In academic publishing, a retraction is a mechanism by which a published paper in an academic journal is flagged for being seriously flawed to the extent that their results and conclusions can no longer be relied upon. Retracted articles are not removed from the published literature but marked as retracted. In some cases it may be necessary to remove an article from publication, such as when the article is clearly defamatory, violates personal privacy, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a serious health risk to the general public.
DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA damage, resulting in tens of thousands of individual molecular lesions per cell per day. Many of these lesions cause structural damage to the DNA molecule and can alter or eliminate the cell's ability to transcribe the gene that the affected DNA encodes. Other lesions induce potentially harmful mutations in the cell's genome, which affect the survival of its daughter cells after it undergoes mitosis. As a consequence, the DNA repair process is constantly active as it responds to damage in the DNA structure. When normal repair processes fail, and when cellular apoptosis does not occur, irreparable DNA damage may occur. This can eventually lead to malignant tumors, or cancer as per the two-hit hypothesis.
Sir John Bertrand Gurdon is a British developmental biologist, best known for his pioneering research in nuclear transplantation and cloning.
ATM serine/threonine kinase or Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated, symbol ATM, is a serine/threonine protein kinase that is recruited and activated by DNA double-strand breaks, oxidative stress, topoisomerase cleavage complexes, splicing intermediates, R-loops and in some cases by single-strand DNA breaks. It phosphorylates several key proteins that initiate activation of the DNA damage checkpoint, leading to cell cycle arrest, DNA repair or apoptosis. Several of these targets, including p53, CHK2, BRCA1, NBS1 and H2AX are tumor suppressors.
Robert Allan Weinberg is an American biologist, Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), director of the Ludwig Center of the MIT, and American Cancer Society Research Professor. His research is in the area of oncogenes and the genetic basis of human cancer.
Miroslav Radman is a Croatian biologist.
CGK733 was a synthetic chemical substance which was reported in 2006 to have remarkable properties in reversing cell senescence (aging). However, the entire work behind the discovery of this compound has since been found to be falsified and the authors of the original reports have retracted all their claims.
Serine/threonine-protein kinase ATR, also known as ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related protein (ATR) or FRAP-related protein 1 (FRP1), is an enzyme that, in humans, is encoded by the ATR gene. It is a large kinase of about 301.66 kDa. ATR belongs to the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-related kinase protein family. ATR is activated in response to single strand breaks, and works with ATM to ensure genome integrity.
Evelyn M. Witkin was an American bacterial geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1944–1955), SUNY Downstate Medical Center (1955–1971), and Rutgers University (1971–1991). Witkin was considered innovative and inspirational as a scientist, teacher and mentor.
Checkpoint kinase 1, commonly referred to as Chk1, is a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase that, in humans, is encoded by the CHEK1 gene. Chk1 coordinates the DNA damage response (DDR) and cell cycle checkpoint response. Activation of Chk1 results in the initiation of cell cycle checkpoints, cell cycle arrest, DNA repair and cell death to prevent damaged cells from progressing through the cell cycle.
Tomas Robert Lindahl is a Swedish-British scientist specialising in cancer research. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with American chemist Paul L. Modrich and Turkish chemist Aziz Sancar for mechanistic studies of DNA repair.
Simon Joseph Boulton is a British scientist who has made important contributions to the understanding of DNA repair and the treatment of cancer resulting from DNA damage. He currently occupies the position of Senior Scientist and group leader of the DSB Repair Metabolism Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, London. He is also an honorary Professor at University College London.
Stephen Joseph Elledge is an American geneticist. He is the current Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at the Department of Genetics of Harvard Medical School and in the Division of Genetics of the Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research is focused on the genetic and molecular mechanisms of eukaryotic response to DNA damage and is known as the discoverer of the DNA damage response (DDR).
Naturally occurring means the damage happens within the cell as a result of normal metabolic processes, without external factors like UV radiation or cigarette smoke causing the damage.
Bernd Kaina, born on 7 January 1950 in Drewitz, is a German biologist and toxicologist. His research is devoted to DNA damage and repair, DNA damage response, genotoxic signaling and cell death induced by carcinogenic DNA damaging insults.
Gregg Leonard Semenza is an American pediatrician and Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He serves as the director of the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering. He is a 2016 recipient of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. He is known for his discovery of HIF-1, which allows cancer cells to adapt to oxygen-poor environments. He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability" with William Kaelin Jr. and Peter J. Ratcliffe. Semenza has had thirteen research papers retracted due to falsified data.
Sunil Kumar Manna is an Indian immunologist and the head of the immunology lab of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics. He is known for his studies on cell signaling and apoptosis. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2009.
Orlando David Schärer is a Swiss chemist and biologist researching DNA repair, genomic integrity, and cancer biology. Schärer has taught biology, chemistry and pharmacology at various university levels on three continents. He is a distinguished professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and an associate director of the IBS Center for Genomic Integrity located in Ulsan, South Korea. He leads the three interdisciplinary research teams in the Chemical & Cancer Biology Branch of the center and specifically heads the Cancer Therapeutics Mechanisms Section.
Catherine Mary Green is an English biologist who is an Associate Professor in Chromosome Dynamics at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. Her research considers chromosome stability during the replication of DNA. During the COVID-19 pandemic Green was part of the Oxford team who developed the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Abderrahmane Kaidi is a biologist whose research focused on cancer and DNA damage. He is best known for committing research fraud that led to his resignation as a lecturer at the University of Bristol. In 2018, he was investigated by the university for alleged misconducts in behaviour and research issues. He was found guilty of faking research, which he admitted as a mean to impress other scientists for collaboration and were not for publication.
