Research in Veterinary Science has retracted a 2010 paper by Egyptian scientists who published the same article the previous year in a different journal.
Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “Comparative biochemical studies on steroidogenic compounds in chickens,” by Mohamed O.T. Badr and Mohamed A. Hashem, from Zagazig University and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture: Continue reading Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper
An HIV researcher in Germany has run afoul of a number of journals because he duplicated his papers in multiple outlets.
The funny business by Ulrich Hengge earned him a 3-year ban on publishing in two journals, the Journal of Molecular Medicine (JMM) and Cells, Tissues and Organs (CTO). (We’ve written about publishing bans — which appear to be fairly rare — before.)
Those journals also sanctioned one of his co-authors, Alireza Mirmohammadsadegh. The JMM’s managing editor, Christiane Nolte, told us by email: Continue reading Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban
A good carpenter never blames his tools. But for scientists, sometimes machines do go bad–with disastrous results. Consider the following:
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has retracted two papers by researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States after the scientists learned that their results were based largely on a problem with their highly sensitive instruments.
PLoS One and Nature Medicine have issued corrections for papers by Zhiguo Wang, the former Montreal Heart Institute researcher who resigned in September following an investigation into image manipulation in his lab.
In September, PLoS One told us that they were investigating the paper. Here’s the text of the correction for “Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Mechanisms for Oncogenic Overexpression of Ether À Go-Go K+ Channel:” Continue reading Corrections in PLoS One, Nature Medicine for Zhiguo Wang, and details about Montreal Heart Institute investigation
A retraction notice appeared a few months ago in the Biophysical Journal:
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).
This article has been retracted at the request of Edward Egelman, Editor-in-Chief.
The editors have noted that there is a substantial overlap of figures and text between this Biophysical Journal article and D. Rutkauskas, V. Novoderezkhin, R.J. Cogdell and R. van Grondelle. Fluorescence spectral fluctuations of single LH2 complexes from Rhodopseudomonas acidophila strain 10050. Biochemistry, 43 (2004) 4431–4438, doi:10.1021/bi0497648. The submission of this paper was inconsistent with the Biophysical Journal policy which states: “Manuscripts submitted to Biophysical Journal (BJ) must be original; papers that have already been published or are concurrently submitted elsewhere for publication are not acceptable for submission. This includes manuscripts previously submitted to BJ, as well as material that has been submitted to other journals while BJ is considering the manuscript. If some part of the work has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the authors must give the specific details of such appearances in the cover letter accompanying the BJ submission. If previously published illustrative material, such as figures or tables, must be included, the authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions from the publisher(s) before the material may be published in BJ”. We are therefore retracting the publication of the Biophysical Journal article.
Ordinarily, such duplications go to the bottom of our list of retractions to cover, despite how common they are. There’s usually less of a story behind them than there is behind a completely opaque notice, or behind one that sports a whiff of fraud. But they’re still important, as Bruce Chabner, the editor of The Oncologist, pointed out in a recent issue of his journal in which a duplication retraction appeared: Continue reading Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column
Here’s a he said-he said that left one author with a publication, then nothing, and us scratching our heads.
In March 2010, the British Journal of Haematology issued a rather straightforward correction regarding a 2007 article by a group of researchers from Kansas Kansas City, Missouri.
The glitch? The manuscript evidently left out an author:
In Iyamu et al (2007), the list of authors was incorrectly published and should have read:
Efemwonkiekie W. Iyamu, Syed Jamal, Chiazotam Ekekezie and Gerald M. Woods
Or maybe not. The journal is now retracting the correction: Continue reading Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology
In late January, we wrote a post about a retraction in the journal Molecular Endocrinology involving work from the lab of Stephen M. Black, of the Vascular Biology Center at at the Medical College of Georgia.
At the time, we didn’t know much. The notice was pretty thin sauce, although it hinted at “significant concerns with the data,” and we were led to believe that the first author of the article, Neetu Sud, a post-doc in Black’s lab, might have been implicated in those concerns. Because Black’s lab was working with substantial amounts of NIH funding, the prospect of an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity seemed likely.
Now we have a little more to go on. The American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology has retracted another article by Sud and Black. The paper, titled “Protein kinase Cδ regulates endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression via Akt activation and nitric oxide generation,” appeared in 2008 and included a third author, Stephen Wedgwood, of Northwestern University. It has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading New retraction sheds light on Medical College of Georgia vascular biology case
Alirio Melendez, whose former employer, the National University of Singapore, is investigating about 70 of his papers, has retracted a second study. Here’s the notice for the 2010 Journal of Molecular Cell Biology paper, “Sphingosine-1-phosphate mediates proliferation maintaining the multipotency of human Adult Bone Marrow and Adipose Tissue-derived Stem Cells:” Continue reading Second retraction arrives in Alirio Melendez case
A University of Ottawa lab has been forced to retract four papers from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) after an investigation of image manipulation.
According to an email from a university official obtained by Retraction Watch, a university investigative committee had “found substance to the allegations,” although it claimed it could not disclose details “due to their confidentiality.” The university requested that the JBC withdraw a November 2005 paper, and left it to the journal to “determine whether the other articles should also be withdrawn or if they can be corrected. ” And they took the issue to the agency that funded the work: Continue reading Following investigation, U Ottawa lab retracting four papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry
Last month, we reported that the last three of six promised retractions by Zhiguo Wang, who was a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute until the results of an Institute investigation forced him to resign in early September — would be in the Journal of Cellular Physiology. They’ve now appeared.
Here are the three notices, which are far more informative than the Journal of Biological Chemistry was — and which make it clear Wang acted alone: Continue reading Zhiguo Wang retractions appear in the Journal of Cellular Physiology