Category: basic life sciences retractions

You can do that? A massive correction in Nature, but no retraction

courtesy Nature

This past April, Amparo Acker-Palmer and colleagues published a study in Nature, “Ephrin Bs are essential components of the Reelin pathway to regulate neuronal migration.” Within a day of its publication, Nature readers were raising questions about many of its figures. They started like this:

Andy Gu said:

Looks like Fig 1a, the two middle figures are actually the same with little move from desired regions. I don’t trust their data now…..

After several such comments, Nature senior editor Noah Gray weighed in: Continue reading You can do that? A massive correction in Nature, but no retraction

Unveiled: Anonymous researcher found guilty of fraud in Canadian funding agency documents

Margaret Munro, a Postmedia News reporter whose work we’ve had the chance to admire before, has a few great stories running in Canadian papers today about what happened in some recent scientific fraud investigations.

She bases the stories on  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) documents obtained under a freedom of information request. NSERC — which provides $1 billion per year for research — seems to have gone far out of its way to keep the names of the researchers a secret.

In one set of heavily redacted documents, however, they did mention a December 2008 retraction. As Retraction Watch readers know, we investigate retractions…well, not exactly for a living, but we sure spend a lot of time doing it. So we threw ourselves at our favorite database and made some connections.

Long story short: We’re quite sure we’ve found the unnamed researcher. Continue reading Unveiled: Anonymous researcher found guilty of fraud in Canadian funding agency documents

Nature Medicine paper by former Montreal Heart Institute researcher Zhiguo Wang unlikely to be retracted

We’ve been reporting on the case of Zhiguo Wang, the Montreal Heart Institute researcher who was dismissed earlier this month for scientific misconduct. In the announcement about Wang’s dismissal, the institute said it had requested the retraction of three papers other than the two that Wang had himself retracted earlier this summer, making a total of five.

We’ve been following up with journals that published Wang’s work, with the help of eagle-eyed Retraction Watch readers, and last week reported on the first of those three additional retractions, in the Journal of Cell Science. Late last week, we heard from Juan Carlos Lopez, the chief editor of Nature Medicine, which had published a paper by the group. Lopez had earlier said he was waiting for a Montreal Heart Institute report on their findings. He tells us it’s unlikely the Nature Medicine paper will be among those retracted: Continue reading Nature Medicine paper by former Montreal Heart Institute researcher Zhiguo Wang unlikely to be retracted

Group retracts Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities after posting a correction to Science

courtesy NPG

We’re following the case of a group that recently retracted a Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities, soon after being forced to correct images in a Science paper for similar reasons.

The Nature Immunology paper, “The helminth product ES-62 protects against septic shock via Toll-like receptor 4–dependent autophagosomal degradation of the adaptor MyD88,” has been cited just twice since it appeared online in February 2011, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The retraction notice, which appeared online on July 19: Continue reading Group retracts Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities after posting a correction to Science

Group under investigation retracts second paper, claims errant figure was just a placeholder

The authors of a 2010 Journal of Immunology paper have retracted it, saying that part of one of the figures was actually a placeholder from another experiment.

According to the retraction notice for “Stimulation of FcgRI on Primary Sensory Neurons Increases Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I Production, Thereby Reducing Reperfusion-Induced Renal Injury in Mice” by Naoaki Harada, Juan Zhao, Hiroki Kurihara, Naomi Nakagata, and Kenji Okajima: Continue reading Group under investigation retracts second paper, claims errant figure was just a placeholder

Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Last week, we reported on an uniformative retraction notice in Molecular Biology and Evolution (MBE), an Oxford University Press (OUP) title, that the publisher wanted $32 to read. To OUP’s credit, they quickly acknowledged that the retraction hadn’t been handled properly.

Earlier this week, OUP’s senior publisher for journals Cathy Kennedy followed up with some welcome news: Continue reading Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Sometime last year, the University of Zurich’s Erik Postma was reading a paper in Science titled “Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations” when he realized something.

The authors, led by Joseph Tomkins of the University of Western Australia, had made a mistake.

Postma set to writing a “Technical Comment,” the way that Science usually deals with criticism of a paper’s methods. He sent his first draft to the Tomkins group: Continue reading Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Montreal Heart Institute researcher dismissed following two retractions for image manipulation

A Montreal Heart Institute researcher who retracted two papers less than a month ago has been fired from his post.

Zhiguo Wang, who had been funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Canadian Diabetes Association, studied the genes linked to heart rhythm abnormalities, among other subjects. Wang also has an appointment at the University of Montreal.

As first reported in Retraction Watch, Wang withdrew two papers for the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) in the journal’s August 12 issue. The story was quickly picked up by Postmedia and the CBC. At the time, Wang told us: Continue reading Montreal Heart Institute researcher dismissed following two retractions for image manipulation

Remember the $32 opaque retraction notice? Molecular Biology and Evolution removes paywall

On Tuesday, we reported on the case of a retraction notice in Molecular Biology and Evolution, an Oxford University Press (OUP) journal, that had three problems: Continue reading Remember the $32 opaque retraction notice? Molecular Biology and Evolution removes paywall

Authorship questions: Retracted infection paper from Spain broke all (well, most) of the rules

Have you heard the story about the young, Orthodox Jewish fellow who decides to stop keeping kosher, so he goes to the local coffee shop and orders a cheeseburger with ham and bacon and a glass of milk?

Some retraction notices put us in mind of that tale (true, by the way). Consider the following one from the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, in regard to a 2010 paper by Spanish scientists titled “Nationwide Sentinel Surveillance of Bloodstream Candida Infections in 40 Tertiary Care Hospitals in Spain”: Continue reading Authorship questions: Retracted infection paper from Spain broke all (well, most) of the rules