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British Medical Journal
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Post by Larousse2005;3066186
Investigation intodata fraud results in heart researcher’s dismissal
Owen Dyer
BMJ2011;343doi:10.1136/bmj.d6208(Published 27 September 2011)
Cite thisas:BMJ2011;343:d6208
Five published articles on the geneticcauses of cardiac
arrhythmia are being retracted after thedismissal of a Montreal
Heart Institute researcher who falsifieddata in his work. The
institute dismissed Zhiguo Wang after aninvestigation triggered
in August when he requested the retractionof two articles in
the Journal of Biological Chemistry (2007;282:12363-7,doi:10.
1074/jbc.A111.700015; 2008;283:20045-52,doi:10.1074/jbc.
A111.801035).
Two terse retractions appeared in the 12August issue. One of
the articles had been cited 126 times, theother 76 times. At the
time, Dr Wang told the website RetractionWatch, “We noticed
some mistakes in the Western blot bandimages shown in these
papers. These mistakes do not invalidate ourresults and
conclusions.”
But the Montreal Heart Institute launched aninvestigation,
which concluded three weeks later with DrWang’s dismissal.
Jean-Claude Tardif, research director at theinstitute, said that
it would request the withdrawal of threemore articles. He added,
however, that the papers’ conclusions wereuncontroversial and
had been replicated in other research.
The next retraction appeared two weeks ago,in the Journal of
Cell Science (2007;120,3045-52, doi:10.1242/jcs.098830).The
retraction notice reads: “After it wasbrought to our attention
by the Journal of Cell Science,careful examination of the above
paper published in the journal in 2007highlighted some errors
we made related to the re-use of ourpreviously published
western blot bands . . . The misuse andre-use of western blot
bands violated the editorial policy of Journalof Cell Science,
and so we must retract this article. Theerrors originated in Dr
Zhiguo Wang’s laboratory . . . Dr Wang takes full responsibility
and apologises to the editors and readership.”
Dr Wang has also published inthe journals PloS One, EMBO
Journal, and NatureMedicine. But these papers have been
cleared of data fraud by theMontreal Heart Institute’s
investigation. NatureMedicine’s editor, Juan Carlos Lopez, told
the BMJ that “there maybe grounds for a corrigendum, but it
does not look like it will benecessary to retract the paper
[2007;13:486-91,doi:10.1038/nm1569].”
The remaining two retractions willappear in the Journal of
Cellular Physiology (2007;212:285-92;doi:10.1002/jcp.21062)
and Cellular Physiology andBiochemistry (2009;23:317-26,
doi:10.1159/000218178), said DrLopez. Betsy Bronstein, editor
of the Journal of CellularPhysiology, confirmed the upcoming
retraction there, but the BMJwas unable to confirm the retraction
in Cellular Physiology andBiochemistry.
Dr Wang could not be reached forcomment. In addition to
losing his laboratory, he hasresigned from his post at the
University of Montreal. He isstill employed, however, by
Harbin Medical University inChina, where he holds a Chang
Jiang scholar endowed chair.These are awarded under the
Communist Party CentralCommittee’s “Thousand Talents”
programme, which seeks toattract gifted expatriate academics
to work in China. Harbin MedicalUniversity’s president, Yang
Baofeng, coauthored four of theretracted papers.
A university spokesman told the ChinaDaily newspaper that
Dr Wang “is still the chief ofthe cardiovascular drugs institute
at the Harbin Medical UniversityCollege of Pharmacy. But it
is inconvenient for him toaccept any interviews before the
Organisation Department of theCentral Committee reports the
findings of an investigation.”
Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d6208
© BMJ PublishingGroup Ltd 2011
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