Why did it take a journal two years to retract a paper after a misconduct finding?

A 2014 paper containing data manipulated by a former graduate student has finally been retracted, two years after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) published its findings. In August 2015, the ORI published a report that Peter Littlefield, who was working on his PhD at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), had committed […]

The post Why did it take a journal two years to retract a paper after a misconduct finding? appeared first on Retraction Watch.

Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper

Authors are retracting a 2012 paper on cholesterol metabolism in zebrafish after realizing it included a case of mistaken identity in a DNA sequence crucial to some aspects of the experiment.   A postdoc misidentified the plasmid in question after failing to fully sequence it before including it in the experiment. A technician in the lab found […]

The post Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper appeared first on Retraction Watch.

Former UCSF grad student fudged data in two papers

A former graduate student at the University of California, San Francisco “knowingly falsified and/or fabricated” data in two published papers, according to the Office of Research Integrity. According to a case summary published this morning, Peter Littlefield was working on his PhD, studying the ways that cells respond to external signals, when he published the two problematic papers. He […]

The post Former UCSF grad student fudged data in two papers appeared first on Retraction Watch.

Structure error sinks NIH-MIT-SNU peptide paper

A mistake in structure identification has sunk a paper by researchers at the NIH, MIT, and Seoul National University in the Cell Press journal Chemistry and Biology. Here’s the notice for “Peptide-Based Inhibitors of Plk1 Polo-box Domain Containing Mono-anionic Phosphothreonine Esters and Their Pivaloyloxymethyl Prodrugs”: This article has been retracted at the request of the authors. […]