Attorneys representing PubPeer in its defense against a subpoena by cancer researcher Fazlul Sarkar, of Wayne State University in Michigan, have submitted a motion to the Wayne County Circuit Court to quash the matter. Sarkar’s work has appeared on the anonymized post-publication peer review site, and he isn’t happy about it. In October, he sued … Continue reading PubPeer files motion to dismiss Sarkar defamation case
Cardiovascular Research has retracted a 2010 paper by a group of prominent cardiology researchers in Brazil. The reason: Image manipulation — which the authors say didn’t materially affect the conclusions of the paper. The article, “FAK mediates the activation of cardiac fibroblasts induced by mechanical stress through regulation of the mTOR complex,” came from a … Continue reading Heart journal pulls paper for image manipulation
Sinead Miggin, a biologist at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, has withdrawn two papers from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) and has corrected another paper, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Here’s the opaque JBC notice for “14-3-3ϵ and 14-3-3σ inhibit Toll-like receptor (TLR)-mediated proinflammatory cytokine induction,” a paper … Continue reading Scientist in Ireland notches two mysterious retractions and a correction
A University of Calgary diabetes researcher, Cory Toth, who told us earlier this year that he would cease publishing in the scientific literature, has two more retractions, making seven. Both appear in Neurobiology of Disease. Here’s the notice for “Differential impact of diabetes and hypertension in the brain: Adverse effects in white matter:”
Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s a sampling of items about scientific publishing, research misconduct, and related issues from around the web:
The authors of a 2008 study purporting to explain how the herbicide atrazine acts on cancer cells have asked the journal that published it to retract it for “inadvertent errors,” Retraction Watch has learned. The notice for “G-Protein-Coupled Receptor 30 and Estrogen Receptor-a are Involved in the Proliferative Effects Induced by Atrazine in Ovarian Cancer … Continue reading Herbicide-ovarian cancer study to be retracted
An assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts has withdrawn a paper published last year after one round of corrections wasn’t enough to fix all of the study’s problems. The study, “Sirtuin 2 (SIRT2) enhances 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced nigrostriatal damage via deacetylating forkhead box O3a (Foxo3a) and activating Bim protein,” by Gizem Donmez and colleagues, had already … Continue reading Authors withdraw already-corrected JBC paper questioned on PubPeer
A group of University of California, Davis kidney researchers have retracted a paper after being unable to verify key parts of it. Here’s the detailed retraction notice for “Proteinuria decreases tissue lipoprotein receptor levels resulting in altered lipoprotein structure and increasing lipid levels,” published by Limin Wang, George Kaysen, and colleagues in Kidney International last … Continue reading Kidney International paper retracted after lab records “were improperly filed”
A group of researchers at the University of Minnesota have retracted a paper in Diabetes for image problems, but exactly what happened is still under investigation. Here’s the notice:
A case of alleged misconduct at the University of Washington in Seattle may finally be over. The Office of Research Integrity released its findings following an investigation into the work of Andrew Aprikyan, a former hematology researcher at the university. The Aprikyan case has dragged on for a decade. In 2010, the university fired the … Continue reading ORI rules in longstanding University of Washington misconduct case