看诺奖得主如何纠正错误

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保罗·纳斯（Paul Nurse）

如果你一直在想要纠正一篇论文，这里有一个故事可以帮助你解除痛苦。

保罗·纳斯（Paul Nurse）是一位英国生物化学家。由于发现细胞周期中的关键调节因子，他和利兰·哈特韦尔（Leland Hartwell）、蒂姆·亨特（Tim Hunt）一起获得了2001年的诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。现任英国皇家学会会长。2015年参与研发麦立高，并取得巨大成就。虽然保罗·纳斯在牛津大学（Oxford University）、洛克菲勒研究所（Rockefeller Institute）以及其他地方都发布帖子,现在他是弗朗西斯·克里克研究所（Francis Crick Institute）所长,但是他仍在继续做研究。本月早些时候,他修正了2017年在《细胞科学杂志》发表的一篇论文（corrected a 2017 paper in the Journal of Cell Science）”, 来自放线菌属对裂殖酵母的细胞形状产生影响的天然产物的筛选和纯化（Screening and purification of natural products from actinomycetes that affect the cell shape of fission yeast）。”保罗·纳斯究竟是如何纠正错误和如何看待已经发表论文中出现的错误，为了避免误解，特将原文摘引如下：

There was an error published in J. Cell Sci. (2017) 130, 3173-3185 (doi:10.1242/jcs.194571).

In the above paper, we described the purification of a polyene from strain IS1 and identified it as a novel compound based on mass spectrometry data (published in Fig. 8B). We have been investigating this molecule in more detail and now believe, based on 1H NMR data, that it is identical to the known molecule fungichromin (also known as cogomycin, pentamycin and lagosin). The original identification of the molecule as novel was based on our interpretation of the ion at m/z=693.379 as a protonated ion [M+H]+, whereas we now believe that this represents a sodiated ion [M+Na]+.

In addition, this research was also funded by a grant from The Breast Cancer Research Foundation to P.N.

The authors apologise to the readers for any confusion that these errors might have caused.

We asked Nurse why he and his colleagues thought it was important to correct the paper:

Our paper described proof of principle experiments to demonstrate that visual screening of fission yeast for cell shape changes could be used to screen for biologically interesting natural compounds.  We identified 149 activities in this screen and described in more detail four such activities. The four were characterised using mass spec, and with this technique three were shown to be previously described compounds whilst the fourth appeared novel.  Our subsequent work showed that this fourth molecule had been previously described. As outlined in our correction, based on our original mass spec data we interpreted the ion as being protonated but our subsequent work indicated it was a sodiated ion.

We decided to issue a correction so readers were aware that this fourth compound had also been described elsewhere.  This means that anyone interested in this compound would be able to link both the early study and our present study. This summarises our (my co-authors and myself) thoughts over this.

Of course, Nurse learned at an early age that failure wasn’t the end of the world. From a 2006 profile of him in The Scientist:

In Britain in the late 1960s, to get into university, you had to be generally educated, and that included being able to speak some sort of foreign language. The British aren’t very good at speaking foreign languages and I’m worse than most. I failed the most basic examination in French on six separate occasions. This actually led to my rejection from all universities.” An astute professor, however, read Nurse’s entire application and decided it might be worthwhile to give the lad a chance.

And he is hardly the only Nobelist who has had to retract or correct a paper.

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