Lancet Oncology retracts previously questioned Anil Potti paper

courtesy Duke

Early in December, as the house of cards that is Anil Potti‘s publication record started to really collapse, we called attention to a paper in The Lancet Oncology that had already been the subject of a correction and Expression of Concern in July of last year. Today, the journal officially retracted the paper, “Validation of gene signatures that predict the response of breast cancer to neoadjuvant chemotherapy: a substudy of the EORTC 10994/BIG 00-01 clinical trial.” The paper was cited more than 100 times, according to Google Scholar.

The retraction notice: Continue reading Lancet Oncology retracts previously questioned Anil Potti paper

Georgia (well, the Medical College there, anyway) on our minds for a mysterious retraction

We’re watching a case which appears to involve more than meets the eye.

Molecular Endocrinology has retracted a 2010 study by researchers at the Medical College of Georgia. According to the Spartan retraction notice (we added a link): Continue reading Georgia (well, the Medical College there, anyway) on our minds for a mysterious retraction

And that’s 14: More (and more) Mori retractions, as Japanese cancer journal pulls three papers

Naoki Mori

The steady drip-drip-dripping sound you hear from the cancer literature these days comes from the stream of retractions involving studies by Naoki Mori, the now jobless scientist whose work on cancer viruses appears to be evaporating before our eyes.

Cancer Science, which used to be called the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research,  has retracted three more of Mori’s papers, each of which, according to the journal, contained multiple unreliable images. That brings the tally of retractions involving Mori’s articles to 14 by our count, an impressive number by any measure. Mori has more than 50 papers to his name, however, so it’s possible that the number of retractions will grow.

Here are the latest retractions: Continue reading And that’s 14: More (and more) Mori retractions, as Japanese cancer journal pulls three papers

How should authors mark retracted papers on their CVs? Compare a chronic Lyme doctor with one from the Mayo

courtesy The CV Inn via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-cv-inn/

Soon after Retraction Watch launched, one of our readers posed an important question: How should researchers note that their papers have been retracted?

The question is important mostly for transparency reasons. (We’ve also wondered, however, whether authors whose papers have been retracted because of journal office errors should be forced to list those.) Should they remove any reference to retracted papers? Leave them, but mark them as retracted?

With that in mind, two examples. Continue reading How should authors mark retracted papers on their CVs? Compare a chronic Lyme doctor with one from the Mayo

Inability to reproduce Dutch grad student’s data prompts two retractions from the cancer lit

We are watching an intriguing case out of the Netherlands, involving a young researcher whose dubious results have led to the retraction of a pair of papers.

The retracted articles, which appeared in 2008 in Cancer Research and the British Journal of Cancer, come from the lab of the prominent Dutch scientist Ed Roos, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Both papers addressed the actions of certain chemokine receptors — molecules on cell surfaces that interact with blood proteins involved in the immune response — on the behavior of tumor cells.

The first author on each paper was Joost Meijer, at the time a graduate student in Roos’ shop.

The retraction notices contain essentially the same information, although in the case of the BJC article — “Effect of the chemokine receptor CXCR7 on proliferation of carcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo” — the letter is quite personal. Dated Jan. 4, 2011, it reads: Continue reading Inability to reproduce Dutch grad student’s data prompts two retractions from the cancer lit

Clinical Infectious Diseases retracts antibiotic guidelines after posting uncorrected version

A few days after Clinical Infectious Diseases published a set of guidelines for using antibiotics in patients with cancer and dangerously compromised immune systems, we noticed that they had retracted the paper. The Medline notice read: Continue reading Clinical Infectious Diseases retracts antibiotic guidelines after posting uncorrected version

Sixth Bulfone-Paus retraction accepted

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

A journal has accepted the sixth retraction of a paper co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, the Research Centre Borstel announced late last week. Borstel has been investigating allegations that two of Bulfone-Paus’s former postdocs manipulated images.

The paper, in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, is titled Continue reading Sixth Bulfone-Paus retraction accepted

Cracking the Mori case: A reviewer describes how manipulated images came to light

Naoki Mori

We’ve had two questions since learning of the fraud case involving Naoki Mori: Who discovered the manipulations? And how?

We now have answers. We recently received an e-mail from a researcher who specializes in Mori’s field — cancer viruses — and who claims to have been a reviewer of a paper he submitted early last year to a journal in his field. (We’re obscuring some details to maintain our source’s anonymity.)

During what turned out to be a “painful” review of the manuscript: Continue reading Cracking the Mori case: A reviewer describes how manipulated images came to light

No retractions necessary: An interview with the editor of the Journal of Universal Rejection

Earlier today, we were introduced to the Journal of Universal Rejection by our friend Duncan Moore. From its homepage:

The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR: Continue reading No retractions necessary: An interview with the editor of the Journal of Universal Rejection

Researcher found to have deceived colleague — and perhaps sabotaged others — decides to study plagiarism

Jatinder Ahluwalia apparently did some pretty bad things as a researcher at University College London. As we reported in November, in an investigation related to a Nature retraction, a research misconduct panel at UCL found that:

Ahluwalia “renumbered the files to deceive [another coauthor,] Professor [Lucie] Clapp as to the results of his patch clamping experiments,” adulterated his reagents so his results would look better, and sabotaged his colleagues’ work.

The panel said that the file renumbering charge was proven “beyond reasonable doubt,” and “that on the balance of probabilities it was highly confident”  that the other two charges had been proven. It also concluded unanimously that Ahluwalia had acted alone.

So he knows from research misconduct, in several of its forms. There’s one that he doesn’t seem to have engaged in, however, and that’s the one he’s decided to study in his new position at the University of East London: Continue reading Researcher found to have deceived colleague — and perhaps sabotaged others — decides to study plagiarism