Category: cell biology

Bitter legal fight leads to a retracted retraction

faseb june 2013Two years ago, the FASEB Journal retracted a paper that it had initially agreed to correct, after a dean at one of the author’s institutions said that a “well-recognized and top-class fact finding commission concluded that the publication contains gross flaws.” The retraction of the 2003 paper, as we noted at the time, punctuated a complicated case involving several investigations as well as legal maneuvering.

Now, the journal has retracted the retraction. Here’s the beginning of the notice: Continue reading Bitter legal fight leads to a retracted retraction

Nature corrects figures McGill committee found had been “intentionally contrived and falsified”

nature 5 31The second of two corrections by McGill researcher Maya Saleh for what a university committee called “intentionally contrived and falsified” figures has run in Nature.

We reported in January that the McGill committee concluded that

two figures in [a] Nature paper had been “intentionally contrived and falsified.” One of those figures was duplicated in a PNAS paper, which also contained an image that  had incorrectly labeled some proteins.

The committee recommended corrections for both of the papers. The PNAS correction ran in February. Now, the Nature Corrigendum has appeared: Continue reading Nature corrects figures McGill committee found had been “intentionally contrived and falsified”

Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

j virologyRegrets were had, mistakes were made, but gosh-darn-it, they’re gonna resubmit that retracted paper in the future.

Such is the message from a retraction of “Tsg101 Interacts with Herpes Simplex Virus 1 VP1/2 and Is a Substrate of VP1/2 Ubiquitin-Specific Protease Domain Activity,” from Italian virologists who admitted to copying and pasting their way into the Journal of Virology: Continue reading Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

Quorum sensing paper retracted when new study suggests compounds weren’t what they seemed

plos oneThe authors of a paper on quorum sensing — in simple terms, how bacteria “talk” to one another — have retracted it after another group’s findings led them to discover that the mixture they used weren’t what they thought.

The refreshingly detailed retraction notice in PLOS ONE explains: Continue reading Quorum sensing paper retracted when new study suggests compounds weren’t what they seemed

Amid a legal dispute, journal downgrades a retraction to an expression of concern

cellcyclecoverThe journal Cell Cycle is expressing a “note” of concern about a 2012 paper by a former researcher at the University of Minnesota, who has claimed that her mentor at the institution was violating her copyright. It turns out the journal had briefly retracted the paper, but reversed itself with the expression of concern — a curious about-face that, in our experience, often indicates the work of lawyers.

That seems to be the case here, too.

The article, “Chalcone-based small-molecule inhibitors attenuate malignant phenotype via targeting deubiquitinating enzymes,” was already the subject of an erratum, available here:

Continue reading Amid a legal dispute, journal downgrades a retraction to an expression of concern

Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper

cell cloningCell is looking into whether the authors of a widely hailed study published last week claiming to have turned human skin cells into embryonic stem cells manipulated images inappropriately, Retraction Watch has learned.

The potential image problems came to light on PubPeer, a site designed to allow for post-publication peer review. A commenter, identified as Peer1, identified “several examples of image reuse which might be of interest to PubPeer members and readers:” Continue reading Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper

Update: Microbiologists face two more retractions for Northern blot problems

microbiologyWe have an update on a case we reported last week involving four papers in two different journals. The Journal of Bacteriology retracted two papers by Carlos Barreiro and colleagues, in notices that referred to the fact that

…identical bands for the 16S rRNA probe controls in the Northern blots were reported to correspond to experiments using different strains and experimental conditions in articles published in this journal and in Microbiology over a period of 5 years…

We checked with the editor of Microbiology, Agnes Fouet, who tells us: Continue reading Update: Microbiologists face two more retractions for Northern blot problems

Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction

acta biomaterialiaNanotech researcher SK Sahoo, whom as we reported in February lost four papers from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal called “highly unethical practices,” has actually retracted five papers from that journal.

According to a notice for “Enhanced cellular uptake and in vivo pharmacokinetics of rapamycin loaded cubic phase nanoparticles for cancer therapy” that appears in the June issue along with the other four: Continue reading Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction

Cossu-UCL follow-up: PLOS ONE paper to be corrected

Cossu
Cossu

We have a follow-up from last week’s story about a University College London (UCL) investigation into the work of Giulio Cossu that found errors but no “deliberate intention to mislead.”UCL said it will not make the full report available: Continue reading Cossu-UCL follow-up: PLOS ONE paper to be corrected

Two Journal of Bacteriology papers retracted for data duplication spanning five years

j bacteriolA group of bacteria researchers in Spain and Germany has lost two papers in the Journal of Bacteriology after the journal found evidence that they had reused figures.

The two notices, for “Heat Shock Proteome Analysis of Wild-Type Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 and a Spontaneous Mutant Lacking GroEL1, a Dispensable Chaperone” and “Transcriptional Analysis of the groES-groEL1, groEL2, and dnaK genes in Corynebacterium glutamicum: Characterization of Heat Shock-Induced Promoters,” say the same thing: Continue reading Two Journal of Bacteriology papers retracted for data duplication spanning five years