Whistleblower forces retractions of four stem cell papers amid questions about more than a dozen studies

In a case that is a good reminder of why journal editors shouldn’t ignore anonymous tips, a Seoul National University stem cell researcher has been forced to retract four papers, and withdraw another under peer review, in Antioxidants & Redox Signaling following a whistleblower’s exhaustive analysis.

Two retractions by Soo Kyung Kang, a professor of veterinary biotechnology at Seoul National University, appeared on May 9 after an anonymous whistleblower sent a 70-slide PowerPoint presentation to the editors of ten journals that contained evidence of suspicious floating error bars, errors larger than actual measurements, pasted-together lanes in PCR gels and RNA and CHIP blots and several cases where the same control blot data is shown across different experiments and in different papers. In all, the whistleblower raises questions about 14 papers in the ten journals.

Here is the May 9 notice for “Nuclear Ago2/HSP60 contributes to broad spectrum of hATSCs function via Oct4 regulation”: Continue reading Whistleblower forces retractions of four stem cell papers amid questions about more than a dozen studies

JACS makes it official, retracting Breslow “space dinosaurs” paper for “similarity to his previously published reviews”

Last month, we (and others) reported that the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) had temporarily withdrawn a paper by a former president of the society after a number of chemists pointed out similarities between the March 25 article and previous ones by the author, Ronald Breslow.

The paper had drawn puzzled looks thanks to an April 11 press release — since deleted — headlined “Could ‘advanced’ dinosaurs rule other planets?” In its note last month, the journal said: Continue reading JACS makes it official, retracting Breslow “space dinosaurs” paper for “similarity to his previously published reviews”

Astrophysics retraction trail includes paper that plagiarized another already retracted for…plagiarism

Sometimes, the full story of scientific misdeeds isn’t clear until several retraction notices appear. Take the case of a group of Vietnamese astrophysicists led by Thong Duc Le.

If you were to read a Physics Letters B retraction notice about one of the group’s papers, “Search for cosmological time variation of the fine-structure constant using low-redshifts of quasar,” you wouldn’t have any idea why the paper was retracted, nor that the move was related to any other retractions: Continue reading Astrophysics retraction trail includes paper that plagiarized another already retracted for…plagiarism

Is misconduct more likely in drug trials than in other biomedical research?

A new paper by Chicago pharmacy researchers suggests that researchers performing drug studies are more likely to commit fraud than are their colleagues in the rest of biomedicine.

In the paper, “Retraction Publications in the Drug Literature,” which appears in Pharmacotherapy, Jennifer C. Samp, Glen T. Schumock, and A. Simon Pickard take a look at previous studies of retractions, including those by Grant Steen and John Budd, both of whose work we’ve covered. They also identify 742 retractions in the biomedical literature from 2000 to 2011, 102 of which were of drug studies, to analyze.

Noting the growing interest in retractions, they write that Continue reading Is misconduct more likely in drug trials than in other biomedical research?

Journal retracts protein paper from scientist who misused deceased mentor’s data

It seemed like a touching tribute when Jiasheng Diao dedicated his 2009 article, “Crystal Structure of Butyrate Kinase 2 from Thermotoga maritima, a Member of the ASKHA Superfamily of Phosphotransferases,” in the Journal of Bacteriology to a deceased mentor, Miriam Hasson.

Before her death in January 2006, of a brain tumor, Hasson and her husband, David Sanders, made up a power-team of protein researchers at Purdue.

Hasson was an X-ray crystallographer while Sanders is a biochemist, and together they would map out the structure and function of proteins. One of their projects  was a  collaboration funded by a grant to Sanders from the National Science Foundation. By the time Diao joined, the effort had already led to butyrate-kinase crystals — albeit of poor quality, Sanders said.

When Hasson died, Sanders — with his institution’s blessing — took control of her data. That made sense, since their labs had collaborated closely. Indeed, they occasionally shared post-docs, including Diao, who had started with Hasson on a project looking at a protein called butyrate kinase but then moved over to Sanders’ lab as the work evolved. Continue reading Journal retracts protein paper from scientist who misused deceased mentor’s data

Fujii retractions mount

Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal — and, if you are Yoshitaka Fujii, retraction.

We have seen retraction notices in two journals concerning papers by Fujii, the Japanese anesthesiologist who, according to an international group of editors, may ultimately lose some 190 publications to research fraud.

Otoloaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery last month had the following notice for a 2011 article titled “Antiemetic Efficacy of Low-Dose Midazolam in Patients Undergoing Thyroidectomy,” by Fujii and an M. Ikatura (who has not been accused of wrongdoing, as far as we know): Continue reading Fujii retractions mount

Brit psych journal retracts Stapel paper on the paradox of failure

In 2011, Diederik Stapel, a Dutch researcher who at the time was a shining star in the world of social psychology, published an article in the British Journal of Social Psychology with the counter-intuitive claim that failure can sometimes be more emotionally gratifying than success.

We’re guessing this isn’t one of those times. As readers of this blog well know, Stapel has admitted to fabricating loads of data. The BJSP has now retracted the article.

Here’s the notice for the paper, which has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Brit psych journal retracts Stapel paper on the paradox of failure

Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

It seems the faculty at Myongji Hospital, in Goyang, Korea, have some ‘splainin to do.

Two groups of physicians from the hospital, part of Kwandong University College of Medicine, published case reports on a rare form of basal cell carcinoma. Turns out they were writing about the same patient.

According to a retraction notice in the Annals of Dermatology, a publication of the Korean Dermatological Association and the Korean Society for Investigative Dermatology: Continue reading Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

Will a new literature format “radically alter” how scientists write, review, and read papers?

A group of authors at a Pittsburgh company have proposed a new way to write, review, and read scientific papers that they claim will “radically alter the creation and use of credible knowledge for the benefit of society.”

From the abstract of a paper appearing in the new Mary Liebert journal Disruptive Science and Technology, which, according to a press release, will “publish out-of-the-box concepts that will improve the way we live”: Continue reading Will a new literature format “radically alter” how scientists write, review, and read papers?

Would you pay $63 for a retraction notice?

For $63 plus tax, you can have a single steak with a side order of fried potatoes and a wedge of crisp iceberg lettuce at the famed Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn. Or you can get a peek at one measly retraction notice from Bentham Science Publishers (at least it’s BYOB).

To be fair, the publisher, based in the United Arab Emirates, does offer a free version of the notice on its own website. But Bentham uses the company Ingenta Connect as a go-between to collect fees —  some of which reach $100 per article, according to a company employee — and as far as we can tell, no such gratis access is available through the middleman. Neither does Ingenta direct readers to the free version in its landing page for the notice.

The article in question, “Solubilization and Amorphization of Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug with Low Molecular Weight Chitosan for a New Guar-Based Colon Delivery Formulation,” by Kadria A. Elkhodairy, Nahla S. Barakat and Fars K. Alanazi, appeared in the March 2011 issue of Letters in Drug Design & Discovery. The retraction notice reads: Continue reading Would you pay $63 for a retraction notice?