But then, I started through the text. Since I didn't have my pink highlighter handy to cantrill them (sorry, Stu!), I decided just to clip out phrases I thought sounded Déjà vu-ish:
Pierre (p. 1): "Time-gated luminescence imaging presents an elegant solution to the problem of background luminescence by setting a time delay between the excitation pulse and the luminescence detection, thereby allowing the luminescence of the media to decay before measuring that of the probe. This technique, however, requires chemical probes with luminescence lifetimes significantly longer than that of the biological medium."
Yan (p. 1): "Time-gated luminescence imaging presents an elegant solution to the problem of background luminescence by setting a time delay between the excitation pulse and luminescence detection; this allows the luminescence of the media to decay before that of the probe is measured. However, this technique requires chemical probes with luminescence lifetimes significantly longer than that of the biological medium."
Or how about this?
Pierre (p. 2): "Notably, the observed selectivity cannot result solely from selective binding of K+ by the diaza-18-crown-6. The selectivities of the lariat ether for K+ over Na+ and Ca2+ in anhydrous alcohol are barely 5- to 10-fold.(7) Tb derivatives of these ethers also demonstrate poor selectivity (4-fold)."
Yan (p. 3): "Notably, the observed selectivity cannot result solely from selective binding of potassium(I) by the diaza-18-crown-6. The selectivities of the lariat ether for potassium(I) over sodium(I) and calcium(II) in solution are barely five- to tenfold.[16] Tb derivatives of these ethers also demonstrate poor selectivity (fourfold)."
One more for posterity:
Pierre (p. 1): "...the flexible structure of the ligand results in an overall large separation between the Tb ion and its sensitizing azaxanthone, resulting in weak Tb luminescence the aryl ether, thereby locking the complex in a conformation where the antenna is significantly closer to the Tb center. Consequently, the efficiency of energy transfer from the azaxanthone to the Tb and the resulting luminescence from the complex are increased."
Yan (buried in the Figure 1 legend!): "...The flexible structure of the ligand results in an overall large separation between the Tb center and its sensitizing antenna, BP, resulting in weak Tb luminescence [snip] The locking conformation causes the antenna to be significantly closer to the Tb center. Consequently, the efficiency of energy transfer from BP to Tb and the luminescence from the complex are increased..."
Cherry on top? The 2013 authors bury the 2009 authors' paper in Ref. 14d. Sigh.
Well, kids, I think we have our answers. While I don't have any skin in the "fluorescent K+ sensors" game, I also abhor unfair play. To this end, I've sent a cheerful email to the Editorial staff of both journals, and will print here any response I obtain.
Thanks for playing!
-SAO
Update (1/23/13): CJ adds his thoughts and a pretty (damning) picture.
Some journals perform BLAST-like searches on submitted papers, if I recall correctly. That would have caught this with minimal human interaction!
ReplyDeleteGood on you for reporting that. Blatant misconduct. What the hell, people?
ReplyDeleteDidn't want to take credit for discovering this, just alerting the community to another occurance related to the underlying issue in the #spacedino controversy. I was talking to the original PI who was trying to formulate a plan of action after a colleague pointed out the ChemEurJ article on Early View.
ReplyDeleteI was particularly drawn to this statement in the post "Cherry on top? The 2013 authors bury the 2009 authors' paper in Ref. 14d." This is the 3rd such instance of intellectual appropriation with a buried citation that I know of in the last 6 years, and this is just from my limited circle of colleagues in a relatively small field. This must happen a lot more often when considering the whole of publishing in chemistry. For my personal experience: https://twitter.com/WPIBurdette/status/144062177010126848
The authors cite our paper (Ref #10), but only state that the experimental observations were similar, not that they were rehashing our work for a different application. The uninitiated reader probably didn't realize the synthesis, characterization and mechanism were not new at all. While not plagiarism as defined by copyright law, this does not reflect well on the peer review process.
Wtf? At least he doesn't have the gall to post the paper on his website : http://yanxi.chem.bnu.edu.cn/fabiaolunwen.htm
ReplyDeleteBeware- my antivirus detected a trojan on that page.
DeleteI started to look at Yan's 2012 Dalton Transaction paper (Yan, X.; Li, X.; Lv, S.-S.; He, D.-C. Dalton Trans. 2012, 41, 727). It looks like there is a substantial amount of text lifted from a 2010 communication from Chuan He's group (Wegner, S. V.; Arslan, H.; Sunbul, M.; Yin, J.; He, C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 2567). Also a couple of lines lifted from Giedroc's work (Biochemistry 2009, 48, 3325 and Nat. Chem. Biol. 2007, 3, 60).
ReplyDeleteAnd that was just what I could find in the introduction!
I bet my life...that if these Chinese authors were to submit for the granting agency here at NIH/NSF, it would be approved! A brazen and blatant act by some should be brought to light by others and am thankful to you. Great job and great posting!
ReplyDelete@Anon(11:13) - I'm less inclined to believe that one bad apple spoils the bunch. There are certainly other authors in China who work hard and publish original ideas. This person just doesn't appear to be one of them.
DeleteOutrageous!!
ReplyDeleteMy personal favourite is this one: http://dx.doi.org/10.3184/030823400103167336
ReplyDeleteCompare & contrast with: http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-1998-1837
You can pretty much cantrill it by just printing it directly onto pink paper...
And in case you want to see it a third time:
Deletehttp://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2001/p1/b101712h
If Wiley doesn't retract that paper, I will retract from reading their journals.
ReplyDeleteWiley can't afford one of these.
wiley published LaClair!!!!and retracted after....how many years?
Delete