Cardiff University misconduct investigation leads to Journal of Immunology retraction

The senior author of a Journal of Immunology paper has retracted it after a university investigation found that he had inappropriately manipulated images, Retraction Watch has learned.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Cardiff University misconduct investigation leads to Journal of Immunology retraction

Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper

Research in Veterinary Science has retracted a 2010 paper by Egyptian scientists who published the same article the previous year in a different journal.

Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “Comparative biochemical studies on steroidogenic compounds in chickens,” by Mohamed O.T. Badr and Mohamed A. Hashem,  from Zagazig University and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture: Continue reading Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper

Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

An HIV researcher in Germany has run afoul of a number of journals because he duplicated his papers in multiple outlets.

The funny business by Ulrich Hengge earned him a 3-year ban on publishing in two journals, the Journal of Molecular Medicine (JMM) and Cells, Tissues and Organs (CTO). (We’ve written about publishing bans — which appear to be fairly rare — before.)

Those journals also sanctioned one of his co-authors, Alireza Mirmohammadsadegh. The JMM’s managing editor, Christiane Nolte, told us by email: Continue reading Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

A good carpenter never blames his tools. But for scientists, sometimes machines do go bad–with disastrous results. Consider the following:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has retracted two papers by researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States after the scientists learned that their results were based largely on a problem with their highly sensitive instruments.

Continue reading PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

Heart study pulled after production glitch leads to duplicate publication

On reflection, that headline pretty much says it all. But for those readers who took the time to click on the link, here’s the rest of it.

The journal Heart, a title of the BMJ group, has retracted a paper that it published twice: Continue reading Heart study pulled after production glitch leads to duplicate publication

Neigh: Journal retracts brief endangered horse paper for mysterious reasons

Przewalski's Horse, by Jeff Kubina via Wikimedia http://bit.ly/uVr8Ng

Is retracting a paper like shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted?

Sadly, that’s a more apt metaphor than we’d like for a retraction in Equine Veterinary Journal of a short paper about efforts to save Przewalski’s horses, an endangered species closely related to domestic horses. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Neigh: Journal retracts brief endangered horse paper for mysterious reasons

Bulfone-Paus retraction count grows to 13 with one in Transplantation

Silvia Bulfone-Paus, the Borstel Institute researcher who was forced to step down as institute director and has already retracted 12 papers, has retracted another, this one in Transplantation. Here’s the text of the notice: Continue reading Bulfone-Paus retraction count grows to 13 with one in Transplantation

Corrections in PLoS One, Nature Medicine for Zhiguo Wang, and details about Montreal Heart Institute investigation

via Wikimedia

PLoS One and Nature Medicine have issued corrections for papers by Zhiguo Wang, the former Montreal Heart Institute researcher who resigned in September following an investigation into image manipulation in his lab. 

In September, PLoS One told us that they were investigating the paper. Here’s the text of the correction for “Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Mechanisms for Oncogenic Overexpression of Ether À Go-Go K+ Channel:” Continue reading Corrections in PLoS One, Nature Medicine for Zhiguo Wang, and details about Montreal Heart Institute investigation

Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column

A retraction notice appeared a few months ago in the Biophysical Journal:

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

This article has been retracted at the request of Edward Egelman, Editor-in-Chief.

The editors have noted that there is a substantial overlap of figures and text between this Biophysical Journal article and D. Rutkauskas, V. Novoderezkhin, R.J. Cogdell and R. van Grondelle. Fluorescence spectral fluctuations of single LH2 complexes from Rhodopseudomonas acidophila strain 10050. Biochemistry, 43 (2004) 4431–4438, doi:10.1021/bi0497648. The submission of this paper was inconsistent with the Biophysical Journal policy which states: “Manuscripts submitted to Biophysical Journal (BJ) must be original; papers that have already been published or are concurrently submitted elsewhere for publication are not acceptable for submission. This includes manuscripts previously submitted to BJ, as well as material that has been submitted to other journals while BJ is considering the manuscript. If some part of the work has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the authors must give the specific details of such appearances in the cover letter accompanying the BJ submission. If previously published illustrative material, such as figures or tables, must be included, the authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions from the publisher(s) before the material may be published in BJ”. We are therefore retracting the publication of the Biophysical Journal article.

Ordinarily, such duplications go to the bottom of our list of retractions to cover, despite how common they are. There’s usually less of a story behind them than there is behind a completely opaque notice, or behind one that sports a whiff of fraud. But they’re still important, as Bruce Chabner, the editor of The Oncologist, pointed out in a recent issue of his journal in which a duplication retraction appeared: Continue reading Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column

Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology

Here’s a he said-he said that left one author with a publication, then nothing, and us scratching our heads.

In March 2010, the British Journal of Haematology issued a rather straightforward correction regarding a 2007 article by a group of researchers from Kansas Kansas City, Missouri.

The glitch? The manuscript evidently left out an author:

In Iyamu et al (2007), the list of authors was incorrectly published and should have read:

Efemwonkiekie W. Iyamu, Syed Jamal, Chiazotam Ekekezie and Gerald M. Woods

Or maybe not. The journal is now retracting the correction: Continue reading Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology