Category: infectious disease

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

Paper by NASA scientists retracted for plagiarizing NASA report

레이아웃 1A team of researchers including NASA scientists have retracted a December 2012 article because it plagiarized…a 2000 NASA report.

Here’s the notice for “A Fosmid Cloning Strategy for Detecting the Widest Possible Spectrum of Microbes from the International Space Station Drinking Water System,” published in Genomics & Informatics: Continue reading Paper by NASA scientists retracted for plagiarizing NASA report

A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

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Germans and Italians are big masterbatchers. Click to enlarge. via http://bit.ly/100YBKB

Our mothers told us that if we used the masterbatch process, we’d go blind. And what better way to gather some updates to recent posts than to include one that involves said masterbatch process?

First, a retraction John Spevacek noticed when he tried clicking on the link in a Journal of Applied Polymer Science retraction we’d covered: Continue reading A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

j virologyRegrets were had, mistakes were made, but gosh-darn-it, they’re gonna resubmit that retracted paper in the future.

Such is the message from a retraction of “Tsg101 Interacts with Herpes Simplex Virus 1 VP1/2 and Is a Substrate of VP1/2 Ubiquitin-Specific Protease Domain Activity,” from Italian virologists who admitted to copying and pasting their way into the Journal of Virology: Continue reading Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

Tenth retraction appears for Jesús Lemus, this one in PLOS ONE

plos oneJust two days ago, we covered the ninth retraction for Jesús Lemus, “the veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying, including being unable to confirm the identity of one of his co-authors.” And already another of his retractions has appeared in one of our daily alerts.

This one appears in PLOS ONE, for “Infectious Offspring: How Birds Acquire and Transmit an Avian Polyomavirus in the Wild:” Continue reading Tenth retraction appears for Jesús Lemus, this one in PLOS ONE

Authors retract already-corrected Nature malaria paper

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courtesy Nature

Nature is retracting a 2010 paper by a team from Princeton and Drexel on the workings of Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria in people. How that came about seems to have been a winding road.

The article — a research letter — titled “Branched tricarboxylic acid metabolism in Plasmodium falciparum,” came from the Princeton lab of Manuel Llinás. It purported to find that:

Continue reading Authors retract already-corrected Nature malaria paper

Paper on anti-HIV efforts in Uganda pulled for plagiarism

ijhpmA public health journal has retracted a 2010 paper by a CDC AIDS researcher in Uganda who appears to have lifted much of the work from a Canadian scientist.

The article, “Determinants of project success among HIV/AIDS NGOs in Rakai, Uganda,” appeared in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management, a Wiley title. The author was Stevens Bechange, who was listed as being with the Uganda Virus Research Institute, in Entebbe. Bechange’s Linkedin page says he is a doctoral student at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, UK, studying “Health, Wellness and Fitness.” His contact information on the article was an email with a CDC address (we’ve put in a call to the agency to find out more about his status but haven’t heard back yet).

As the abstract stated:

Continue reading Paper on anti-HIV efforts in Uganda pulled for plagiarism

University of Nebraska clears HIV researchers of misconduct

ajrccmLast August, we reported on an Expression of Concern in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine for a paper on HIV and lung injury. The notice said that the University of Nebraska, home to several of the paper’s authors, had begun an inquiry.

Today, the university issued a statement on the case, clearing the researchers of misconduct: Continue reading University of Nebraska clears HIV researchers of misconduct

Flu paper duplication earns Expression of Concern

influenzaA six year-old review on bird flu that failed to credit some content from another six year-old review of bird flu is now stamped with an Expression of Concern.

Here’s the notice, from Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses: Continue reading Flu paper duplication earns Expression of Concern

IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper

jpgnA group of Turkish researchers has had a paper retracted on how to treat the bacterium that cause ulcers after the journal’s editors found “issues related to the institutional review board approval” of the project.

Here’s the retraction notice from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Continue reading IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper