A university in Japan has found a former professor guilty of falsifying and altering images in four published papers, including a 2014 paper about stem cells.
On Dec. 15, Tottori Universityannounced the results of its misconduct investigation, in which the cancer researcher, Norimasa Miura, confessed to altering images in the four papers.
It’s unclear why “Profiling taste-motivated segments” is being retracted (we asked the journal, but haven’t immediately heard back); some potential issues were flagged in March by Nick Brown, a PhD student who has devoted hundreds of hours to analyzing Wansink’s work (and forwarded us the email from Appetite confirming the upcoming retraction).
For instance, Brown alleged the article contains duplicated material, and similarities to the results from another 2002 paper that also measured soy consumption. After analyzing those two papers and a 2004 paper (also about eating soy), Brown concluded:
A university investigation has found falsified data in a 2011 paper about the side effects of a virus commonly used in gene therapy.
The authors are retracting the paper, but one co-author told Retraction Watch they stand by their main conclusions. According to Roland Herzog, a professor at the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine and a co-author of the paper, the falsified data were related to a minor part of the paper.
An investigation at Uppsala University has found the authors of a retracted Science paper — which explored the threat of human pollution on fish — guilty of misconduct.
The decision, published yesterday, states that both authors—Peter Eklöv and Oona Lönnstedt—“violated the regulations on ethical approval for animal experimentation,” and Lönnstedt, the paper’s corresponding author, “fabricated the results.”
As a bone researcher continues to accrue retractions, an investigation at his former university has found misconduct in more than a dozen papers.
On Nov. 15, Japan’s Hirosaki University announced it had identified fabrication and authorship issues in 13 papers by Yoshihiro Sato, and plagiarism in another.
Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher who has faced numerous research misconduct allegations, recently accused a former lab member of misconduct. Although an institutional probe did not support that allegation, Croce’s efforts have led to a retraction.
In November 2015, Croce and another cancer researcher at Ohio State University (OSU), Ramiro Garzon, contacted PLOS ONE, alleging that the paper’s corresponding author, Stefan Costinean, published data without their knowledge or permission and without “accurately acknowledging their contributions to the research.” Although the PLOS ONE paper mentioned Croce’s and Garzon’s contributions in the acknowledgements section, the two were not included as co-authors. We have obtained a copy of the report describing OSU’s preliminary probe; it did not find evidence of misconduct, but recommended the paper be retracted for using data without permission. Although Costinean disagreed, the journal has since retracted the paper.
Croce has been on the other side of this process: Seven of his papers have been retracted for issues including manipulation and duplication. After a New York Times article, published in March, explored misconduct allegations against Croce, OSU said the university is “instituting an independent external review.” Croce is currently suing the New York Times, alleging that the newspaper defamed him in the story.
A university in Japan dismissed a researcher earlier this month after a probe uncovered evidence of image falsification in several of his papers.
The immunology researcher, Masashi Emoto, denied any wrongdoing. He has said that the experiments in question were performed by another researcher and “he was not responsible” for the falsification.
In 2013, Emoto filed a suit against Gunma University, in which he claimed another researcher possessed the raw data for the experiments in question. Emoto requested those documents be returned to him. However, the court determined that Emoto possessed the raw data.
According to the report — released by Gunma University on October 11 — without the raw data, the university could not prove Emoto committed the misconduct. However, the university determined that, as the corresponding author on the four papers, Emoto was responsible for the work.
Last year, the fallout from a misconduct investigation at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore resulted in the university revoking the PhD of a Harvard research fellow, and a senior researcher losing his job. In July 2016, NTU told us another researcher who could not be named at the time had also come forward and confessed to making up data.
A university in Japan has found a former professor guilty of falsifying and altering images in four published papers, including a 2014 paper about stem cells.
