前美国马里兰大学癌症研究人员撤稿达到21篇

 诸平

据《撤稿瞭望》2018年11月2日报道，阿尼尔·贾斯瓦尔（Anil Jaiswal）早在一年前曾经是美国马里兰大学的癌症研究员,就有四篇论文撤稿。但是，目前的撤稿数量达到21篇，登上了《撤稿瞭望》撤稿最多30人的排行榜。更多信息请注意浏览相关报道：

Anil Jaiswal

Anil Jaiswal, who until a year ago was a cancer researcher at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, has had four more papers retracted.

That makes 21 for Jaiswal, who joins our leaderboard of the 30 researchers with the most retractions. All four new retractions appear in journals published by the American Association for Cancer Research, and are for image or data manipulation.

For example, here’s the retraction notice for “Aromatase Inhibitor–mediated Downregulation of INrf2 (Keap1) Leads to Increased Nrf2 and Resistance in Breast Cancer,” in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics:

This article (1) has been retracted at the request of the editors. Following an institutional review by the University of Maryland (Baltimore, MD), it was determined that data used in some of the figures cannot be supported. Specifically, the University’s versions on record of Fig. 1E do not match the final published Fig. 1E. The error bars in the published figure are markedly smaller than the University’s versions on record. Further analysis showed that histograms depicting averaged data may have been created from a single datum, some samples may have been disconnected from the analysis, and values for error bars were inappropriately set. University investigators also found that data were excluded from analyses presented in Fig. 3 of the published article. The statistical significance reported in the article is nullified when these data points are included. In addition, it was concluded that a number of duplicated data points found in the data were uncorroborated. The University investigators determined that the published figure does not support significant differences between MCF-7Ca and LTLT-Ca, or the authors’ hypothesis.

A copy of this retraction notice was sent to the last known email addresses for all seven authors, none of whom responded.

Two of the retracted papers — “Inactivation of the Quinone Oxidoreductases NQO1 and NQO2 Strongly Elevates the Incidence and Multiplicity of Chemically Induced Skin Tumors” and “Low and High Dose UVB Regulation of Transcription Factor NF-E2-Related Factor 2” — originally appeared in Cancer Research. One — “NRH:Quinone Oxidoreductase 2-Deficient Mice Are Highly Susceptible to Radiation-induced B-Cell Lymphomas” — appeared in Clinical Cancer Research.

The retractions were a long time coming. As we reported last year, the university requested that journals retract more than 20 papers by Jaiswal starting in August 2016. In September of this year, the AACR apologized for delays in correcting the record in a number of cases, although it did not name Jaiswal specifically.

In the meantime, since January 2017, at least two of the newly retracted papers have been cited a handful of times. Jaiswal left the university one year ago yesterday.