Retraction Watch

Fourth retraction for Haruko Obokata, focus of STAP cell scandal, after Harvard investigation

More than five years after Nature retracted two highly suspect papers about what had been described as a major breakthrough in stem cell research, another journal has pulled a paper about the work.

The scandal over so-called STAP stem cells took down more than just a few articles. The case centered on Haruko Obokata, a Japanese researcher who conducted the studies as a post-doc in the Harvard lab of Charles Vacanti. Obokata lost her doctoral thesis from Waseda University in 2015 because it plagiarized from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She also retracted a paper in Nature Protocols.

Journals retract 13 papers by Hans Eysenck, flag 61, some 60 years old

Two journals have retracted 13 papers co-authored by the late — and controversial — psychologist Hans Eysenck, following a university investigation that found dozens of his papers to be “unsafe.”

One of the journals, Perceptual and Motor Skills, subjected 36 of Eysenck’s papers to expressions of concern, while another — Psychological Reports — subjected 25 of them to the same flag. Both journals are published by SAGE.

A May 2019 report by King’s College London into the work of Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, apparently of the University Heidelberg, that more than two dozen papers be retracted. Among other issues, the report cited

Harvard group retracts Nature paper

A group of researchers based at Harvard University have retracted an influential 2017 letter in Nature after a change in lab personnel led to the discovery of errors in the analysis.

The article, “Microglia-dependent synapse loss in type I interferon-mediated lupus,” emerged from a collaboration including scientists at Harvard Medical School, the Rockefeller University in New York City, the University of Magdeburg, in Germany.

The senior author of the research letter — which has been cited 75 times, earning it a highly cited designation from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science — was Michael C. Carroll, a prominent immunology researcher. [See disclosure at the end of this post.] Also on the list was Ronald Herbst, who at the time was vice president of research at MedImmune but has since left that company for another biotech firm. The first author was Allison Bialas, at the time a post-doc at Harvard.

According to the abstract:

‘Those unfortunate events:’ Second retraction for stem cell scientist in Canada accused of misconduct

McMaster’s University Hall, via Wikipedia

Citing a misconduct investigation, the journal Stem Cells has retracted a 2009 article coauthored by a researcher whose work has been under suspicion for roughly five years.

The paper was titled “Cell adhesion and spreading affect adipogenesis from embryonic stem cells: the role of calreticulin.” The retraction notice, which is behind a paywall, states:

Weekend reads: Highly cited scientist was manipulating citations; ‘botched and unnecessary’ operations; a flawed coronavirus study

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

the retraction of a preprint on coronavirus;
a finding of misconduct at Michigan State;
the resignation of an entire editorial board over a dispute with a journal’s publisher;
and a former grad student who forged a PI’s authorship — and got smacked down for it.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Journal flags papers two years after university investigation finds researcher faked data

Nearly two years after a University of Liverpool investigation determined that a former researcher there fabricated his data, the journal Molecular Medicine has issued expressions of concern about four papers by that researcher.

As we reported in 2018, Daniel J. Antoine — once a promising young liver specialist — was found to have made up much of his spectroscopic findings. According to the university:

Entire board of law journal resigns in a ‘small act of resistance’

The defense resigns.

The entire editorial board of the European Law Journal, along with its two top editors, has quit over a dispute about contract terms and the behavior of its publisher, Wiley.

In a statement posted on the blog of the European Law Blog, editors-in-chief Joana Mendes, of the University of Luxembourg, and Harm Schepel, of the University of Kent, in England, wrote:

Michigan State committee finds misconduct by museum head in celebrated mummy case

An investigation into the director of the museum at Michigan State University has found him guilty of research misconduct and other behavior stemming from his meddling in efforts to repatriate a 500-year-old mummy of a young girl that came to the school from South America in the late 19th century.

A committee at the East Lansing institution determined that Mark Auslander, an anthropologist and historian misappropriated the work of other scholars, fabricated data and committed other misconduct in his handling of the mummy matter, which made headlines last year.

Although the case involves several years of misbehavior, at its core are two main events: a repatriation ceremony in Washington, D.C. for the relic, and an official letter in which Auslander, as director of the museum published the ill-gotten work.

According to a summary of the report provided to Retraction Watch which is consistent with official communications viewed by us:

Former grad student forges his supervisor’s authorship — and gets smacked down

On December 29, Jan Behrends, of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Freiburg, in Germany, was checking his Google Scholar profile when he saw his name on a paper — one he’d played no part in writing.

The article, “Microelectrochemical cell arrays for whole-cell currents recording through ion channel proteins based on trans-electroporation approach,” had appeared earlier that month in Analyst, a publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry. According to Behrends:

A preprint on coronavirus was retracted over the weekend. Here’s why that was a good moment for science.

Did you know that a preprint on the 2019 novel coronavirus was retracted this weekend? It happened so fast, you might have missed it.

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