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Exterior of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
CNN
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Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University's prestigious educational institution, is retracting six studies and moving to correct 31 others following allegations of data manipulation.
The action by Harvard Medical School comes after a molecular biologist published a blog post earlier this month alleging that researchers manipulated images and falsified data.
Dana-Farber is currently reviewing more than 50 papers for four researchers who have faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School. Four of her papers reviewed were written by Dana-Farber CEO Laurie Glimcher.
“We are committed to a culture of accountability and integrity. Therefore, all research is fully investigated to ensure the integrity of the scientific literature.” Dana-Farber Research Integrity Barrett Rollins, the director and chief scientific officer emeritus, said in a statement to CNN on Monday. “Dana-Farber has been quick and decisive in this regard.”
Rollins said six manuscripts are in the process of being retracted, 31 have been “identified as needing correction” and another in which an error was reported is “under review.”
Dana-Farber has not determined whether there was any wrongdoing.
The retractions and corrections add to pressure on Harvard after weeks of scrutiny over the Ivy League school's handling of plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, who resigned as president earlier this month. ing. Gay requested that some of his work be revised, saying the university had “insufficient citations.”
Harvard University submitted a trove of documents to Congress late last week as part of a House committee investigation.
Earlier this month, Sholto-David published a blog post titled “Dana Farvelication at Harvard” in which he claimed: Researchers at the Cancer Research Institute manipulated the images and data. David suggested that Adobe Photoshop is used to copy and paste images in some papers.
according to Rollins and Dana-Farber said they were already looking into “potential data errors” in the incidents cited in the blog, stressing that the issues uncovered did not necessarily amount to illegal activity. .
“The existence of image discrepancies within the paper is not evidence of the authors' deceptive intent,” Rollins said in a statement. “That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful fact-based investigation, which is an integral part of our response. In our experience, mistakes are often unintentional and illegal. It doesn’t rise to the level of an act.”
While some of the claims raised on the blog against Dana-Farber researchers are “false,” others concern data generated by outside labs, Rollins said. Ta.
