One set of 10 articles recognized by Dr. David confirmed repeated reuse of an identical or overlapping black-and-white pictures of most cancers cells supposedly beneath totally different experimental circumstances, he mentioned.
“There’s no motive to have accomplished that until you weren’t doing the work,” Dr. David mentioned.
A kind of papers, revealed in 2012, was formally tagged with corrections. Not like later research, which have been largely overseen by Dr. Yoon in New York, this paper was written by South Korea-based scientists, together with Changhwan Yoon, who then labored in Seoul.
An immunologist in Norway randomly chosen the paper as a part of a screening of copied knowledge in most cancers journals. That led the paper’s writer, the medical journal Oncogene, to add corrections in 2016.
However the journal didn’t catch all the duplicated knowledge, Dr. David mentioned. And, he mentioned, pictures from the research later turned up in an identical type in one other paper that continues to be uncorrected.
Copied most cancers knowledge stored recurring, Dr. David mentioned. An image of a small purple tumor from a 2017 research reappeared in papers in 2020 and 2021 beneath totally different descriptions, he mentioned. A ruler included within the photos for scale wound up in two totally different positions.
The 2020 research included one other tumor picture that Dr. David mentioned seemed to be a mirror picture of 1 beforehand revealed by Dr. Yoon’s lab. And the 2021 research featured a colour model of a tumor that had appeared in an earlier paper atop a special part of ruler, Dr. David mentioned.
“That is one other instance the place this seems deliberately accomplished,” Dr. Bik mentioned.
The researchers have been confronted with extra severe motion when the writer Elsevier withdrew the abdomen most cancers research that had been revealed on-line in 2021. “The editors decided that the article violated journal publishing ethics tips,” Elsevier mentioned.
Roland Herzog, the editor of Molecular Remedy, the journal the place the article appeared, mentioned that “picture duplications have been seen” as a part of a technique of screening for discrepancies that the journal has since continued to beef up.
As a result of the issues have been detected earlier than the research was ever revealed within the print journal, Elsevier’s coverage dictated that the article be taken down and no clarification posted on-line.
However that call appeared to battle with business tips from the Committee on Publication Ethics. Posting articles on-line “normally constitutes publication,” these tips state. And when publishers pull such articles, the rules say, they need to preserve the work on-line for the sake of transparency and publish “a transparent discover of retraction.”
Dr. Herzog mentioned he personally hoped that such a proof may nonetheless be posted for the abdomen most cancers research. The journal editors and Elsevier, he mentioned, are analyzing potential choices.
The editors notified Dr. Yoon and Changhwan Yoon of the article’s removing, however neither scientist alerted Memorial Sloan Kettering, the hospital mentioned. Columbia didn’t say whether or not it had been advised.
