Fukuyama, Round 2

Update, 4/3/14 - On a hunch, I looked through major publishers' databases for more recent Fukuyama corrections sharing a specific author's name. Found this (Chartelline C) at ACIEE, alleging "[im]properly processed NMR spectra." Since this author published >40 papers with Fukuyama, more may be coming.

ACIEE, 2014 (above) and 2012 (below)

An astute commenter has clued me in to the latest round of corrections coming from the Fukuyama research group (see 1, 2, 3, 4). Targets affected include lyconadins A-C, ecteinascidin 743, and mersicarpine, and publication dates range from 2010-2013. This time, they're in JACS which, to my knowledge, does not (yet) employ a full-time data analyst like Organic Letters does.

The corrections read much the same as the last raft, released two months prior in Org. Lett., alleging spectral manipulation for multiple intermediates and final molecules, including removal of solvent peaks. Here's one example showing 13C spectra* for intermediate 7, from the synthesis of lyconadin A:

Original spectrum (2011)*

Corrected Spectrum (2014)*

Clearly, there's a bunch of "stuff" in 7 that had to be digitally removed by one of the authors. And this is just one compound; each paper contains several such examples of "improperly manipulated" spectra (direct quote!).

So, what's going on here? I have a theory, although it's a bit of hearsay since I'm not privy to the inner workings of either journal. However, the astute reader will note one author whose name appears on nine of the ten corrected papers from Feb-April...uh-oh.

Was there a bad apple in the Fukuyama lab? More details as I have them.

*Apologies for the different shading, due to my computer and not their SI files.

Elsewhere...

Retraction Watch guru Ivan Oransky was kind enough to feature my post on Open-Access Corrections.

Science writer Carrie Arnold included my interview as part of a recent story at Science Careers. She's referring to some incidents I laid out in this post from last year.

Winter sun shines through icy trees, Dec 2013

I hear through the grapevine that I'll be part of podcasts at Collapsed Wavefuntion and Chemjobber in the next few weeks. Stay Tuned!

Cryptic Retraction, Uncovered

Earlier today, a curious Twitter tipster wondered aloud about an "obtuse retraction notice" in JACS:

"The structure of compound 1, the major compound, of the manuscript was mistakenly assigned. As a result the authors withdraw this manuscript."

You heard it right, folks: An entire (published) manuscript, all down to one set of spectra.

So, what went wrong here? Here's the carbon-13 spectrum, from the SI:

Source: Jang group | JACS 2008

Whoa! That's a lot of carbons for that relatively simple product. I count 39 signals, aside from solvent, despite the compound's formula - and the authors' peak lists - only accounting for 26.

Another tweet (thanks, Neil!) clued me in to this Organometallics paper, in which they prepare the same compound. Compare the spectrum above to this one:

Source: Hor group | Organometallics 2011

I count 26 major signals, about as many as should be there, given the slight magnetic inequivalency of the benzyl carbons.

So, what went wrong? One clue might be solvent; the first spectrum's taken in a highly polar solvent (d6-acetone), whereas #2 uses ol' NMR stand-by deuterated chloroform. Given the highly polar nature of the first compound, along with the extra signals (and perhaps a second benzyl group in the proton NMR), I'm guessing that spectrum #1 actually shows a quaternary ammonium salt, which might result from "over-benzylation" of the cinchonine starting material.

The real bummer here? I've looked through the rest of the SI, and most compounds appear spot on.

Certainly, the authors managed to perform a challenging radical addition with high selectivity. Even more curiously, the ammonium salt used to effect the transformation (1a) looks correct!

Tough pill to swallow. Kudos to the authors for making the right (tough) choice here, voluntary or not.

Update, 8/8/13: Over at Reddit, stop_chemistry_time has staged a fantastic, ongoing debate with me in the comments. Here's the link.

Justice = Served

Friend of the blog Stu Cantrill sends along a long-awaited decision, courtesy of our pals over at Retraction Watch. Blogizens may recall I wrote (strongly) in favor of this outcome back in February.

I applaud the editors of Chemistry: A European Journal for righting this ship. Well done.

Did you see how that worked out, Dalton Transactions?
Hope you reconsider for next time.

Thanks,
SAO

Was Justice Served?

Source: PrariePastor, Wordpress

What should happen to serial plagiarists?*

Regular readers may recall that I posted back-to-back on suspicious swaths of text in two peer-reviewed papers by Xi Yan, a chemistry professor at Beijing Normal University. Along with others (including the authors of both original papers), I concluded that the huge blocks of essentially unchanged text in Yan's papers merited action by the respective Editors of Chemistry and Dalton Transactions.

So, what happened?

Check out the Dalton paper - there's now an "Addition" listed, off to the bottom right of your screen. It reads (emphasis mine):

"After the publication of our article, it was brought to our attention that an earlier publication containing related work to that described in the article should have been referenced:  'Dynamic copper(I) imaging in mammalian cells with a genetically encoded fluorescent copper(I) sensor', Seraphine V Wegner, Hasan Arslan, Murat Sunbul, Jun Yin and Chuan He, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2010, 132, 2567-2569. 

The authors apologise for this oversight."

Oversight? "Related work?!" A cowardly, measly, long-overdue REFERENCE?!?!?

Fact: Xi Yan has been caught twice with duplicated text and re-hashed science.
Fact: He has now been given a "pass" for bad behavior by RSC Editors.

I cannot accept this decision. Simply put, it flies in the face of everything I know as an honest scientist. Papers are hard to write! Original science doesn't come easy! I sympathize, but that doesn't condone taking another person's work as your own. This failure to discipline permits not just Xi Yan's folly, but opens the door for future plagiarism.

Hypothetical: Playing under these rules, what's to stop me from re-publishing all of E.J. Corey's papers under my name? I'll just subtly alter the substrates, and make sure to bury his name is my References section! Does anyone else realize how ridiculous that sounds???

Another wrinkle: a friend of the blog mentions that the RSC, along with several other publishers, belong to COPE, a publication ethics group. From COPE's own Code of Conduct (emphasis mine):

"Best practice for editors would include: 

• adopting systems for detecting plagiarism (e.g. software, searching for similar titles) in submitted items (either routinely or when suspicions are raised) 

• supporting authors whose copyright has been breached or who have been the victims of plagiarism 

• being prepared to work with their publisher to defend authors’ rights and pursue offenders (e.g. by requesting retractions or removal of material from websites) irrespective of whether their journal holds the copyright"

Following ChemBark's example, I'll lay out my recommendations:

1. The half-hearted "Addition" should be taken down, and Yan's paper retracted.
2. Xi Yan should issue a massive mea culpa to his university, Dalton, and its Editors.
3. Dalton should take steps to ensure that future plagiarised papers are screened out prior to publication.

Failure to take these steps will result in a severe lack of confidence for all future journal publications. I have reached out to the Editorial staff at Dalton for comment, and will update this post if/when I receive a response.

Update (2/17/13) - Try this at home: Friend of the blog S.C. passes along DOC Cop, an online manuscript comparison tool. I uploaded the two texts, and received a match report of 19%. Although, a quick look-down indicates it's likely much higher than that (the software misses one-off substitutions and different reference numbering). I would estimate ~35% duped text.

*To everyone who comes here for fun chemical adventures and light-hearted content: I'm sorry. I don't mean to be the chemistry Internet Police, but I strongly, strongly believe that science needs a level playing field. More fun to come, I promise.