Glaxo asks Nature Medicine to retract paper by fired company scientist

In what could be a significant blow to a major pharmaceutical company, Nature Medicine is reportedly set to retract a 2010 article by a group of researchers affiliated with a Chinese arm of the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.

We’re not the first to report the news — you can read coverage of it on In the Pipeline and Pharmalot, for starters — which includes the revelation that Glaxo has fired Jingwu Zang, a co-author of the suspect paper and former senior vice president and head of research and development at the Shanghai facility: in other words, a big fish. (Big enough to have a profile in, well, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.)

Pharmalot has quoted a Glaxo spokeswoman:

A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct

A paper by a crystallographer fired from his university for misconduct has been partially retracted.

Last year, we covered the case of Robert Schwarzenbacher, formerly of Salzburg University. Schwarzenbacher had provided the crystallographic data for a paper in the Journal of Immunology, but those results raised questions with another crystallographer and prompted an investigation by the university.  Schwarzenbacher admitted he’d committed misconduct, although he recanted at one point, and was eventually fired.

Now, the authors have retracted the crystallographic data from the Journal of Immunology paper. Here’s the partial retraction, which is listed as a correction:

Cardiology journals retract five Matsubara studies

The American Heart Association (AHA) is retracting five studies by Hiroaki Matsubara, a former Kyoto Prefectural University cardiology researcher, that it had subjected to an expression of concern last year.

Here’s the notice:

A retraction with “serious consequences to wheat production”

Chinese researchers have had a 2012 paper in Plant Molecular Biology Reporter on genetically modified wheat retracted, in a notice that cites fraud.

The article, “Isolation and Functional Characterization of an Antifreeze Protein Gene, TaAFPIII, from Wheat (Triticum aestivum),” came from the same group we wrote about in April 2012 when they retracted a paper from Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica, also about genetically altered wheat.

At the time, the authors said they were pulling the other paper because they were having trouble replicating their findings. That now seems accurate, but not entirely complete.

As the new retraction notice states:

“Unfinished business”: Diederik Stapel retraction count rises to 53

Two more papers by Diederik Stapel — who was profiled by The New York Times Magazine this weekend — have been retracted, both in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The notice for “Hardly thinking about close and distant others: On cognitive business and target closeness in social comparison effects,” by Stapel and David Marx, and cited six times:

Retraction appears for former Case Western dermatology researcher found by ORI to have falsified data

Bryan William Doreian, who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have falsified data in his Case Western dissertation, has retracted a 2009 paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell also cited by the ORI.

Here’s the notice:

ORI rules in longstanding University of Washington misconduct case

Andrew Aprikyan

A case of alleged misconduct at the University of Washington in Seattle may finally be over. The Office of Research Integrity released its findings following an investigation into the work of Andrew Aprikyan, a former hematology researcher at the university.

The Aprikyan case has dragged on for a decade. In 2010, the university fired the scientist after a court denied his appeals based on allegations that they had denied him due process. As the Seattle Times reported at the time: 

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”:

Frequent Retraction Watch fliers rack them up: Stapel hits 51, Lichtenthaler scores number 9

Rewards may vary

Quick updates on work by two people whose names appear frequently on Retraction Watch: Diederik Stapel and Ulrich Lichtenthaler.

Last month, we reported on the 50th retraction for Stapel. Here’s number 51 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, for “The flexible unconscious: Investigating the judgmental impact of varieties of unaware perception:”

Diederik Stapel retraction count hits 50

It’s Diederik Stapel’s golden retraction: Number 50.

The lucky notice appears in Social Psychology: