical Palestine” was political

About two months ago, we posted an item on a curious retraction as the first installment in our Best of Retractions series. In the notice of the retraction in Agricultural Water Management, the editor wrote:

Reason: During the second revision of the manuscript, the authors modified Figure 1 (changing the label from “Israel” to  “Historical Palestine”), apparently with the goal of inserting a political statement into a scientific journal article. The authors did not inform the editors or the publisher of this change in their manuscript. As such, the authors have not lived up to the standards of trust and integrity that form the foundation of the peer-review process. The Editors-in-Chief take a very strong view on this matter and, hence, the retraction of the article from publication in Agricultural Water Management.

As Pieter van der Zaag, one of the paper’s authors informed us over the weekend in a comment on that post, however, the phrase “apparently with the goal of inserting a political statement into a scientific journal article” has now been removed from the notice. We asked van der Zaag, of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, for some more information. Here are his comments: Continue reading Update on a Best Of retraction: Elsevier edits notice suggesting renaming Israel “historical Palestine” was political

Best of Retractions Part III: Whatever can go wrong …

Paging Dr. Murphy.

In July, the editors of Cancer Biology & Therapy published a retraction remarkable for its scope. Apparently, nearly everything dishonest authors can do to doctor a manuscript, these authors did.

The paper, “Overexpression of transketolase protein TKTL1 is associated with occurrence and progression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma,” initially appeared on the journal’s website in January 2008. It came out in print three months later, in the April issue, and has been cited 8 times since, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

The authors were Song Zhang, Jian Xin Yue,  Ju Hong Yang, Peng Cheng Cai and Wei Jia Kong, of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Hubei, China. It will be quite clear why we listed all those authors in a moment. Continue reading Best of Retractions Part III: Whatever can go wrong …