Against the authors’ objections, Nature Methods has added an expression of concern to a 2017 paper that drew fire for suggesting a common gene editing technique could cause widespread collateral damage to the genome. The latest note — the second to be added in two months — alerts readers to an alternative interpretation of the … Continue reading Controversial CRISPR paper earns second editorial note
A journal is investigating research by a group in Australia, after receiving “serious allegations” regarding a 2017 paper about treating eye burns. The journal, Frontiers in Pharmacology, has issued an expression of concern (EOC) for the 2017 paper while it investigates. The notice does not specify the nature of the allegations. Meanwhile, several other papers … Continue reading Work by group at Australian university faces scrutiny
The week at Retraction Watch featured authors making a difficult decision to retract once-promising findings about gliobastoma, and sanctions for a researcher in whose lab image manipulations were found. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A few years ago, researchers in Sweden had something to celebrate: They thought they had discovered a chink in the armor of the most common type of malignant brain cancer. In a 2014 Cell paper, the team — led by Patrik Ernfors at the Karolinska Institutet — reported that they had identified a small molecule … Continue reading “We do not want to create false hope”: Authors retract Cell paper they can’t replicate
Oct. 3, 2011, was the beginning of the end for Frank Sauer’s tenure at the University of California, Riverside. On that day, an anonymous emailer contacted Sauer’s institution with accusations that the biochemist had cooked his research in at least eight papers over a 16-year period. Sauer was found to have doctored images in studies … Continue reading What a report into scientific misconduct reveals: The case of Frank Sauer
Did you miss some of this week’s posts? Here they all are, in one handy roundup:
The week at Retraction Watch featured the story of a group devastated to learn that they had used the wrong mice in their experiments, and the tale of how keycard swipe records gave away faked data. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Journals have posted two corrections alongside papers by Brian Wansink, a food researcher whose work has lately come under fire. One of the corrected papers was among the initial batch that raised eyebrows last year; after Wansink praised the productivity of one of his researchers, critics suggested four papers contained critical flaws. The questions about … Continue reading More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher
The week at Retraction Watch featured a story of unintended consequences and a broken relationship, and a retraction for a paper that had just about everything wrong with it. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The paper had everything: Fake peer review, forged authors, even a fake funder. In other words, it had nothing. A 2015 paper is the latest retraction stemming from an investigation into fake peer review by Springer, which has now netted more than a hundred papers. According to a spokesperson at Springer: