A group of animal health researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have lost their 2009 paper in the Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology because they’d published the data in at least four other articles. The paper, “Two Novel Duck Antibacterial Peptides, Avian β-Defensins 9 and 10, with Antimicrobial Activity,” reported that:
It was the last study ever published from prominent scientist Gerd Maul’s lab. And now it’s been retracted. Maul was a highly cited cell biologist, with 30 papers cited at least 100 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. He was also a well-known sculptor. When he died in 2010, he had a paper … Continue reading A sad postscript: Paper by deceased researcher retracted
The Journal of Immunology has retracted a 2011 paper on T cell activity after the authors decided they couldn’t stand by the reliability of the work. The article was titled “Human Regulatory T Cells Require IL-35 To Mediate Suppression and Infectious Tolerance.” (On Pubmed the title has the rather ironic precursor “Cutting edge” in front). … Continue reading “Sufficient concern” about data prompts retraction of T-cell paper
Imperial College London has found that a former graduate student there — who had been found guilty of misconduct in two other institutions — did not commit fraud while at Imperial. As first reported in the Times Higher Education today:
We have knocked the Journal of Biological Chemistry in the past for what we believed to be needless — and unhelpful — obfuscation. And more recently, we have praised the journal for taking what we believe to be positive steps in the direction of greater transparency. Here, again, we come not to bury JBC but … Continue reading Retraction of JBC heparan paper shows much to like
Alirio Melendez, who has already had 12 papers retracted from various journals and been found guilty of scientific misconduct by a former employer, has had a Science paper retracted. Here’s the notice (which is behind a paywall):
The University of Tokyo panel investigating the work of a former professor there, Shigeaki Kato, has recommended the retraction of 43 of his group’s articles, according to a report in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. If the papers are indeed retracted, Kato, who already has at least five articles subject to an expression of concern and … Continue reading Tokyo panel calls for retraction of 43 Kato papers
Earlier 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 … Continue reading Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab
The title of this post is the title of a new study in PLOS ONE by three researchers whose names Retraction Watch readers may find familiar: Grant Steen, Arturo Casadevall, and Ferric Fang. Together and separately, they’ve examined retraction trends in a number of papers we’ve covered. Their new paper tries to answer a question … Continue reading “Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased?” New study tries to answer
Retraction Watch readers are by now more than likely familiar with the growing concerns over reproducibility in science. In response to issues in fields from cancer research to psychology, scientists have come up with programs such as the Reproducibility Initiative and the Open Science Framework. These sorts of efforts are important experiments in ensuring that … Continue reading Time for a scientific journal Reproducibility Index