A Massachusetts judge has dismissed a lawsuit by researchers who argued that an investigation by Harvard cost them job offers.
Last year, Piero Anversa, a stem cell researcher at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and a colleague, Annarosa Leri, sued Harvard over an investigation into their work that they claim damaged their reputations: Continue reading Judge dismisses cardiac stem cell researchers’ lawsuit against Harvard
The authors of a pair of papers in Molecular Pharmaceutics are retracting them following an investigation at the University of Colorado Denver, which found a graduate student had faked data.
Rajendra Kadam was a prominent member of the Research lab of Uday B. Kompella, until the investigation revealed earlier this year that he had “falsified” data from a liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) machine for years.
So far, we’ve found four retractions (including the latest two) and one expression of concern for Kadam. There may be more on the way: Continue reading “Falsified” data shelve two more drug studies from discredited U Colorado student
A graduate student at the University of Oregon in Eugene has admitted to faking data that appeared in four published papers in the field of visual working memory, according to the Office of Research Integrity.
David Anderson’s supervisor at the time was Edward Awh, who has since moved to the University of Chicago.
Anderson told Retraction Watch that the misconduct stemmed from “an error in judgment”:
Continue reading Oregon grad student admits to faking data in four neuroscience papers
A former postdoctoral fellow at Penn State University faked numerous data and analyses in a manuscript submitted to Molecular Cancer Research, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
In a notice released today, the ORI found Julie Massè: Continue reading Penn State postdoc faked data in cancer manuscript
An official inquiry by the University of Pittsburgh has led to two more retractions for a pair of cancer researchers, Tong Wu and Chang Han. By our count, the pair now have four retractions under their belt, all the result of the university investigation.
The Journal of Biological Chemistry published the notices earlier this month, after it was discovered the papers contained cropped panels, among other issues. Importantly, the two papers appear to even have shared some data.
One 2006 paper, “Modulation of Stat3 Activation by the Cytosolic Phospholipase A2α and Cyclooxygenase-2-controlled Prostaglandin E2 Signaling Pathway,” investigated the molecular actors in cancer growth, such as overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). It has been cited 34 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice:
As a consequence for academic “negligence” which resulted in two retractions, biologist Jens Schwamborn was banned from seeking funding from German funding agency DFG for one year.
The ban — which ended in March, 2015 — was the result of an investigation by DFG and the University of Münster, which reviewed the issues that led to retractions of two papers about neuron development, one in The EMBO Journal, and another in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Here’s the official statement on the ban, sent to us by Head of Communications Britta Schlüter at the University of Luxembourg, where Schwamborn now works:
Continue reading “There has been negligence”: Biologist banned for one year by German funding agency
More than 20 years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permanently debarred a former chemist for accepting bribes — and a puzzling 17 years after he asked for a pardon after helping the agency prosecute other cases — the FDA is lifting its debarment.
In 1994, chemist David J. Brancato:
…was permanently debarred from providing services in any capacity to a person with an approved or pending drug product application…
This suggests that he wasn’t even able to work with anyone with an FDA-approved product.
The reason the debarment was lifted?
A biologist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio has retracted a paper from Inflammatory Bowel Diseases after a university review found the figures within it could not be “validated by original data.”
The 2010 paper, “Elevated IL-13Rα2 in intestinal epithelial cells from ulcerative colitis or colorectal cancer initiates MAPK pathway,” concerns the elevated expression and role of an inflammatory protein in colon cancer cells.
According to the notice, corresponding author and biologist Alan Levine — who recently received a $3.9 million Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse — requested the retraction.
Here’s the full notice: Continue reading Gut paper retracted after university review says “figures cannot be validated by original data”
Matthew Whitaker at Arizona State University is revising a textbook about modern African-American history after it was found to contain “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material,” according to a statement from the author.
The revised version of the book Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama will include “a statement of apology and admission of error.”
As a result, Whitaker has been demoted to Associate Professor (from full Professor), costing him $20,000 per year in salary and stipend, according to The Arizona Republic. His previous salary was $163,530.
In addition,
High-profile plant biologist Olivier Voinnet has been suspended for two years from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) following the results of two investigations that revealed a number of issues in his publication record.
An investigation at ETH Zurich found that the scientist “breached his duty of care in the handling of figures as well as in his supervisory duties as a research director.”
Another investigation at CNRS, where Voinnet also works as a researcher, also found “the existence of deliberate chart/diagram manipulations” — while not “fabrication,” these breaches “amount to scientific misconduct,” according to a press release about the report.
The ETH committee uncovered multiple errors, from the “mere confusion of correct and incorrect figures” to “the ‘beautification’ of figures,” but said that it was not scientific misconduct, according to ETH guidelines: