An ongoing investigation into data integrity at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has resulted in a string of retractions, the latest of which is a 2006 Science paper co-authored by institute president and CEO Laurie Glimcher.
The retraction notice, published in Science on Thursday, noted that the authors had become aware of discrepancies in key scientific images that led them to lose confidence in key figures in the study, although the study’s lead author opposed the retraction.
The issues with this paper, along with concerns with more than 50 other articles co-authored by four of Dana-Farber’s top researchers, were highlighted in a January blog post by the scientific sleuth Sholto David. In some cases, David and others pointed out issues with papers in the last year on PubPeer, a website dedicated to data issues in research, while other concerns had been posted to the site several years ago. In most cases, comments had to do with concerns regarding duplicated images of experimental results. In some settings, this may affect the scientific conclusions that can be drawn from the data.