Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction

Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo, whom as we reported in February lost four papers from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal called “highly unethical practices,” has actually retracted five papers from that journal.

According to a notice for “Enhanced cellular uptake and in vivo pharmacokinetics of rapamycin loaded cubic phase nanoparticles for cancer therapy” that appears in the June issue along with the other four:

“Conflicts among the authors” force retraction of Talanta paper

Talanta, a journal serving the analytical chemistry community — we’d love to know how the name came to be — has retracted a 2013 article by a group of Indian researchers over an authorship dispute.

The paper, “Non-enzymatic electrochemical glucose sensor based on silver/silver oxide nano-rods reinforced with multiwall carbon nanotubes,” appeared in January, with the authors listed as Leila Shahriary, Santosh K. Haram and Anjali A. Athawale.

But according to the retraction notice:

Vacuum retracts paper on nanorods for plagiarism, image manipulation

What’s that sucking sound you hear from the journal Vacuum? Why, a retraction, of course.

The journal is pulling a 2012 paper by a group of researchers from India who stole images and used them in misleading ways — that’s data fabrication, kids.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, titled “Microwave synthesis, characterization and humidity sensing properties of single crystalline Zn₂SnO₄ nanorods”:

Arsenic-in-the-water paper with “interesting data” first corrected, now retracted

Note (4/9/13): John McArthur contacted us with a few corrections, which we have made below.

The Journal of Contaminant Hydrology has retracted a 2008 paper by a group of Indian scientists for plagiarism and the failure to adequately reference their sources.

What makes this case somewhat unusual is that the journal allowed the authors to issue a correction (of the mega variety) attempting to acknowledge the problems, but then evidently decided that the patient was too sick to live — and that part of the disease was iatrogenic.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, titled “Hydrogeochemical behavior of arsenic-enriched groundwater in the deltaic environment: Comparison between two study sites in West Bengal, India”:

“Considerable overlap” leads to retraction of medical imaging paper

We have poked fun at Pattern Recognition Letters before for failing to catch blatant plagiarism. We probably should have held off on those jokes for this post.

A group of IT researchers from India has suffered the retraction of a paper in PRL for heavily basing the piece on at least four previous papers written by one of the co-authors without proper attribution (not that such attribution likely would have absolved the sin).

The paper, titled “A robust kernelized intuitionistic fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm in segmentation of noisy medical images,” was published in January of this year by Prabhjot Kaur and colleagues.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Study plagiarizes so many other papers, retraction notice can’t list them all

In a new retraction notice, the Journal of Controlled Release is living up to its name.

The editor-in-chief has retracted a study that plagiarized “a large number” of papers, but only three are listed in the notice. Here’s the notice for “In situ-forming hydrogels for sustained ophthalmic drug delivery,” by Basavaraj K. Nanjawade, F.V. Manvi, and A.S. Manjappa, three researchers at India’s KLES’s College of Pharmacy, JN Medical College Campus, Karnataka:

Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers

SK Manna

Yesterday, we reported that Sunil Kumar Manna, the head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, had retracted two papers for image problems.

Turns out Manna will be retracting eight more, he told us today. Here they are:

Two retractions for scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records”

SK Manna

The head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Sunil Kumar Manna, has retracted two papers for image problems.

Here’s the notice from Cell Death and Differentiation for “Inhibition of RelA phosphorylation sensitizes apoptosis in constitutive NF-kappaB-expressing and chemoresistant cells:”

“Highly unethical practices” force four retractions for nanotech researcher

Sanjeeb K. Sahoo, of the Institute of Life Sciences in Bhubaneswar, India, has had four papers retracted from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal is calling “highly unethical practices.”

All four notices say the same thing:

Primary tumor article retracted for, well, not being primary

The British Journal of Radiology has retracted a 2006 paper reporting a case study of an unusual primary cancer. Trouble is, their information was second-hand.

Here’s the notice for the article, titled “Primary extragonadal retroperitoneal teratoma in an adult”: