A season of retractions, a question of accountability
So early in the year and already so many high-profile retractions in the biomedical field.
Retraction 1 [1]: A review paper [2] published in Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology was retracted by the Harvard researcher Lee Simon after the software eTBlast and the database Déjà vu [3] marked the paper as a possible plagiarism. The paper supposedly had 55% text similarity with another paper published in 2003.
Retraction 2 [4]: Nobel prize winner Linda Buck retracted a 2001 Nature paper on the olfactory system [5] which she co-authored due to inconsistencies and inability of other researchers to reproduce the published results. Although Buck was named co-author, the primary author Zhihua Zou was cited “as solely responsible for providing data and figures for the paper” [4]. Buck won together with Richard Axel, the Nobel Prize in physiological medicine in 2004.
Retractions 3 and 4 [6]: One paper in Science [7] and another in Nature Chemical Biology [8] are being retracted by Korean researchers after doubts over the “scientific truth” of these molecular biology papers arose. The team of researchers in question works at the prestigious Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), led by the senior scientist Tae Kook Kim.
Issues to be linked to these stories are scientific integrity and author(s) [and co-author(s)!] accountability. Especially the accountability part. Who is accountable in cases of doubts and disputes? The supervisor or the PhD student? The team leader or the junior researcher?
References:
- Review article retracted amid plagiarism claims. Nature 451, 619 (2008).
- Simon LS. The treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol. 2004 Aug;18(4):507-38.
- Errami M. Déjà vu–a study of duplicate citations in Medline. Bioinformatics. 2008 Jan 15;24(2):243-9.
- Nobel prizewinner’s paper retracted. Nature 452, 13 (2008).
- Zhihua Z et al. Genetic tracing reveals a stereotyped sensory map in the olfactory cortex. Nature 414, 173-179 (8 November 2001).
- Korean institute inquiry prompts two retractions. Nature 452, 267 (2008).
- Won J. et al. A magnetic nanoprobe technology for detecting molecular interactions in live cells. Science 309 (5731):121 – 125; July 2005.
- Won J. et al. Small molecule-based reversible reprogramming of cellular lifespan. Nature Chem. Biol. 2, 369–374; 2006.
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