Category Archives: NAS
Journals flag two papers by prominent researcher — who is also on trial for domestic abuse
Adeel Safdar was once a rising star in the field of kinesiology. After completing his doctorate degree at McMaster University in Canada, working with one of the titans of his field, Safdar took a postdoc at Harvard, then accepted a newly created chair position at another university in Ontario. That all came crashing down last … Continue reading Journals flag two papers by prominent researcher — who is also on trial for domestic abuse
PNAS wouldn’t let authors cite unpublished manuscript. Now, it admits it was wrong.
Question: Do you value Retraction Watch? If so, would you consider a tax-deductible donation of $25, or a recurring donation of an amount of your choosing, to support us? When researchers submitted a paper about a type of microparticle to PNAS, they wanted to give credit where it was due, and cite an unpublished manuscript … Continue reading PNAS wouldn’t let authors cite unpublished manuscript. Now, it admits it was wrong.
Posted by in drug design, engineering, freely available, japan retractions, NAS, PNAS, reference problems, spain
Caught Our Notice: “The first author cut the thermoprinter paper printout into pieces and reassembled them”
Title: A mitochondrial ferredoxin is essential for biogenesis of cellular iron-sulfur proteins What Caught Our Attention: Here’s a cut-and-paste issue that gave us pause. The authors of an 18-year-old paper in PNAS corrected it after realizing some bands in a figure were duplicated (an issue raised on PubPeer one year ago). It turns out, the … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: “The first author cut the thermoprinter paper printout into pieces and reassembled them”
UCSF-VA investigation finds misconduct in highly cited PNAS paper
PNAS has corrected a highly cited paper after an investigation found evidence of misconduct. The investigation—conducted jointly by the University of California, San Francisco, and the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center—uncovered image manipulation in Figure 2D, which “could only have occurred intentionally.” The institutions, however, could not definitively attribute the research misconduct to any … Continue reading UCSF-VA investigation finds misconduct in highly cited PNAS paper
Caught Our Notice: Voinnet co-author issues another correction
Title: AtsPLA2-α nuclear relocalization by the Arabidopsis transcription factor AtMYB30 leads to repression of the plant defense response What Caught Our Attention: A previous collaborator with high-profile plant biologist Olivier Voinnet (who now has eight retractions) has issued an interesting correction to a 2010 PNAS paper. Susana Rivas is last author on the paper, the … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Voinnet co-author issues another correction
Overlooked virus “generated a mess,” infected highly cited Cell, PNAS papers
When Alexander Harms arrived at the University of Copenhagen in August 2016, as a postdoc planning to study a type of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, he carried with him a warning from another lab who had recruited him: People said, “If you go there, you have to deal with these weird articles that nobody believes.” … Continue reading Overlooked virus “generated a mess,” infected highly cited Cell, PNAS papers
Florida investigation can’t ID culprit who falsified data in retracted PNAS paper
When the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences retracted a gene therapy paper in December, it declared that some of the data had been falsified and mentioned a research misconduct investigation. But the notice said nothing about who was responsible. Via a public records request, Retraction Watch has obtained investigation documents from the University … Continue reading Florida investigation can’t ID culprit who falsified data in retracted PNAS paper
Stanford prof plans to drop $10m suit against PNAS and critic
A professor who is suing a journal publisher and critic for defamation has announced he plans to drop the case. Yesterday, Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson announced on Twitter that he plans to “voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit” he filed last year in the District of Columbia, in which he alleged he was defamed when the … Continue reading Stanford prof plans to drop $10m suit against PNAS and critic
Posted by in Legal Threats, NAS, PNAS, united states
They thought they might solve the world’s energy problems. Then they realized they were wrong.
Researchers are retracting a 2016 PNAS paper that described a way to create gasoline-like fuels directly from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Senior author Frederick MacDonnell, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), told us he originally thought his team had made a preliminary breakthrough that might “solve the world’s energy problems.” Instead, […]
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University finds falsified data in PNAS gene therapy paper, authors retract
A university investigation has found falsified data in a 2011 paper about the side effects of a virus commonly used in gene therapy. The authors are retracting the paper, but one co-author told Retraction Watch they stand by their main conclusions. According to Roland Herzog, a professor at the University of Florida (UF) College of […]
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