The week at Retraction Watch featured the unmasking of the people behind PubPeer, and an editor doing the right thing following a high-profile retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The journal Blood has issued a correction in a 2009 letter about the molecular underpinnings of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Despite the extent of the changes to a figure, “the error does not change the scientific meaning,” according to the erratum. The article “p73, miR106b, miR34a, and Itch in chronic lymphocytic leukemia” was written in response to a 2009 Blood … Continue reading Correction “does not change the scientific meaning” of leukemia letter
An investigation by the University College London has cleared prominent geneticist David Latchman of misconduct, but concluded he has “procedural matters in his lab that required attention.” Latchman has two retracted papers; on PubPeer, there are questions about nearly four dozen more. The results of the investigation were first reported by the Times Higher Education. We also received … Continue reading Investigation of prominent geneticist Latchman finds “procedural matters,” no misconduct
A Canadian court has granted a review of two researchers’ application to quash the findings of a university investigation that found signs of falsified data, according to the researchers’ lawyer. Yesterday, the court ruled that the application by Sylvia Asa and her husband, Shereen Ezzat, to quash the University Health Network investigation’s findings be reviewed by a … Continue reading Court grants Toronto researchers review of misconduct findings
A correction to a correction is the latest problem for highly cited researcher Jacob Hanna. The stem cell scientist — whose high-profile work has received scrutiny over the past year — has amended an earlier correction notice after a reader spotted an inadvertent “mistake.” We reported on the original correction, to the 2009 Cell Stem Cell paper “Metastable Pluripotent States in NOD-Mouse-Derived ESCs,” in July. The … Continue reading A correction to a correction for stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna
An investigation into the work of Olivier Voinnet by The EMBO Journal has led to another two retractions and three more corrections for the high-profile plant scientist, now suspended from the CNRS for two years. According to the authors, Voinnet was responsible for some of the errors; all papers have been questioned on PubPeer. The EMBO J, … Continue reading EMBO investigation yields two more retractions and three corrections for Voinnet
Researchers have withdrawn a 2010 article in the Journal of Biological Chemistry about an immune regulator. The paper was pulled without any explanation (in standard JBC style). Here’s the complete notice: This article has been withdrawn by the authors. The study’s authors were based out of Shandong University Medical School, Jinan General Hospital of Jinan Command … Continue reading Authors withdraw immunology study, no reasons given
A group of authors is retracting a paper from Structure following a Brandeis University investigation that found the first author had fabricated a key result. Former graduate student Kelsey Anthony was first author of the paper, “High-Affinity Gold Nanoparticle Pin to Label and Localize Histidine-Tagged Protein in Macromolecular Assemblies, which was published online in February 2014. At … Continue reading Brandeis investigation finds scientific misconduct in gold nanoparticle paper
Editors at the Archives of Biological Sciences, the official journal of Serbian Biological Society, have unleashed a flood of retractions and corrections as part of an effort to fix the mistakes of the former editorial board. The fixes – 16 retractions and two corrections, by our count – are in response to a formal investigation … Continue reading Serbian journal cleans house with 16 retractions and 2 corrections after investigation
Olivier Voinnet — a plant researcher who was recently suspended for two years from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) after an investigation by ETH Zurich and CNRS found evidence of misconduct — has issued his second retraction and two more corrections. PNAS posted the retraction earlier this week for a 2006 article after an inspection … Continue reading Voinnet notches second retraction, two more corrections