Dodgy figure in cord blood paper prompts Expression of Concern in oncology journal

The editor of Clinical Medicine Insights: Oncology has issued an Expression of Concern over a 2008 paper by a group of authors in China after identifying “flaws” in one of the figures.

The article, “Exvivo experiments of human ovarian cancer ascites-derived exosomes presented by dendritic cells derived from umbilical cord blood for immunotherapy treatment,” purported to show that:

tumor-specific antigens present on exosomes can be presented by DCs [dendritic cells] derived from unrelated umbilical cord blood to induce tumor specific cytotoxicity and this may represent as a novel immunotherapy for ovarian cancer.

But according to William C. S. Cho, editor of the journal, there’s reason to doubt the conclusions. As the notice explains:

Paper by Bristol-Myers Squibb researchers retracted for “unsolved legal reasons”

A group of researchers at Bristol-Myers Squibb has had a paper retracted for reasons we can’t quite figure out.

All the notice for “Simultaneous expression of antibody light and heavy chains in Pichia pastoris: improving retransformation outcome by linearizing vector at a different site,” published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, says is:

Streisand Effect meets tough editors as journal retracts already-corrected paper by Rui Curi

Rui Curi — the Brazilian scientist who threatened to sue the now-shuttered Science-Fraud.org site for criticizing his work — has rung up his second retraction, this one for a paper that he corrected earlier this year.

Here’s the Journal of Endocrinology notice, whose headers and language are a bit confusing, understandably, because it is retracting two things, a correction and the original paper:

Another Expression of Concern for Milena Penkowa

Another paper by Milena Penkowa, who is being investigated for embezzlement as well as possible scientific misconduct, has been subject to an Expression of Concern:

Here’s the notice in Glia:

Retraction 12 appears for Alirio Melendez, this one for plagiarism

The twelfth of Alirio Melendez’s 20-something retractions has appeared, in Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology.

Along with the retraction notice, the journal runs letters from the paper’s two co-authors. Melendez writes:

Alirio Melendez notches retractions 10 and 11

Former National University of Singapore and University of Liverpool scientist Alirio Melendez has two more of the 20-something retractions suggested by the investigations into his work. Both appear in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Here’s the notice for “FcγRI-triggered generation of arachidonic acid and eicosanoids requires iPLA₂ but not cPLA₂ in human monocytic cells:”

Orangutan-Ebola link in PLOS ONE paper under scrutiny

PLOS ONE has issued a fascinating expression of concern about data collection in a paper it published late last year on the possible spread of deadly viruses among Indonesian orangutans. The case has been brought to the attention of the Indonesian government, but more on that in a moment.

The article, published last July by an international group of primate scientists led by Chairul Nidom, a virologist at Indonesia’s Airlangga University, sounded an alarm about “wild” orangutans in Borneo: Blood tests of 353 “healthy” animals showed antibodies for viruses akin to Ebola. What’s more, the filoviruses viruses to which the antibodies responded, as New Scientist and other outlets reported when the original paper came out, included strains not previously seen outside Africa (as well as Marburg, another deadly infection).

The article immediately prompted two comments. The first, by a poster called orangutanborneo, raised questions about the scale and logistics of the project:

“Unreliable” findings fell TB gene study in PLOS ONE

Here’s a nice example of how science should work.

A team of Swiss microbiologists has retracted their 2012 paper in PLoS One on the genetics of the TB mycobacterium after learning that the fusion protein they thought they’d used in their study was in fact a different molecule.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, “A β-lactamase based reporter system for ESX dependent protein translocation in mycobacteria,” which has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:

McGill committee says Nature figures were “intentionally contrived and falsified”

Maya Saleh, via McGill

An associate professor at Montreal’s McGill University is correcting two papers, one of them in Nature, after a university committee found evidence of falsification, Retraction Watch has learned.

Concerns had been raised about four papers by Maya Saleh and colleagues:

NUS: Melendez committed “serious scientific misconduct,” but don’t expect to get any details

Alirio Melendez, a former National University of Singapore immunologist whose story we’ve been following here since a retraction in September of last year, committed misconduct on an “unprecedented” scale, according to the university, involving more than 20 papers.

Nature’s Richard van Noorden has the scoop:

After a 19-month investigation, the National University of Singapore (NUS) today says that it has determined that one of its former scientists, the immunologist Alirio Melendez, has committed “serious scientific misconduct”.  The university found fabrication, falsification or plagiarism associated with 21 papers, and no evidence indicating that other co-authors were involved in the misconduct, it says.

Melendez has retracted five papers so far, as we’ve reported, but NUS wouldn’t give the whole list. They tell Nature: