Category Archives: basic life sciences retractions
Caught Our Notice: Hey peer reviewers — did you even read this paper??
What Caught Our Attention: A tree of life paper has been axed — and based on the information in the retraction notice, we’re wondering how it ever passed peer review. Specifically, the notice states a review of the paper found “concerns regarding the study design, methodology, and interpretation of the data.” Overall, the research “contradict(s) … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Hey peer reviewers — did you even read this paper??
The worm has turned: Nematode study retracted for misidentification
The authors of a paper on parasitic nematodes have retracted the article because they misidentified the organism in question, so “the possibility of misleading readers was high.” The paper, “Histopathological features of Capillaria hepatica infection in laboratory rabbits,” appeared in Toxicologic Pathology in 2009 and came from a lab at Huntingdon Life Sciences, in Cambridgeshire, […]
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Serbian journal cleans house with 16 retractions and 2 corrections after investigation
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 […]
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MacArthur awardee retracts signaling biology paper
A prominent biochemist and his co-author are pulling one of their papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry because…well, we’re not sure. That’s because the retraction note is – as we’ve come to expect from JBC – not very informative. Here’s the only explanation for the retraction of “The Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule (DSCAM) Interacts […]
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High-profile aging paper posts old erratum, requested by author more than one year prior
Genome Biology has partially retracted a high-profile paper about an epigenetic biomarker of aging – a year and a half after the author alerted the journal to a software coding error that invalidated one of its findings. The paper, “DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types,” garnered some media coverage and forms the basis […]
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“Significant overlap” between figures spurs note of concern for 13-year-old retinoblastoma paper
The American Journal of Pathology has posted a note of concern to a 2002 paper about retinoblastoma after discovering two sets of figures “share significant overlap… suggesting that they did not originate from different specimens.” The overlap was “simultaneously brought to the attention of the Editors” by both the corresponding author and a “concerned reader.” The […]
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Nature retraction, resignation result after lung cancer cell lines “cannot be those specified”
Upon realizing they had experienced a case of mistaken cell-line identity, the authors of a 2014 Nature paper on lung cancer think “it prudent to retract pending more thorough investigation,” as they explain in a notice published Wednesday. The problem seems to stem from more than just honest error, according to corresponding author Julian Downward, a […]
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“Evidence of data duplication” infects lung inflammation paper from Harvard and Yale
A team of Harvard and Yale biologists have retracted an Infection and Immunity paper due to data duplication. After the duplication came to light, the erroneous figures were corrected using original data, but the results affected “some of the manuscript’s conclusions.” An ethics panel subsequently recommended retraction, according to the journal, and the authors agreed. The paper, “NOD2 […]
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“Significant concerns” and formal investigation unwind Nature Nanotech sequencing paper
Following “significant concerns” raised by outside researchers and a formal university investigation, a group of authors in Taiwan has retracted a Nature Nanotechnology paper on DNA sequencing after they “could not reproduce the results of the work,” or even provide “a complete set of raw data for the original experiments.” The paper, “DNA sequencing using electrical conductance measurements […]
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Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures
The Journal of Immunology is retracting a 2006 article about the role of exosomes in pregnancy at the behest of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, following a misconduct investigation that “determined multiple figures” in the paper were falsified. First author Douglas Taylor is a pioneer in exosome biology, having discovered the release of exosomes from tumor […]
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