A prominent biochemist and his co-author are pulling one of their papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry because…well, we’re not sure.
That’s because the retraction note is – as we’ve come to expect from JBC – not very informative.
Here’s the only explanation for the retraction of “The Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule (DSCAM) Interacts with and Activates Pak”:
Continue reading MacArthur awardee retracts signaling biology paper
A team of Columbia University biologists has retracted a 2013 Nature paper on the molecular pathways underlying Alzheimer’s disease, the second retraction from the group after a postdoc faked data.
An April report from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found the a first author, former Columbia postdoc Ryousuke Fujita, responsible for “knowingly and intentionally fabricating and falsifying research in seventy-four (74) panels” in three papers: a 2011 Cell paper retracted in 2014, an unpublished manuscript, and this now-retracted Nature paper, “Integrative genomics identifies APOE e4 effectors in Alzheimer’s disease.”
The paper was touted in a Columbia University Medical Center press release as identifying “key molecular pathways” leading to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The paper fingered two potential molecular drug targets, as well.
Here is the full retraction notice: Continue reading Columbia biologists “deeply regret” Nature retraction, after postdoc faked 74 panels in 3 papers
Editors of the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering are retracting an editorial that presents guidelines for publishing in the journal because they mistakenly published it twice – once in June and once in November of last year.
(Presumably, one of the guidelines is to not publish the same article twice.)
Although the duplication was accidental, the corresponding author told us he wasn’t disappointed to learn more eyes may have seen the article: “It would not bother me if it were published in every issue.”
Here’s the retraction notice:
Continue reading Retraction after engineering journal presents new publishing guidelines — twice
Ever since we broke the news about the issues with the now-retracted Science paper about changing people’s minds on gay marriage, we’ve been the subject of a lot of press coverage, which has in turn led a number of people to ask us: Who has the most retractions?
Well, we’ve tried to answer that in our new Retraction Watch leaderboard.
Here is the current list (click here for more detailed information about our methodology and additional notes): Continue reading Who has the most retractions? Introducing the Retraction Watch leaderboard
The authors of recent article about the rabbit hepatitis E virus have pulled the paper after discovering an unexpected mutation in their viral clone that likely affected the analysis.
They realized their mistake soon after the article, “RNA transcripts of full-length cDNA clones of rabbit hepatitis E virus are infectious in rabbits,” was published online in the Journal of General Virology in November, 2014. They withdrew the article before it made it into print.
The article came from a group led by Xiang-Jin Meng, of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, an offshoot of Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland.
Here’s the notice, which — tsk tsk — sits behind a pay wall: Continue reading Rabbit redo: Paper on lepus hepatitis pulled for mutation that “was not supposed to be present”
Here at Retraction Watch, we are reminded every day that everybody (including us) makes mistakes — what matters is, how you handle yourself when it happens. That’s why we created a “doing the right thing” category, to flag incidents where scientists have owned up to their errors and taken steps to correct them.
We’re not suggesting retractions have no effect on a scientist’s career — a working paper posted last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that principal investigators with retracted papers see an average drop of 10% in citations of their other papers, a phenomenon known as a citation penalty. But they face a bigger penalty if the retraction stemmed from misconduct, rather than an honest mistake.
This jibes with research we’ve seen before, which shows the scientific community can be forgiving when researchers own up to their mistakes – notably, a 2013 study that found scientists face no citation penalty if they ask to retract their own papers, rather than forcing the journal or publisher to act.
Continue reading The consequences of retraction: Do scientists forgive and forget?
Genome Biology has partially retracted a high-profile paper about an epigenetic biomarker of aging – a year and a half after the author alerted the journal to a software coding error that invalidated one of its findings.
The paper, “DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types,” garnered some media coverage and forms the basis of its author Steve Horvath‘s work on measuring human aging. It has been cited 73 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The article is also recommended on the post-publication peer review site Faculty of 1000.
The lengthy, peer-reviewed erratum notice, written by Horvath, refers to several figures and files, as well as a conclusion:
The American Journal of Pathology has posted a note of concern to a 2002 paper about retinoblastoma after discovering two sets of figures “share significant overlap… suggesting that they did not originate from different specimens.”
The overlap was “simultaneously brought to the attention of the Editors” by both the corresponding author and a “concerned reader.”
The paper examined the role of a transcription factor called NF-kappaB in driving retinoblastoma, and suggested that inhibiting the molecule’s activity could be a therapeutic strategy.
The authors attribute the overlap to “an inadvertent misidentification of the original files at the stage of image capture.” They add that they “sincerely regret this inadvertent error;” because other data in the paper show “concordant results,” they stand by the paper’s findings.
Here’s the note:
The week at Retraction Watch featured the story behind a Nature retraction, and the retraction of a paper by a pioneer in the field of exosome research. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Sexism from a Nobel laureate; publisher deception; irreproducibility’s price tag
Upon realizing they had experienced a case of mistaken cell-line identity, the authors of a 2014 Nature paper on lung cancer think “it prudent to retract pending more thorough investigation,” as they explain in a notice published Wednesday.
The problem seems to stem from more than just honest error, according to corresponding author Julian Downward, a scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK.
In a 1,215 word statement, sent to us via the Director of Research Communications and Engagement at Cancer Research UK, which funds Downward’s research, Downward told us the backstory not presented in the journal’s retraction note: