Cancer researcher has dodged accusations for decades (and has a new correction)

Today isn’t a great day for Carlo Croce, chair of the department of cancer biology and genetics at The Ohio State University (OSU). The New York Times has a lengthy article detailing the misconduct accusations that have swirled around Croce for years. We’ve covered many, but The Gray Lady obtained documents that show there have been … Continue reading Cancer researcher has dodged accusations for decades (and has a new correction)

Journal retracts paper due to image mismatch; one co-author alleges fraud

Researchers have retracted a biology paper that included an image mismatch — despite the fact that, as they claim, another image in the same paper confirms the original findings. The authors say they plan to resubmit the paper with the corrected figure panel. The second to last author — Carlo Croce, chair of the department of … Continue reading Journal retracts paper due to image mismatch; one co-author alleges fraud

Cancer biologist says Nature journal “censored” his News & Views, retracts it

A cancer biologist has retracted a 2016 News & Views article in a Nature journal, alleging that the journal tried to censor his writing by asking him to remove passages that criticized another journal (Cell).  Carlo Croce, the sole author of the article in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology from Ohio State University in Columbus, described the … Continue reading Cancer biologist says Nature journal “censored” his News & Views, retracts it

When does “overlap” become plagiarism? Here’s what PLOS ONE decided

Consider this: Fragments of a PLOS ONE paper overlap with pieces of other publications. The authors used them without credit and without quotation marks. This sounds an awful lot like plagiarism — using PLOS‘s own standards, even. But the journal isn’t calling it plagiarism. They’ve labeled this an instance of “text overlap,” a spokesperson told us, based … Continue reading When does “overlap” become plagiarism? Here’s what PLOS ONE decided

Cancer researcher earns 9th retraction, for image duplication

Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy who has been under criminal investigation for scientific misconduct, has earned his ninth retraction. Retraction number nine, by The Journal of Clinical Investigation, is for duplicating data from another publication — which has also faced questions on PubPeer about image manipulation, along with many other papers by Fusco. The retraction note for “The … Continue reading Cancer researcher earns 9th retraction, for image duplication

Cancer researcher under investigation in Italy notches eighth retraction

Alfredo Fusco, the researcher in Italy who is under criminal investigation and has had seven papers retracted, has lost yet another study. The investigation, which came to light in late 2013, had focused on eight papers thought to demonstrate evidence of image manipulation. The latest paper, in the European Journal of Cancer, studied mice with … Continue reading Cancer researcher under investigation in Italy notches eighth retraction

Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy under criminal investigation, now has a seventh retraction for manipulated images. Here’s the notice for “Retraction: Identification of new high mobility group A1 associated proteins,” to which not all of the authors agreed:

Cancer researcher facing criminal inquiry up to six retractions

Alfredo Fusco, who is under criminal investigation in Italy for scientific fraud, has had two more papers retracted. Both are in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). Here are the two studies:

Retractions 3 and 4 appear for researcher facing criminal probe; OSU co-author won’t face inquiry

Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy who is facing a criminal investigation for fraud, has had two more papers retracted.

Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine

It’s really hard to get papers retracted, police might be best-equipped to handle scientific misconduct investigations, and there’s finally software that will identify likely image manipulation. Those are three highlights from a number of pieces that have appeared in Nature and Nature Medicine in the past few weeks. Not surprisingly, there are common threads, so … Continue reading Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine