A former postdoctoral researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York has received a five-year funding ban after an investigation concluded that they had falsified data underlying more than 50 images.
According to a report released today by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Zhiyu Li falsified Continue reading Ex-Mount Sinai postdoc who falsified 50+ images earns 5-year funding ban
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has banned a bone researcher for life following a finding of misconduct. And in a first, the agency has named her, in their report out today.
The case of Sophie Jamal may be familiar to Retraction Watch readers, as we covered it in October of last year following reporting by The Toronto Star. JAMA retracted a 2011 study by Jamal and colleagues in December, as we reported, and she resigned her positions at Women’s College Hospital (WCH) and the University of Toronto.
Jamal, according to the an investigating committee at WCH: Continue reading Canada funding agency bans researcher for fraud, and in first, reveals her name
A former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh has issued his first retraction after an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) concluded he had falsified and/or fabricated data in two published papers.
The ORI investigation into the work of Kenneth Walker, determined that he had
falsified and/or fabricated quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data to demonstrate a statistically significant or “trend” of statistical difference in the expression of renal or bladder urothelium and muscle developmental markers between control and experimental (mutant) mice, when there was none.
The ORI report said that Walker has agreed to retract or correct a 2013 PLOS ONE paper and a 2015 study published in American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology (AJPRP).
Here’s the first retraction notice, issued by AJPRP: Continue reading 1st retraction for ex-Pitt postdoc who admitted to doctoring data
A graduate student at McGill University is raising concerns that a popular F1000Research paper may have plagiarized his 2014 blog post that — ironically — proposed a method to prevent scientific misconduct. The student calls the paper “a mirror image” of his work.
The February 2016 F1000Research paper, “How blockchain-timestamped protocols could improve the trustworthiness of medical science,” was highlighted by us earlier this year, as well as by The Economist and FierceBiotech. In the paper, physician Greg Irving of the University of Cambridge and John Holden of Garswood Surgery in the UK describe a proof-of-concept of how to use a blockchain—a technology best-known for powering the digital currency bitcoin—to audit scientific studies and prevent misconduct in clinical trials.
After the student brought his concerns to the journal, Irving and Holden published a second version of their paper online, this time prolifically citing the blog entry and altering language that had been identical between the two pieces. F1000Research says “the scientific content is still valid” and has no plans to retract the article. Two public peer reviewers of the work also stand by its validity. Continue reading Plagiarism concerns raised over popular blockchain paper on catching misconduct
A diabetes researcher who sued to stop a publisher from retracting his papers has just received his seventh retraction.
The latest retraction for Mario Saad, who is based at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in São Paulo, Brazil, is for a PLOS ONE paper (which was altered last year by a mega-correction). Although an institutional investigation found no evidence of research misconduct, the notice states:
the preparation of the figures falls below the standard of publication and therefore the authors and the editors have agreed that the correct action is to retract the article.
Saad previously sued the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to remove expressions of concern from four of his papers published in the organisation’s flagship journal, Diabetes. However, all four of the papers were later retracted after the suit was dismissed in 2015.
Here’s the new retraction notice, issued July 8: Continue reading Researcher who sued to stop retractions earns his 7th
Two researchers found to have faked data by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) have lost a paper that they co-authored.
According to the ORI report issued on May 25, Ricky Malhotra, one of the researchers in question, admitted to fabricating 74 experiments, and falsifying well over 100 Western blots while at the Universities of Michigan (UM) and Chicago (UC). One week later, the ORI issued additional findings about Karen D’Souza, a colleague of Malhotra’s at the UC, concluding that she had also falsified some data.
Both researchers agreed to the retraction of a 2010 paper published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), the reports note.
Here’s the retraction notice, issued on July 1: Continue reading Second retraction for researcher who faked 70+ experiments
Last week, a study brought into question years of research conducted using the neuroimaging technique functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The new paper, published in PNAS, particularly raised eyebrows for suggesting that the rates of false positives in studies using fMRI could be up to 70%, which may affect many of the approximately 40,000 studies in academic literature that have so far used the technique. We spoke to the Anders Eklund, from Linköping University in Sweden, who was the first author of the study. Continue reading Is the bulk of fMRI data questionable?
A JAMA journal has quickly issued a correction for a 2016 paper after the author failed to mention several relevant conflicts of interest. Normally, we’d see this as a run-of-the-mill correction notice, but since we reported last week that a journal retracted a paper for omitting pharma funding, we got to wondering: Is failure to disclose a conflict of interest a retractable offense?
Guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) do say that retractions are used for “failure to disclose a major competing interest likely to influence interpretations or recommendations.” But most of the time when we see corrections to the literature for such omissions, they’re corrections, not retractions.
On Friday, JAMA Ophthalmology issued a correction notice for an invited commentary published in April, which addressed two papers in the journal about melanoma of the eye (uveal melanoma). However, the original commentary failed to note that author Arun D. Singh at the Cleveland Clinic had some relevant conflicts to mention, as the notice explains: Continue reading Should a paper be retracted if an author omits a conflict of interest?
An obesity journal has retracted a study by authors who previously lost another paper that suggested a link between the fecal microbiome and obesity.
We first came across on the now-retracted paper in the International Journal of Obesity (IJO) in April when we reported on the authors’ other retraction in Diabetes. The 2014 paper had a corrigendum, published the same year, and also for image-related issues. Since then, however, the journal has pulled the IJO paper and its associated corrigendum at the request of the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris. Continue reading Authors who lost paper linking fecal transplants to obesity have another retracted
PLOS ONE has retracted a malaria paper after an institutional investigation found evidence the authors had manipulated multiple figures.
According to the notice, the authors’ institution — the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi, India — recommended the journal retract the paper.
Here’s the retraction notice, issued by PLOS ONE on June 30: Continue reading PLOS ONE pulls malaria study for “inappropriate manipulation” of figures