Scientific Integrity: A Closer Look at Retracted Study’s Duplication Allegations

A recent investigation at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has led to the retraction of a 2006 Science paper co-authored by Laurie Glimcher, the institute’s president and CEO. The retraction notice was published in Science and stated that discrepancies in key scientific images had been detected, causing the authors to lose confidence in the study’s key figures.

The decision to retract was made despite opposition from the study’s lead author. This paper is just one of more than 50 articles co-authored by four of Dana-Farber’s top researchers that have come under scrutiny. These concerns were initially brought to light in a January blog post by scientific investigator Sholto David. Some of the issues were identified on PubPeer, a website dedicated to addressing data problems in research, while others had been posted several years prior. Many of the concerns revolved around duplicated images of experimental results, potentially impacting the scientific conclusions drawn from the data.