Search Results for: post-doc

Exclusive: City of Hope cancer researcher goes to court to fight misconduct finding

An alumna of the lab of Carlo Croce, a high-profile cancer researcher at The Ohio State University with 14 retractions, has sued the institution over the results of its investigation that found she committed research misconduct.  Flavia Pichiorri is now a principal investigator with her own lab researching potential therapies for multiple myeloma at City … Continue reading Exclusive: City of Hope cancer researcher goes to court to fight misconduct finding

One chiropractic manipulation patient injury. Two case reports. Two editor’s notes.

What happens when two different groups from two different medical specialties see a patient, and then write up separate case reports? Ask teams of doctors in the neurology and rheumatology departments of the Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil. They both published case reports about a patient was injured after undergoing chiropractic … Continue reading One chiropractic manipulation patient injury. Two case reports. Two editor’s notes.

When an independent replication isn’t really independent

My laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School studies genetic diseases that affect the skeletal system.  We became interested in the protein osteocalcin after Gerard Karsenty at Columbia University reported in several papers using knockout mice – mice lacking the genes which produce osteocalcin – that osteocalcin is a bone-derived hormone that affects … Continue reading When an independent replication isn’t really independent

Chemistry group at Hokkaido up to three retractions

A group of researchers in Japan who lost a paper earlier this spring in Science for misconduct have notched two more retractions, bringing their total to three.  As we reported in April, Science pulled a 2020 article led by Masaya Sawamura, of Hokkaido University, in Sapporo, saying the authors discovered: 

Kale ‘miracle food’ paper retracted for being ‘word salad’

Kale may be a superfood, but for one paper on the vegetable, Twitter proved to be its Kryptonite. We’ll explain. Last November, Food Science & Nutrition published an article titled “Kale (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica) as miracle food with special reference to therapeutic and nutraceuticals perspective.” How miraculous? As the authors, from Government College University … Continue reading Kale ‘miracle food’ paper retracted for being ‘word salad’

Cancer researcher faked data for 24 images in work funded by nine NIH grants: Federal watchdog

A cancer researcher faked data in a grant application, her PhD thesis, and seven published papers, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity. Toni Brand, who earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin and served as a postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), “engaged in research misconduct by knowingly or … Continue reading Cancer researcher faked data for 24 images in work funded by nine NIH grants: Federal watchdog

Science issues expression of concern nine months after one of its reporters uncovers potential misconduct

Science has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 paper on the harmful effects of ocean acidification on fish and coral after the first author of the article was accused of fabricating data in the study and other research. The article, “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may … Continue reading Science issues expression of concern nine months after one of its reporters uncovers potential misconduct

Philadelphia-area lung researcher up to six retractions

A lung researcher is up to six retractions for problematic images.  Dilip Shah’s last academic post was at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J., where he worked as a post-doc in the lab of Vineet Bhandari. While there, Shah landed first authorship on a 2020 article in the European Respiratory Journal titled “miR-184 mediates hyperoxia-induced … Continue reading Philadelphia-area lung researcher up to six retractions

Should residents and fellows be encouraged to publish systematic reviews and meta-analyses?

The ‘publish or perish’ culture is no longer reserved for academic faculty and post-doctoral fellows. The paradigm has spilled over (or bled into) medical training,  aided by the digital revolution. The widespread availability of online library catalogs and referencing software has enabled the mass production of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.  In short, medical research no … Continue reading Should residents and fellows be encouraged to publish systematic reviews and meta-analyses?

‘This is really ridiculous’: An author admitted plagiarism. His supervisor asked for a retraction. The publisher said, “nah.”

Behrouz Pourghebleh is perplexed. And also exasperated. Pourghebleh, of the Young Researchers and Elite Club at the Urmia branch of Islamic Azad University in Iran, noticed a paper published on December 15, 2020 in an IEEE journal that overlapped 80 percent with an article he’d co-authored the year before. Pourghebleh wrote to Zakirul Alam Bhuiyan, … Continue reading ‘This is really ridiculous’: An author admitted plagiarism. His supervisor asked for a retraction. The publisher said, “nah.”