Steven A. (Tony) Leadon is a former professor of radiation oncology at the University of North Carolina.
In 2003, a university found that Leadon had fabricated and falsified data in his research on DNA repair. [1] In 2006, the United States Office of Research Integrity came to the same conclusion, saying that "Leadon engaged in scientific misconduct by falsifying DNA samples and constructing falsified figures for experiments done in his laboratory to support claimed findings of defects in a DNA repair process that involved rapid repair of DNA damage in the transcribed strand of active genes, included in four grant applications and in eight publications and one published manuscript". [2]
In the wake of the investigations, papers have been retracted from several journals including Science and Mutation Research , while more articles were partially retracted from journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology.[ citation needed ]
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. It is violation of scientific integrity: violation of the scientific method and of research ethics in science, including in the design, conduct, and reporting of research.
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.
Eric T. Poehlman, is an American scientist, formerly researching in the field of human obesity and aging. In 2000, Poehlman was investigated for scientific misconduct; the case continued for several years and in 2005, he admitted to fraudulent research practices. He had published research using falsified and fabricated data in studies on aging metabolism and obesity, including purporting to show beneficial effects on lipid profiles and abdominal fat in menopausal women being treated with hormone therapy. Poehlman became the first academic in the United States to be jailed for falsifying data in a grant application.
Luk Van Parijs was an associate professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Cancer Research. After investigating for a year, MIT fired Van Parijs for research misconduct. Van Parijs admitted to fabricating and falsifying research data in a paper, several unpublished manuscripts, and grant applications. In March 2011, Van Parijs pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in Boston to one count of making a false statement on a federal grant application. The government asked Judge Denise Casper for a 6-month jail term because of the seriousness of the fraud, which involved a $2-million grant. After several prominent scientists including Van Parijs' former post-doc supervisor pleading for clemency on his behalf, on 13 June, Van Parijs was finally sentenced six months of home detention with electronic monitoring, plus 400 hours of community service and a payment to MIT of $61,117 - restitution for the already-spent grant money that MIT had to return to the National Institutes of Health.
Marc D. Hauser is an American evolutionary biologist and a researcher in primate behavior, animal cognition and human behavior and neuroscience. Hauser was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1998 to 2011. In 2010 Harvard found him guilty of research misconduct, specifically fabricating and falsifying data, after which he resigned. Because Hauser's research was financed by government grants, the Office of Research Integrity of the Health and Human Services Department also investigated, finding in 2012 that Hauser had fabricated data, manipulated experimental results, and published falsified findings.
Brian Wansink is an American former professor and researcher who worked in consumer behavior and marketing research. He was the executive director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) from 2007 to 2009 and held the John S. Dyson Endowed Chair in the Applied Economics and Management Department at Cornell University, where he directed the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.
Johnny Lee Matson is a former professor in the Department of Psychology at Louisiana State University recognized for his work in the social sciences. Matson's research topics were development, assessment and treatment of co-morbid conditions in developmental intellectual disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders. Matson's high number of self publications, self citations, and peer review practices have been questioned by social scientists. In 2023 it was reported that Matson had 24 of his research papers retracted due to scientific misconduct.
Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior. He was convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden.
Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne is a Canadian-American neuroscientist who was the eleventh president of Stanford University.
Carlo Maria Croce is an Italian-American professor of medicine at Ohio State University, specializing in oncology and the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer. Croce and his research have attracted public attention because of multiple allegations of scientific misconduct.
Retraction Watch is a blog that reports on retractions of scientific papers and on related topics. The blog was launched in August 2010 and is produced by science writers Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus. Its parent organization is the Center for Scientific Integrity, a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Dipak Kumar Das was the director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington and is known for research fraud. His work centered on the beneficial properties of resveratrol, which is found in red wine, but over twenty of his research papers have been since retracted.
Yoshitaka Fujii is a Japanese researcher in anesthesiology, who in 2012 was found to have fabricated data in at least 219 scientific papers, of which 183 have been retracted.
Terry S. Elton is an American professor of pharmacology at the Ohio State University.
H.M. Krishna Murthy is a former researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 2009, several of his publications were retracted from scientific journals after accusations of scientific misconduct surfaced. UAB began investigating claims of fraud in January 2007 after the validity of the proteins came into question. The University's probe produced ten publications that were shown not to be valid. These publications have since been retracted from their respective journals. Murthy's publications dealt with the crystal structures of several proteins that he had claimed to have determined using crystallographic methods. It was found that these protein structures were never properly determined and the primary crystallographic data for at least some of them have been fabricated by Murthy.
Sir Stephen Philip Jackson, FRS, FMedSci is the Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology. He is a senior group leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and associate group leader at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge.
Ching-Shih Chen is the former Lucius A. Wing Chair of Cancer Research and professor of medicinal chemistry at Ohio State University (OSU). In 2018, Chen resigned his positions at OSU, and the university released a report on an investigation into Chen's scientific misconduct. As of 2020, Chen has had ten of his research publications retracted, two papers have received an expression of concern, and five others have been corrected.
Jonathan Neal Pruitt is a former academic researcher. He was an Associate Professor of behavioral ecology and Canada 150 Research Chair in Biological Dystopias at McMaster University. Pruitt's research focused primarily on animal personalities and the social behavior of spiders and other organisms.
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.