Category: basic life sciences retractions

Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab

bmc biotechEarlier this month we wrote about the retraction by Nature of a 19-year-old paper by Karel Bezouska, a former star researcher at Prague’s Charles University whose “dangerous and irresponsible deviations” from acceptable practice went as far as tampering with refrigerated samples to cover his tracks.

BMC Biotechnology has retracted another Bezouska paper, this one from 2011. He’s the second author on the article, titled “Heterologous expression, purification and characterization of nitrilase from Aspergillus niger K10.”

Continue reading Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab

JCI paper retracted for duplicated panels after authors can’t provide original data

jciSo how long do researchers have to keep records of experiments?

We had that question while reading the retraction notice for a 2007 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation: Continue reading JCI paper retracted for duplicated panels after authors can’t provide original data

“Major error” forces retraction of ghrelin study

Try as we may, we can’t cover every retraction in real time. But on the principle that late is better than later, here’s one from 2012 that we’ve been meaning to get to.

neuroreportThe journal NeuroReport has retracted a 2011 article by a group of researchers who evidently discovered a fatal flaw in one of their figures.

The article, “Ghrelin prevents neuronal apoptosis and cognitive impairments in sepsis-associated encephalopathy,” by a team of intensivists from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, purported to find that ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, appeared to have something of a protective effect against the ravages of sepsis in rat brains. It has been cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, including once by the retraction.

As the abstract stated: Continue reading “Major error” forces retraction of ghrelin study

Journal of Neuroscience retracts plasticity paper for “substantial data misrepresentation”

jneuroscicoverThe Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2012 paper by a group from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet for what appears to be research misconduct. But more on that in a moment.

The article, “The Existence of FGFR1-5-HT1A Receptor Heterocomplexes in Midbrain 5-HT Neurons of the Rat: Relevance for Neuroplasticity,” came from the lab of Kjell Fuxe, whose interests include Parkinson’s disease, addiction and depression. The first and second authors, Dasiel Oscar Borroto-Escuela and Wilber Romero-Fernandez, are listed as being post-docs in the lab.

According to the notice: Continue reading Journal of Neuroscience retracts plasticity paper for “substantial data misrepresentation”

“Serious irregularities” in Western blots lead to retraction of brain chemistry paper

jneuroscijuly13The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2009 article by a group from Mount Sinai (now the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) for suspicious Western blots.

The paper, “Requirement for Protein Synthesis at Developing Synapses,” came from the lab of Deanna Benson, a Parkinson’s expert. According to the abstract, which is still available on the journal’s website:

Continue reading “Serious irregularities” in Western blots lead to retraction of brain chemistry paper

Researchers get a mulligan: JBC paper withdrawn sans explanation

jbc july 2013A group of authors has withdrawn a paper from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), but readers won’t know why.

The paper, “Static High-Gradient Magnetic Fields Activate Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) Ion Channels Enabling Remote Control of Cell Function,” whose corresponding author is Thomas Simmet of Ulm University, appeared online on June 11. Since June 24, the PDF of the paper has been stamped: Continue reading Researchers get a mulligan: JBC paper withdrawn sans explanation

Retractions arrive for former Wash U neuroscience grad student found to have committed misconduct

Adam Savine
Adam Savine

Two studies by Adam Savine, the former Washington University neuroscience graduate student found by the Office of Research Integrity to have falsified data, have been retracted.

Here’s the notice for one: Continue reading Retractions arrive for former Wash U neuroscience grad student found to have committed misconduct

Former Duke researcher charged with embezzlement has a paper retracted

j app physA new retraction notice in the Journal of Applied Physiology gives only a hint at the problems in the paper, but what it does say has led us to a story about one of its co-authors.

Here’s the notice, from a team at Duke: Continue reading Former Duke researcher charged with embezzlement has a paper retracted

Autism genetics papers retracted after fraud inquiry at NY research agency

GBBcoverA fraud investigation at a New York state research institution has led to two retractions of papers looking at genetic links to autism.

The 2011 papers, which appeared in Genes, Brain and Behavior, involve work conducted at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities’ (OPWDD’s) Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, on Staten Island. The last author on both articles is Xiaohong Li, head of the institute’s cellular neurobiology laboratory.

Cell line mixup causes retraction of paper on blood vessel damage

britjournnutWe’ve written before about retractions for cell lines that turn out not to be what researchers thought they were. In a few cases, that has involved contamination by HeLa cells, named for Henrietta Lacks. Today, we note the retraction of a paper whose authors, from Taiwan, thought they were using human muscle cells that line blood vessels when they were actually studying such cells from rat embryos.

Here’s the notice in the British Journal of Nutrition for “Molecular mechanism of green microalgae, Dunaliella salina, involved in attenuating balloon injury-induced neointimal formation”: Continue reading Cell line mixup causes retraction of paper on blood vessel damage