Nature has retracted a paper after an investigation at a U.K. institution found the first author — then a doctoral student — manipulated data.
The paper, which looked at the sensitivity of lung cancers to immunotherapy, appeared in April 2023 and has been cited 192 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
The retraction notice published today states first author Kevin Ng was responsible for the manipulation in the paper, including manipulated data in several figures. At the time of the experiments, Ng was a Ph.D. student at the Francis Crick Institute in London under the supervision of co-corresponding author George Kassiotis.
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
A researcher accused of falsifying research in work funded by the National Institutes of Health has cost Northwestern University $2.3 million.
The university, based in Evanston, Ill., violated the Civil Monetary Penalties Law when a former researcher at the school falsified work funded by an NIH award, according to a November press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. The researcher and other investigators then referenced the falsified research in grant applications, reports and other submissions to NIH for twoother awards, according to OIG. Together, the three grants totaled about $5 million, with $3.5 million tied to Northwestern.
The Civil Monetary Penalties law allows OIG to impose penalties against individuals and entities that engage in fraud and other improper conduct related to government grants. OIG learned of the researcher’s manipulation when Northwestern self-disclosed the conduct, the release said.
Sage has retracted 45 papers from one of its journals for questionable authorship and peer review.
The publisher began an investigation into Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation last year to address citation concerns, a Sage spokesperson told Retraction Watch. The journal was one of 20 titles that lost their impact factors in Clarivate’s 2025 Journal Citation Reports for excessive self-citation and citation stacking.
Sage retracted the articles due to “concerns around the peer review process underlying these articles and author contributions to these articles, as well as the integrity of the research process,” according to the retraction notice, published November 23. The publisher detected “one or more” issues in each of the papers, including patterns of citation manipulation, indicators of third-party involvement and problems with peer review.
A university in Japan has suspended a fishery science professor for a month after its investigation found fabrication in a retracted paper on fish freezing.
According to the investigatory report, Iwate University scrutinized a retracted paper coauthored by six researchers at the school, including Chunhong Yuan, a professor of fishery systems science. Following the researchers’ inability to provide the investigating committee with appropriate records of the reported experiment, the inquiry found Yuan and two unnamed coauthors – a graduate student and an individual now retired – fabricated claims about the experimental conditions.
Yuan has been suspended for one month starting December 25, according to a press release. The university plans to administer additional training on research integrity for laboratory leaders, according to the report.
Elsevier has pulled a dozen papers by a finance professor in Ireland who oversaw the review of the articles and made “the final decision” to publish them in three journals he edited, according to the retraction notices.
The professor, Brian M. Lucey of Trinity College Dublin, and his coauthors disagreed with the retractions, which came a few days before Christmas.
“I’m not disputing the fact that I made the final decision” to publish the articles, some of which have garnered hundreds of citations, Lucey told us in an interview. ”What I’m disputing is that that is not prima facie grounds” for retracting them.
The flagship journal of the Royal Historical Society has retracted a paper positing that British and Canadian soldiers committed “scores” of prisoner executions against German forces during World War I. The move followed an investigation for plagiarism.
The article, written by historian Alex J. Kay of the University of Potsdam in Germany, was published online in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society in early February. On February 19, the co-editors of the journal received a complaint that Kay’s article shared similarities with a 2010 article by Brian Feltman, a historian at Georgia Southern University, in Statesboro.
The journal looked into the claims and identified several passages that “appeared to follow this source too closely in argument, content, and style, with insufficient acknowledgement,” according to a statement the Royal Historical Society shared with Retraction Watch. The group then shared the passages with external editors, who agreed with the initial findings.
Editors of a materials journal have resigned six years after the title was purchased by a publisher based in Canada, claiming the company “multiplied the number of publications while increasing prices at the expense of quality.”
The resignation continues: “We, the members of the RCMA editorial board, can no longer serve as a guarantee for IIETA, which, by buying up quality journals, has multiplied the number of publications while increasing prices at the expense of quality.”
Ankur Khajuria offers a “career-changing course” on conducting reviews, which he markets on LinkedIn to medical students and doctors. (source)
“Research will help you get ahead,” British surgeon Ankur Khajuria told his 16,000 followers in a 2024 Instagram post while seated in scrubs embroidered with his name. “If you want to learn about publishing, check out the research academy at HighYieldUK.com.”
The company, which offers medical students mentoring in publication, isn’t the only commercial venture for Khajuria, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon in his mid-thirties active in the media, including as a contestant on Squid Game: The Challenge. His entrepreneurship has extended into medical device manufacturing under the banner of Avance Innovations, which he founded and where he is CEO. For his professional efforts, Khajuria has been given a prestigious award and high praise from his colleagues, with one calling him “brilliant.”
But an investigation by Retraction Watch reveals a different view. Khajuria’s academy raises concerns about promises of publication for a price, and his prolific publication record has set off flags on PubPeer, where commenters have raised allegations of plagiarism. And Avance Innovation’s signature surgical device, while marketed for humans, has apparently been tested on only six rats and no people. Close examination by the Medical Evidence Project, an endeavor of The Center for Scientific Integrity (publisher of Retraction Watch), indicates the data in that rat study lack internal consistency, making them questionable.
Researchers change the name they publish under for many reasons, most of which aren’t fodder for a Retraction Watch story. Trying to skirt a publishing ban is one that is. And another case that recently caught our attention may be in a similar category.
