A group of researchers in the Netherlands has retracted a paper once they realized that the findings weren’t reproducible and that there had been an error in the experiments.
Here’s the notice for “Ubiquitin‐specific protease 4 is inhibited by its ubiquitin‐like domain,” by MP Luna‐Vargas, AC Faesen, WJ van Dijk, M Rape, A Fish, and TK Sixma: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Authors retract protein paper after finding experimental errors
A research group in Scotland has retracted a paper in the Biochemical Journal after failed attempts to reproduce a key finding of the study.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Failure to reproduce result leads to disputed retraction
Two cancer researchers who hold a patent on a particular pathway that might be a target for new drugs — and one of whom leads a company that is studying those potential drugs — have retracted two related papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC).
The notices for “Kinase suppressor of Ras signals through Thr269 of c-Raf-1” and “The kinase activity of kinase suppressor of Ras1 (KSR1) is independent of bound MEK,” which share H. Rosie Xing and Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s Richard Kolesnick as authors, say the same thing: Continue reading Cancer researchers retract two papers in the JBC
The first retraction has appeared for Alfred Fusco, a leading cancer researcher in Italy under criminal investigation for fraud.
Here’s the notice from the Journal of Clinical Investigation: Continue reading Retraction appears for Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation
mBio, whose editor, Arturo Casadevall, has contributed greatly to our knowledge about why articles are retracted, has an interesting retraction of its own.
The journal — a publication of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Academy of Microbiology — is pulling a 2011 paper by a trio of researchers from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Li Tan, Mei Li and Charles L. Turnbough Jr. The article was titled “An Unusual Mechanism of Isopeptide Bond Formation Attaches the Collagenlike Glycoprotein BclA to the Exosporium of Bacillus anthracis.” The paper, which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web Knowledge, purported to show that:
Continue reading mBio retracts anthrax paper whose authors say they misinterpreted findings
A team of researchers led by Daniel St. Johnston, director of the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge and a prominent developmental biologist in the UK, has lost a pair of articles after finding that their data were unreliable. But rather than “correct” the record with subsequent papers, they’ve withdrawn the problematic work.
To our mind, this is a poster case of doing the right thing by science. We think the notices — as provided by the authors and reported by the journals — pretty much say it all, so we’ll let them speak for themselves, followed by some details St. Johnston shared with us.
The first article, “LKB1 and AMPK maintain epithelial cell polarity under energetic stress,” appeared in 2007 in the Journal of Cell Biology and has been cited 108 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the retraction notice:
A complicated case involving two microbiology researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) appears to have come to some conclusion.
In November of last year, we reported that Continue reading “Not exoneration”: University reverses sanctions on husband-wife team found to have manipulated images
Here’s a retraction from Stem Cells and Development that we’re just now getting around to covering. The paper, “Non-viral reprogramming of skeletal myoblasts with valproic acid for pluripotency,” appeared in June 2012 in a preliminary online form and was written by a group at the University of Cincinnati. As the retraction notice states: Continue reading Retraction for stem cell scientist facing misconduct inquiry
Stem Cells and Development has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the leader of the study reported that the data were unreliable.
The paper, “Derivation and Genetic Modification of Embryonic Stem Cells from Disease-Model Inbred Rat Strains,” came from the lab of Aron Geurts, of the Medical College of Wisconsin.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Embryonic stem cell paper retracted for fabrication
Here’s a warning to would-be plagiarizers: Don’t submit to the journal Molecules unless you have no problem being called out by name when you’re busted.
Consider: The journal is retracting a paper it published earlier this year after learning that the article contained verbatim text — and lots of it — from previously published papers.
The article, “Cytotoxicity and Anti-Inflammatory Activity of ethylsulfanyltriazoloquinazolin,” was written by a group that included Amira M. Gamal-Eldeen, of the National Research Center in Cairo, Egypt. Why single out Dr. Gamal-Eldeen, you ask? Read for yourself: Continue reading Your bad: Journal yanks paper for plagiarism and duplication, and points fingers