The Lancet has retracted a study of Novartis’ blood pressure drug valsartan (Diovan) that has been subject to an investigation following the retraction of a related study earlier this year.
Continue reading Lancet retracts Jikei Heart Study of valsartan following investigation
The humble chickpea has become one of the world’s most promising cash crops, so it’s no surprise that efforts are underway to make it even more humble, er, profitable, through genetic manipulation.
But one group of scientists made hummus out of their approach when they botched what evidently was a key element of a figure in their 2011 paper in Plant Cell Reports (PCR).
The article, “High-efficiency Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and regeneration of insect-resistant transgenic plants,” came from researchers at the National Botanical Research Institute in Lucknow, India. Cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, it purported to find that: Continue reading Figure error forces retraction of transgenic chickpea paper
The Journal of Immunology has retracted a 2011 paper on T cell activity after the authors decided they couldn’t stand by the reliability of the work.
The article was titled “Human Regulatory T Cells Require IL-35 To Mediate Suppression and Infectious Tolerance.” (On Pubmed the title has the rather ironic precursor “Cutting edge” in front). Here’s the abstract: Continue reading “Sufficient concern” about data prompts retraction of T-cell paper
We have knocked the Journal of Biological Chemistry in the past for what we believed to be needless — and unhelpful — obfuscation. And more recently, we have praised the journal for taking what we believe to be positive steps in the direction of greater transparency.
Here, again, we come not to bury JBC but to praise it.
The journal has issued a retraction for a 2011 article by a group of researchers in London, England, led by Stephen Perkins. The paper, “The solution structure of heparan sulfate differs from that of heparin,” purported to show that:
Continue reading Retraction of JBC heparan paper shows much to like
Try as we may, we can’t cover every retraction in real time. But on the principle that late is better than later, here’s one from 2012 that we’ve been meaning to get to.
The journal NeuroReport has retracted a 2011 article by a group of researchers who evidently discovered a fatal flaw in one of their figures.
The article, “Ghrelin prevents neuronal apoptosis and cognitive impairments in sepsis-associated encephalopathy,” by a team of intensivists from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, purported to find that ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, appeared to have something of a protective effect against the ravages of sepsis in rat brains. It has been cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, including once by the retraction.
As the abstract stated: Continue reading “Major error” forces retraction of ghrelin study
The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2012 paper by a group from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet for what appears to be research misconduct. But more on that in a moment.
The article, “The Existence of FGFR1-5-HT1A Receptor Heterocomplexes in Midbrain 5-HT Neurons of the Rat: Relevance for Neuroplasticity,” came from the lab of Kjell Fuxe, whose interests include Parkinson’s disease, addiction and depression. The first and second authors, Dasiel Oscar Borroto-Escuela and Wilber Romero-Fernandez, are listed as being post-docs in the lab.
According to the notice: Continue reading Journal of Neuroscience retracts plasticity paper for “substantial data misrepresentation”
A group of ecologists in Germany who published a paper on the potential impact of global warming on ants in the Harz Mountains — northern Germany’s highest range — have retracted the paper after becoming, well, a bit antsy about the validity of their findings.
The article, “Diversity of ants across an altitudinal gradient in and outside a spruce forest in the Harz Mountains, Germany,” appeared in August 2012 in the journal Insect Science, a publication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The last author of the paper was Christoph Scherber, of the University of Göttingen.
We found the abstract of the paper on this site: Continue reading Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results
A group of authors has withdrawn a paper from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), but readers won’t know why.
The paper, “Static High-Gradient Magnetic Fields Activate Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) Ion Channels Enabling Remote Control of Cell Function,” whose corresponding author is Thomas Simmet of Ulm University, appeared online on June 11. Since June 24, the PDF of the paper has been stamped: Continue reading Researchers get a mulligan: JBC paper withdrawn sans explanation
We’ve written before about retractions for cell lines that turn out not to be what researchers thought they were. In a few cases, that has involved contamination by HeLa cells, named for Henrietta Lacks. Today, we note the retraction of a paper whose authors, from Taiwan, thought they were using human muscle cells that line blood vessels when they were actually studying such cells from rat embryos.
Here’s the notice in the British Journal of Nutrition for “Molecular mechanism of green microalgae, Dunaliella salina, involved in attenuating balloon injury-induced neointimal formation”: Continue reading Cell line mixup causes retraction of paper on blood vessel damage
Here’s a good example of a retraction done the right way (we think).
The Journal of the American Chemical Society has retracted — at the behest of the principal investigator — a 2008 article by a group of researchers whose subsequent studies undermined their confidence in the validity of their initial findings.
The article was titled “Cooperative melting in caged dimers of rigid small molecule DNA-hybrids,” and it came from the lab of SonBinh Nguyen, of Northwestern University. As the paper’s abstract stated:
Continue reading We know why the caged dimers sing: They’re being retracted