Sonia Melo, the recipient of an early career award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who fell under investigation after one of her papers was retracted, has now lost the grant. On the EMBO release announcing the nine awardees of the 2015 Installation Grants, there now appears an asterisk beside Melo’s name. At the bottom of … Continue reading EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant
Mike Rossner has made a name for himself in academic publishing as somewhat of a “manipulation detective.” As the editor of The Journal of Cell Biology, in 2002 he initiated a policy of screening all images in accepted manuscripts, causing the journal to reject roughly 1% of papers that had already passed peer review. Other … Continue reading Don’t trust an image in a scientific paper? Manipulation detective’s company wants to help.
A 2006 paper investigating the effects of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and celecoxib on prostate cancer cells has been retracted because it appears to contain panels that were duplicated, and the authors could not provide the raw data to show otherwise. This is the second paper the authors have lost because they couldn’t furnish the original data … Continue reading “We are living in hell:” Authors retract 2nd paper due to missing raw data
The week at Retraction Watch featured a peer review nightmare come true, and a look at why publishing negative findings is hard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
An investigation at Johns Hopkins University has uncovered several issues with the figures in two papers on a lung disease linked to smoking, one of which is highly cited. The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is retracting both papers, which examine the role of protein NRF2 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But both contain spliced … Continue reading Johns Hopkins investigation leads to retraction of two lung papers, one highly cited
The week at Retraction Watch featured two high-profile resignations linked to the Paolo Macchiarini case, as well as a Q&A with a long-frustrated — and now vindicated — whistleblower. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Anders Hamsten announced he would be resigning as vice-chancellor from Karolinska Institutet (KI) in the early hours of Saturday, February 13. In a press release we received at 12:16 a.m. local time in Stockholm, Hamsten issued the following statement: Following the criticism on the so called Macchiarini affair at KI I conclude it will be hard … Continue reading Karolinska vice-chancellor resigns following criticism of Macchiarini investigation
The week at Retraction Watch featured a paper on reincarnation being retracted because it was plagiarized from Wikipedia, the swift retraction of a paper claiming that women’s makeup use was tied to testosterone levels, and a lot of news about trachea surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
An investigation at the University of New South Wales in Australia has led to a fifth retraction for a cancer researcher long accused of misconduct, due to “unresolvable concerns” with some images. As we reported in December, UNSW cleared Levon Khachigian of misconduct, concluding that his previous issues stemmed from “genuine error or honest oversight.” Now, Circulation Research is retracting one … Continue reading Investigation prompts 5th retraction for cancer researcher for “unresolvable concerns”
If you notice an obvious problem with a paper in your field, it should be relatively easy to alert the journal’s readers to the issue, right? Unfortunately, for a group of nutrition researchers led by David B. Allison at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, that is not their experience. Allison and his co-author Andrew Brown … Continue reading Want to correct the scientific literature? Good luck