Former Pitt cancer researcher admits to faking findings

Dong Xiao
Dong Xiao

A former researcher at the University of Pittsburgh inflated the number of mice used in his experiments, and faked data in a number of images in a paper reporting the results, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

Dong Xiao admitting to having

intentionally fabricated data contained in a paper entitled ‘Guggulsterone inhibits prostate cancer growth via inactivation of Akt regulated by ATP citrate signaling,’ specifically Figure 6G,

the ORI reports. The paper was published in  in July 2014 in Oncotarget. Here’s Figure 6: Continue reading Former Pitt cancer researcher admits to faking findings

PubPeer Selections: Good behavior earns praise; questions about HIV vaccine research

pubpeerPubPeer continues to make its mark on the scientific literature. Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections: Continue reading PubPeer Selections: Good behavior earns praise; questions about HIV vaccine research

Cut and paste and a PC crash: figure manipulations sink two papers

jnc

Two papers by an overlapping group of researchers in Italy have been retracted for manipulated figures.

In late 2013, perennial tipster Clare Francis sent their concerns about several papers, including the two that have been retracted, by authors who frequently publish together. One of the papers, in the Journal of Neurochemistry, is from a team led by Ferdinando Nicoletti; four other papers from the group have been criticized on PubPeer for image manipulation, which he addressed via email with us.

The second retracted paper, from the Journal of Immunology, has shares one author with the first: Patrizia Di Iorio of the University of Chieti, though according to Nicoletti she had no role in preparing the figures.

Here’s the April 2014 notice for “Neuroprotection mediated by glial group-II metabotropic glutamate receptors requires the activation of the MAP kinase and the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase pathways” in the Journal of Neurochemistry. It’s behind a paywall, but the journal has assured us this is against policy and they will be fixing it shortly:
Continue reading Cut and paste and a PC crash: figure manipulations sink two papers

Authors get away with throwing quotation marks around plagiarized passages. Again.

PNAS jan15Back in November 2013, we wrote about a correction in PNAS about a May 2012 paper by a group from Toronto and Mount Sinai in New York who, as we said at the time

had been rather too liberal in their use of text from a previously published paper by another researcher — what we might call plagiarism, in a less charitable mood.

Continue reading Authors get away with throwing quotation marks around plagiarized passages. Again.

Stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna responds to criticism

Jacob Hanna
Jacob Hanna

Over the past few months, there has been a great deal of criticism of the work of stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna, especially on PubPeer.

Now, Hanna has responded in the comments of the PubPeer entries for a number of papers. He has also posted a number of PDFs, including his PhD thesis, and correspondence with scientists who have been critical of his work.

He also wrote a response to a criticism published on bioRxIV, a non-peer reviewed repository of biology pre-prints.

One of Hanna’s comments on PubPeer is a summary of the issues with his Blood paper on PubPeer, blaming the figure errors on “medical trainees” who did the word while he was away at Mount Sinai. Here’s his explanation:  Continue reading Stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna responds to criticism

Retracted paper on herbicide-ovarian cancer connection republished

ehpA retracted 2008 paper originally flagged by Clare Francis has been republished in Environmental Health Perspectives with updated figures and new data.

According to the editor’s note appended to the newly published paper, there was no evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the authors. The new paper went through peer review as an entirely new submission, and comes to the same conclusion as the original:  Continue reading Retracted paper on herbicide-ovarian cancer connection republished

Prominent geneticist nets retraction, two corrections, and a lot of questions

David Latchman, Birkbeck
David Latchman

A team led by David Latchman, a geneticist and administrator at University College London, has notched a mysterious retraction in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and has had 25 more papers questioned on PubPeer.

The JBC notice for “Antiapoptotic activity of the free caspase recruitment domain of procaspase-9: A novel endogenous rescue pathway in cell death” is as useless as they come, a regular occurrence for the journal: Continue reading Prominent geneticist nets retraction, two corrections, and a lot of questions

What if universities had to agree to refund grants whenever there was a retraction?

Leonid Schneider self-portrait
Leonid Schneider self-portrait

We’re pleased to share this guest post from Leonid Schneider, a cell biologist, science journalist and a prolific cartoonist whose work graces our Twitter profile and Facebook page. In it, Schneider argues for a new way to ensure accountability for publicly funded research.

It has become clear that scientific dishonesty is rarely sanctioned.  In the worst case scenario, manipulated or fraudulent papers have to be retracted, yet scientists of a certain academic standing can weather retractions without much adverse effect on their careers or institutional budgets. Retraction Watch lists plenty of cases in which the full blame for retracted papers has been accepted by the first author, with the senior principal investigator (PI) continuing as nothing has happened. Cases of justice, like that of the HIV-vaccine fraudster Dong-Pyou Han, who has apparently accepted a plea bargain after losing his job at Iowa State University, which in turn had to forfeit part of a $14.5 million NIH grant to the lab in which he worked, are very rare.

The problem is that Continue reading What if universities had to agree to refund grants whenever there was a retraction?

Franken-paper from U.S. federal contractor heads to the grave

Image via Insomnia Cured Here.
Image via Insomnia Cured Here.

Hindawi journal PPAR Research has pulled a cancer immunology paper after discovering it contained almost no new information.

Instead, it was a Frankenstein-style stitch job, containing sentences ripped from 33 different papers. 18 of those ended up in the citations; for 15 more, the authors didn’t even do them that courtesy. You can see a meticulously color-coded call out here.

Here’s the notice for “A Role for PPARy in the Regulation of Cytokines in Immune Cells and Cancer”: Continue reading Franken-paper from U.S. federal contractor heads to the grave

Oklahoma postdoc admits to faking data in grant application, submitted paper

bin kang
Bin Kang

A postdoc at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation faked data in a submitted paper and in a grant application, according to a new report from the Office of Research Integrity.

Bin Kang admitted to the misconduct, in which he Continue reading Oklahoma postdoc admits to faking data in grant application, submitted paper