Category: basic life sciences retractions

Judge tosses case, saying that court-ordered retractions are not part of scientific publication

“Retractions are part and parcel of academic and scientific publication. Court ordered retractions are not.”

So ends a judge’s September 30, 2016 opinion dismissing a case brought in 2014 by Andrew Mallon, a former Brown University postdoc, alleging that his advisor and former business partner, John Marshall, had published a paper in 2013 in PLOS Biology that should have listed him as a co-author.

As with most court cases, this one had a long backstory: An earlier version of the paper had listed Mallon as a co-author, but was rejected by Neuron in 2011; after the authors had a dispute over the data, a different version of the manuscript was submitted to PLOS Biology in 2012, leaving Mallon off the co-author list. So Mallon had sued to have the paper retracted.

In communications with Retraction Watch and other media, as well as during depositions of the plaintiffs, Mallon referred frequently to allegations of scientific misconduct, including the fact that the first author of the PLOS Biology paper had an unrelated paper retracted in 2010 for duplicated data. However, this case was brought under the Copyright Act, which focused on the authorship dispute.

Kevin Tottis, who represented Marshall and co-defendant Dennis Goebel, told Retraction Watch his clients “are delighted with the judge’s decision.” Massachusetts District Court Judge Timothy Hillman, he said, Continue reading Judge tosses case, saying that court-ordered retractions are not part of scientific publication

Prominent cancer researcher committed nearly 30 acts of misconduct

An investigation into the lab of a prominent cancer researcher in British Columbia has revealed nearly 30 acts of misconduct.   

As we detail in our latest feature for Science, the investigation, at the University of British Columbia (UBC), uncovered 29 instances of scientific misconduct, 16 of which were characterized as “serious,” according to university correspondence obtained by Retraction Watch.

The researcher, Sandra Dunn, is prominent in her field, but she left UBC in 2015 under unclear circumstances, shortly after it concluded its investigation. Dunn now heads a private company, Phoenix Molecular Designs, which says it develops therapies for cancer patients and lists local charities among its “partners and supporters.” While at UBC, Dunn obtained at least $1.1 million dollars in Canadian federal funding, some of which was used to support the falsified studies.

To some of the people involved, the most unsettling part of the incident is that it appears Dunn still receives support from Canadian charities. Continue reading Prominent cancer researcher committed nearly 30 acts of misconduct

UCLA lab pulls two papers — one by author who admitted to misconduct

A lab at the University of California, Los Angeles has retracted two papers for duplicated images.

These retractions — in the Journal of Immunology — represent the second and third retractions for the lab head; he lost another paper after one of his former students confessed to manipulating images.

Although Eriko Suzuki admitted to her actions on PubPeer in 2014, the 2007 Oncogene paper wasn’t retracted until June, 2016, when the journal issued a notice citing “data irregularities.”

Unfortunately, Suzuki’s admission in 2014 wasn’t the end of the troubles for lab head Benjamin Bonavida, who recently issued two additional retractions in the Journal of Immunology, only one of which includes Suzuki as a co-author.

Bonavida told us the university received allegations (he’s not sure from who) that some of the control gels were duplicated; he didn’t agree, but couldn’t produce the original gels to disprove it. We asked if any more retractions were coming from Bonavida, who has since retired from running a lab:

Continue reading UCLA lab pulls two papers — one by author who admitted to misconduct

Entomology journal retracts 2016 study with flawed analyses

journal-of-medical-entomologyAn entomology journal has issued its first retraction during the current editor’s nearly 30-year tenure — for a 2016 study with serious flaws in the analyses. 

After the Journal of Medical Entomology (JME) published the study — about the identification of genes that enable an insect to detect odors — an outside researcher wrote a letter to the journal highlighting flaws in the paper. The journal then asked the authors to respond, and enlisted two additional peer reviewers to look into the study, the outside comment, and the authors’ response. They concluded the paper should be retracted.

William Reisen — the journal’s editor-in-chief from the University of California, Davis — said the journal believes the errors were unintentional and there was no fraud on the authors’ part. He added: Continue reading Entomology journal retracts 2016 study with flawed analyses

A paper was published in 2015; the authors already lost the data

American Journal of Physiology Renal PhsyiologyThe authors of a 2015 study have retracted it after discovering that several Western blots in their paper “do not represent the experiments that were reported.”

They couldn’t check some of the original blots, because — according to the retraction notice in the American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology — they could not be located. The ones that could be found, however, are “inconsistent with what is presented in the figures.”

Here’s the retraction notice, published last month: Continue reading A paper was published in 2015; the authors already lost the data

PubPeer wins appeal of court ruling to unmask commenters

Fazlul Sarkar

PubPeer is having a good day.

In a new ruling, a trio of judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed a 2015 decision mandating the site reveal the identity of anonymous commenters after a scientist sued them, claiming they cost him a job offer.

The judges stated that Fazlul Sarkar, the scientist suing the commenters, can continue pursuing a defamation case, but: Continue reading PubPeer wins appeal of court ruling to unmask commenters

Remaining fraud charges withdrawn for Parkinson’s researcher

Caroline Barwood
Caroline Barwood

Two remaining charges against a Parkinson’s researcher recently convicted of fraud have been dropped by an Australian court.

In October, Caroline Barwood, formerly at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, was found guilty of five out of seven charges. Subsequently, Barwood was handed two suspended sentences: one for two years, and another for 15 months, both to be served concurrently. She will not serve jail time.

Initially, Barwood pleaded not guilty to the three charges of fraud and four instances of attempted fraud — unlike her former UQ colleague Bruce Murdoch, who pleaded guilty to 17 fraud-related charges in March, and also earned himself a two-year suspended sentence. 

Barwood was found guilty of five charges against her, but the jury could not reach a majority verdict on one count of fraud and another of attempted fraud. She was asked to re-attend court for a “mention.” 

On December 6, those charges were withdrawn. Barwood told us: Continue reading Remaining fraud charges withdrawn for Parkinson’s researcher

University of Tokyo opens investigation into retracted stem cell paper

KCCY_15_22_COVER.inddThe University of Tokyo is investigating a 2011 stem cell paper in Cell Cycle, recently retracted over irregularities in four figures.

The university has confirmed there is an investigation, but would not specify which paper it concerned; the corresponding author on the paper, however, confirmed to us that it is the focus of the investigation.

In the retraction notice, published Nov. 1, the journal wrote: Continue reading University of Tokyo opens investigation into retracted stem cell paper

More co-author misconduct raises NIH neuroscientist’s retraction count to 8

Stanley Rapoport. Source: NIH
Stanley Rapoport. Source: NIH

Not again.

That’s the sound of learning that a third scientist you worked with committed misconduct.

In the last two years, we reported on two retractions for neuroscientist Stanley Rapoport, the result of misconduct by two different first authors. We’ve since discovered more retractions resulting from those cases — and a new retraction stemming from the actions of yet another co-author.  

Although the latest retraction notice doesn’t reveal the reason for retraction, both the journal editor and Rapoport — based at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — confirmed to us that it is the result of misconduct by the last author, Jagadeesh Rao. According to Rapoport, a “number of retractions [for] Rao are still in the works.”

We asked Rapoport for his reaction to multiple cases of misconduct by his colleagues, including the two first authors we’ve already reported on, Fei Gao and Mireille Basselin:

Continue reading More co-author misconduct raises NIH neuroscientist’s retraction count to 8

How a researcher’s request to correct one paper turned into 19 retractions

jcheng
Jin Cheng

Last year, a cancer researcher wrote to the Journal of Biological Chemistry, asking to correct one of his papers. The journal responded by requesting the raw data used to prepare his figures. Then, in a follow-up request, it asked for raw data behind the figures in 20 additional published articles.

And when all was said and done six months later, Jin Cheng ended up with far more than just a single correction: Last month, the journal issued withdrawals for 19 of his papers — including the paper he originally asked to correct — along with one correction.

We’ve pieced together some clues about what happened after reviewing correspondence between representatives of JBC and Moffitt Cancer Center, where Cheng conducted his research. A spokesperson for Moffitt confirmed that the retractions did not initiate from an institutional investigation — but that the institution is now conducting one.

That’s not the way retractions typically happen: Often, journals don’t have the resources to conduct investigations themselves, so institutions mostly take the lead in double-checking papers and, if necessary, contacting the journal to initiate a retraction. Here, it seems the opposite took place.

The Moffitt spokesperson also told us that Continue reading How a researcher’s request to correct one paper turned into 19 retractions