University of Texas can’t take away student’s PhD; C & En, Chemical & engineering News, February 22, 2019

Bethany Halford, C & En, Chemical & engineering News; University of Texas can’t take away student’s PhD

"The University of Texas at Austin does not have the authority to revoke a student’s degree, according to a Feb. 11 ruling by Judge Karin Crump in Travis County, Texas district court. The judgment is the latest turn in the university’s years-long effort to strip Suvi Orr of her doctorate in chemistry. 

Orr began her graduate studies in organic synthesis in Stephen Martin’s lab in 2003. In 2008 she successfully defended her thesis. But six years later, UT Austin sent a certified letter to Orr saying the school was invalidating her thesis based on research misconduct. The university cited a 2011 Organic Letters paper that was retracted in 2012 (DOI: 10.1021/ol302236g) because two steps in the synthesis could not be reproduced.

Orr, now a senior principal scientist at Pfizer, denies any wrongdoing."

He Promised to Restore Damaged Hearts. Harvard Says His Lab Fabricated Research.; The New York Times, October 29, 2018

Gina Kolata, The New York Times; 
He Promised to Restore Damaged Hearts. Harvard Says His Lab Fabricated Research. 

"For Dr. Piero Anversa, the fall from scientific grace has been long, and the landing hard.

Researchers worldwide once hailed his research as revolutionary, promising the seemingly impossible: a way to grow new heart cells to replace those lost in heart attacks and heart failure, leading killers in the United States.

But Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, his former employers, this month accused Dr. Anversa and his laboratory of extensive scientific malpractice. More than 30 research studies produced over more than a decade contain falsified or fabricated data, officials concluded, and should be retracted. Last year the hospital paid a $10 million settlement to the federal government after the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Anversa and two members of his team were responsible for fraudulently obtaining research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

“The number of papers is extraordinary,” said Dr. Jeffrey Flier, until 2016 the dean of Harvard Medical School. “I can’t recall another case like this.”"

San people of Africa draft code of ethics for researchers; Science, March 17, 2017

Linda Nordling, Science; 

San people of Africa draft code of ethics for researchers

"Earlier this month the group unveiled a code of ethics for researchers wishing to study their culture, genes, or heritage.

The code, published here on 3 March, asks researchers to treat the San respectfully and refrain from publishing information that could be viewed as insulting. Because such sensitivities may not be clear to researchers, the code asks that scientists let communities read and comment on findings before they are published. It also asks that researchers keep their promises and give something back to the community in return for its cooperation...

The code does not place unrealistic demands on scientists, says Himla Soodyall, director of the Human Genomic Diversity and Disease Research Unit at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. But others point out that the code focuses on past transgressions, and doesn’t refer to recent efforts to respect and involve communities, such as guidelines for genomics work on vulnerable populations prepared in 2014 by the Human Heredity and Health in Africa program. As a result, the code may present an overly negative view of researchers and discourage communities from participating in studies, says Charles Rotimi, founding director of the National Institutes of Health Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health in Bethesda, Maryland."

Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says; New York Times, 8/27/15

Benedict Carey, New York Times; Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says:

"The past several years have been bruising ones for the credibility of the social sciences. A star social psychologist was caught fabricating data, leading to more than 50 retracted papers. A top journal published a study supporting the existence of ESP that was widely criticized. The journal Science pulled a political science paper on the effect of gay canvassers on voters’ behavior because of concerns about faked data.

Now, a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested. The analysis was done by research psychologists, many of whom volunteered their time to double-check what they considered important work. Their conclusions, reported Thursday in the journal Science, have confirmed the worst fears of scientists who have long worried that the field needed a strong correction.

The vetted studies were considered part of the core knowledge by which scientists understand the dynamics of personality, relationships, learning and memory. Therapists and educators rely on such findings to help guide decisions, and the fact that so many of the studies were called into question could sow doubt in the scientific underpinnings of their work."