Category: basic life sciences retractions

Researcher who lost whistleblower lawsuit logs 4 more retractions

A brain journal has retracted four papers by a researcher due to image duplications that the university uncovered during an investigation into his work.

According to the retraction notice, Wayne State University found that Christian Kreipke had used several images in these articles “to represent different results in grant proposals and/or poster presentations,” and that the data were unreliable. Kreipke now has a total of five retractions, by our count.

As we’ve reported before, Wayne State and Kreipke have been engaged in conflict for several years. In 2012, Kreipke was dismissed from his assistant professor post at Wayne State after the university said it found evidence of research misconduct, according to Courthouse News. Kreipke fired back against the university, filing a whistleblower lawsuit. In it, Kreipke claimed that the institution was “involved in a conspiracy,” according to unsealed court documents, in which it had swindled the U.S. government out of millions in research funding.

A judge dismissed the case in 2014, but the conflict between Kreipke and Wayne State was not over. Continue reading Researcher who lost whistleblower lawsuit logs 4 more retractions

Unexplained abnormalities in stem cells prompt Columbia researchers to pull diabetes paper

Researchers at Columbia University have retracted a 2013 paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, after uncovering abnormalities in the stem cell lines that undermined the conclusions in the paper.

Last year, corresponding author Dieter Egli discovered he could not reproduce key data in the 2013 paper because almost all the cell lines first author Haiqing Hua used contained abnormalities, casting doubt on the overall findings. When Egli reached out to Hua for answers, Hua could not explain the abnormalities. As a result, Hua and Egli agreed the paper should be retracted.

Since some of the details of how the paper ended up relying on abnormal cells remain unclear, the university confirmed to us that it is investigating the matter.

Here’s the retraction notice for “iPSC-derived β cells model diabetes due to glucokinase deficiency,” cited 42 times: Continue reading Unexplained abnormalities in stem cells prompt Columbia researchers to pull diabetes paper

Neuroscientist flags errors in his days-old paper “for the sake of science integrity”

Only days after his paper was published online, a neuroscientist has posted a comment on PubMed alerting readers to several duplication errors.

Despite the issues, which the researcher says were introduced into the final manuscript after peer review, he reassured readers that they do not influence the final conclusions in the paper.

On February 9, ten days after the article came online, corresponding author Garret Stuber at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote a detailed comment on PubMed Commons, explaining that the “research community” had brought four figure-related errors to his attention. After investigating the concerns, Stuber discovered that the problems emerged after the peer-review process, “while revising the manuscript to comply with Nature Neuroscience’s final formatting guidelines.” In his note, he outlined the specific duplication issues that arose, which he says he plans to detail to the journal in a formal corrigendum letter.

Stuber alerted the scientific community about his PubMed comment via Twitter: Continue reading Neuroscientist flags errors in his days-old paper “for the sake of science integrity”

Former postdoc admitted to fraud in cell bio paper, lead author says

A researcher in Switzerland has retracted her 2015 paper in the Journal of Cell Biology, saying the first author — her former postdoc — admitted to fabricating multiple aspects of the paper.

After Sophie Martin of the University of Lausanne couldn’t reproduce the data from another manuscript she was preparing to submit, she contacted her former student, Pranav Ullal, who admitted he had fabricated the data, along with two figures in the JCB paper.

A spokesperson for the University of Lausanne told us that Ullal left Switzerland after his contract was over, and is now in India.

Martin told us the whole experience has been upsetting:

Continue reading Former postdoc admitted to fraud in cell bio paper, lead author says

Unusual: Neurology removes author dinged for misconduct from 2016 paper

Neurology has partially retracted a 2016 paper, replacing a figure and removing the author who contributed it after he was found guilty of misconduct.

The journal has replaced the figure with a new one that confirmed the findings of the original, and swapped the name of Andrew Cullinane with the scientist who constructed the new figure using a new dataset. Last year, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity declared that Cullinane had falsified data in this paper and one other while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the Medical Genetics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Cullinane appears to be at Howard University in Washington D.C., according to his LinkedIn page. He is listed as an assistant professor in the Basic Sciences/Anatomy department of the university’s College of Medicine.

Here’s the partial retraction notice from the journal:

Continue reading Unusual: Neurology removes author dinged for misconduct from 2016 paper

Cancer biologist stops research as his retraction count rises to 13

Anil Jaiswal

A cancer biologist based at the University of Maryland is transitioning out of research, as a journal has retracted three more of his papers.

Anil Jaiswal has now lost 13 papers, including, as we reported on February 6, six retractions issued earlier this month.

The Baltimore Sun reported this week that Jaiswal would no longer be conducting research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which we confirmed from a spokesperson:

Continue reading Cancer biologist stops research as his retraction count rises to 13

Researcher issues massive changes to papers amidst plagiarism investigation

A researcher in Greece has issued extensive — what we sometimes call “mega” — corrections to two 2016 papers published in a medical journal in Romania.

The first author — Alexandra Kalogeraki, a pathology researcher at the University of Crete in Greece — retracted two reviews from the same journal last year for plagiarism. The newest notices remove authors and correct, add, or remove text, often without providing an explicit reason for the change.

The journal told us Kalogeraki initially asked to retract the newly corrected papers, but the editors didn’t believe that the papers warranted the harsher measure, as they’d run a plagiarism scan and conducted peer review of the two papers and did not find any issues. However, the University of Crete is currently investigating allegations of plagiarism in two of Kalogeraki’s other papers, which have already been retracted by the same journal.

For the latest mega-corrections, both are so lengthy we’re only including a small portion of the notice for the case study, “Recurrent Cerebellar Desmoplastic/ Nodular Medulloblastoma in Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) in the elderly. A Cytologic Diagnosis,” which deals with authorship: Continue reading Researcher issues massive changes to papers amidst plagiarism investigation

Authors pull virus replication paper after they cannot replicate results

Researchers in China have retracted a 2016 paper exploring the replication behaviors of a retrovirus, after discovering that the key results could not be reproduced — possibly because their cell cultures had been contaminated.

The authors also cite a disagreement with a colleague, who they say contributed to the work but does not want to be listed as an author.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Nuclear import of prototype foamy virus transactivator Bel1 is mediated by KPNA1, KPNA6 and KPNA7,” published in the International Journal of Molecular Medicine: Continue reading Authors pull virus replication paper after they cannot replicate results

Journal pulls paper with missing data, citing inquiry and legal proceedings

A journal has retracted a 2012 paper after the last author was unable to provide material to support the results presented in multiple figures.

The lack of supporting data came out during “an internal inquiry and subsequent legal proceedings,” according to the notice, issued by Cell Cycle.

The last author on the paper is Susana Gonzalez, who was dismissed from her position at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain last year.

Here’s the full notice:

Continue reading Journal pulls paper with missing data, citing inquiry and legal proceedings

Students withdraw report of private stem cell retreat

Master’s students have retracted a review of an internal meeting of stem cell researchers because it contained confidential information.

According to the Managing Director of the society, Stem Cell Network North Rhine Westphalia (NRW), the event was not open to the public, and the authors had not contacted either the society or the scientists they cited before publishing the report.

Here’s the retraction notice for “A Report on the Internal Retreat Meeting of the Stem Cell Network North Rhine Westphalia,” published online in Molecular Biotechnology on October 31 and retracted shortly after on December 14: Continue reading Students withdraw report of private stem cell retreat