Category Archives: j comp neurology
Misconduct probe of once rising star prompts retraction of cat’s meow paper
A group of Australian researchers who studied the cat’s meow as a model for urinary incontinence and other motor-neural issues in people have lost a 2015 paper in the wake of a misconduct investigation. The target of the inquiry was Hari Subramanian, a former senior research fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute, part of the … Continue reading Misconduct probe of once rising star prompts retraction of cat’s meow paper
Neuroscience paper retracted after HHMI investigation finds scientist copied images without permission
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) asked a journal to retract a paper once it became clear that some of the images in it were actually from a different HHMI lab.
Here’s the notice, from the Journal of Comparative Neurology:
Retraction: The following article from Journal of Comparative Neurology 519: 661–689, 2011 “Lineage-based analysis of the development of the central complex of the drosophila brain” by W. Pereanu, A. Younossi-Hartenstein, J. Lovick, S. Spindler, and V. Hartenstein, published online on January 18, 2011 in Wiley Online Library (onlinelibrary.wiley.com), has been retracted at the request of Howard Hughes Medical Institute after an investigation into data and figures supplied by Dr. Pereanu for the article.
HHMI tells Retraction Watch:
HHMI requested retraction of this paper after following its institutional policy and procedures on scientific misconduct, available at http://www.hhmi.org/about/research/sc_200.pdf. This process involved a thorough investigation into the data provided for the paper by Dr. Wayne Pereanu, a former employee of HHMI at its Janelia Farm Research Campus. The investigation, which was conducted over an eight-month period, found that the images of adult fly brains provided by Dr. Pereanu and published in the article had been copied by Dr. Pereanu from Dr. Tzumin Lee, a group leader at Janelia Farm Research Campus, without Dr. Lee’s permission. With this retraction, HHMI considers the matter closed.
HHMI said they did not expect any other corrections or retractions. The study has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
We tried reaching Pereanu, who is now working at MindSpec Inc., whose mission is “to advance research on neurodevelopmental conditions,” for comment, along with Hartenstein, and will update with anything we hear back.
