Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship

Three notices from ORI, the first particularly instructive in terms of guiding ethical behavior (holding the facility director responsible for oversight) …

Notice is hereby given that ORI has taken final action in the following case: Based on an inquiry conducted and written admission obtained by Kansas University and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Gerald Lushington, PhD, Director of the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Core Facility and Director of the Molecular Graphics and Modeling Lab, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by P20RR016475. Specifically, ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct by approving publication of 3 articles and 1 abstract he knew contained significant amounts of plagiarized text without attribution or citation from other writers’ published papers. The specific published documents as well as the relevant source documents are:

• Visvanathan, M., Adagarla, B., Lushington, G., Sittampalam, S., Proceedings of the 2009 International Joint Conference on Bioinformatics, Systems, Biology and Intelligent Computing, 2009, 494-497. Greater than half of the total text was obtained from

  (1) Yang, C.-S., Chuang, L.-Y., Ke, C.-H., Yang, C.-H., International Journal of Computer Science, International Association of Engineers, August 2008 35(3),
  (2) Goffard, N. and Weiller, G., Nucleic Acids Research, 2007, 35L:W176-W181, and
  (3) Chuang, L.-Y., Yang, C.-H., Tu, C.-J., Yang, C.-H., Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Information Sciences, Atlantis Press, October 2006.

  Retracted: Retracted administratively by IEEE on Jan 5, 2011 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5260432

• Vijayan, A.; Skariah, B. E., Nair, B.; Lushington, G., Subramanian, S., Visvanathan, M., Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine Workshop, 2009, BIBMW2009, 267-271.

  Approximately 15% of the text was plagiarized from Goffard, N. and Weiller, G., Nucleic Acids Research, 2007, 35L:W176-W181.

  Retracted: Retracted administratively by IEEE on Jan 5, 2011 http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/BIBMW.2009.5332106

• Visvanathan, M., Netzer, M., Seger, M., Adagarla, B. S., Baumgartner, C., Sittampalam, S., Lushington, G., International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design, 2009, 2,236-251.

  A complete paragraph of the text was plagiarized from Goffard, N. and Weiller, G., Nucleic Acids Research, 2007, 35L:W176-W181.

• Adagarla, B., Lushington, G., Visvanathan, M., ISMB International Conference, January 2009; the entire abstract for this poster was obtained by plagiarizing text from Pihur, V., Datta, S., Datta S., Genomics, 2003, 92:400-403.

Dr. Lushington has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement for a period of 2 years, beginning on December 6, 2011:

(1) To have any U.S. PHS-supported research supervised; ORI acknowledges that Respondent’s research is currently being supervised by KU; …

(2) that this annual summary, provided by any institution employing him, shall provide assurance that each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which Respondent was involved, was based on actual experiments or was otherwise legitimately derived, that the data, procedures, and methodology were accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract, and that the text in such submissions was his own or properly cited the source of copied language and ideas; and

(3) to exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

***

Notice is hereby given that ORI has taken final action in the following case: Based on an inquiry conducted and written admission obtained by Kansas University and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Mahesh Visvanathan, PhD, Research Assistant Professor in the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Core Facility, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by P20RR016475. Specifically, ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct by intentionally and knowingly plagiarizing large amounts of text from other writers’ published papers without attribution or citation in the following 3 papers and 1 abstract. (see list above)

Dr. Visvanathan has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement for a period of 2 years, beginning on December 20, 2011:

(1) To have any PHS-supported research supervised; ORI acknowledges that Respondent’s research is currently being supervised by KU; …

(2) That this annual summary, provided by any institution employing him, shall provide assurance that each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which Respondent was involved, was based on actual experiments or was otherwise legitimately derived, that the data, procedures, and methodology were accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract, and that the text in such submissions was his own or properly cited the source of copied language and ideas; and

(3) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

***

Notice is hereby given that ORI has taken final action in the following case: Based on the report of an investigation conducted by SUNY, Upstate Medical University and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Ms. Jennifer Jamieson, former graduate student, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by R01GM047607-18A1 and R01HL70244-05. ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct by falsifying data that were included in grant application R01 GM047607-18A1, in a manuscript submitted for publication to the Journal of Cell Biology, and in several interdepartmental data presentations. Specifically, ORI found that:

Respondent falsified Figure 1A in a manuscript submitted for publication to the Journal of Cell Biology, by altering immunoprecipitation Western blot data to make this experiment appear that no Vav2 SH2 was associated with PKL 3YF, when in fact it did. In addition, the Respondent falsified five figures depicting Western blots of similar experiments in four laboratory meeting presentations. The purpose of the falsifications was to show that the experimental results were as described when they were not, or to show that the results were of greater significance than they actually were.

Respondent falsified Figure 3I in a manuscript submitted for publication to the Journal of Cell Biology by falsely labeling a Western blot to indicate levels of expression for various Vav2 mutants, when the experimental data were taken from a completely unrelated experiment.

Respondent falsified Figure 6A in an interdepartmental laboratory presentation by falsifying Western blot data to falsely depict Paxillin and Hic-5 expression and phosphorylation levels after siRNA treatment.

Respondent falsified Figure 5 from grant application R01GM047607-18A1 by falsifying Western blot data to support the hypothesis that co-transfection of PKL plus RhoA GEF Vav2 induces RhoA activation and signaling upon plating on fibronectin.

Ms. Jamieson has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement. Ms Jamieson neither admits nor denies ORI’s finding of scientific misconduct nor any particular finding of fact asserted in support of that finding. The settlement is not an admission of liability on the part of the Respondent. Ms. Jamieson has voluntarily agreed for a period of 3 years, beginning on December 20, 2011:

(1) To have her research supervised if employed by an institution that receives or applies for U.S. PHS funding; Respondent agrees that prior to the submission of an application for PHS support for a research project on which the Respondent’s participation is proposed and prior to Respondent’s participation in any capacity on PHS-supported research, Respondent shall ensure that a plan for supervision of her duties is submitted to ORI for approval; the supervision plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of Respondent’s research contribution; Respondent agrees that she shall not participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervision plan is submitted to and approved by ORI; Respondent agrees to maintain responsibility for compliance with the agreed upon supervision plan;

(2) that any institution employing her shall submit, in conjunction with each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS supported research in which Respondent is involved, a certification to ORI that the data provided by Respondent are based on actual experiments or are otherwise legitimately derived and that the data, procedures, and methodology were accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract; and

(3) to exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

Notice is hereby given that ORI has taken final action in the following case:

Based on the report of an investigation conducted by UVA and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Jayant Jagannathan, former Resident Physician at UVA Medical Center, engaged in research misconduct by including, in 5 publications, large amounts of text and an illustration that he plagiarized from publications supported by the following NIH grant awards: T32CA09677, P01HL024136, R01HL059157, P50CA090270, M01RR01346, R01CA075979, R01DK064169, R01NS027544, R01NS052406, and K08NS002197 and by intramural funds from the NINDS Surgical Neurosurgery Branch and from NIDCR.

Publications in which Respondent reported plagiarized material were:

1. Jagannathan, J., Li, J., Szerlip, N., Vortmeyer, A.O., Lonser, R.R., Oldfied, E.H., Zhuang, Z. “Application and implementation of selective tissue microdissection and proteomic profiling in neurological disease.’ Neurosurgery 64:4-14, 2009 (to be retracted);

2. Jagannathan, J., Prevedello, D.M., Dumont, A.S., Laws, E.R. “Cellular Signaling Molecules as Therapeutic Targets in the Treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme.’ Neurosurgical Focus 20(4):E8, 2006 (retracted “due to plagiarism,’ Neurosurgical Focus 30(2):E8r, 2011);

3. Kanter, A.S., Jagannathan, J., Shaffrey, C.I., Ouellet, J.A., Mummaneni, P.V. “Inflammatory and dysplastic lesions involving the spine.’ Neurosurgical Clinics of North America 19(1):93-109, 2008;

4. Jagannathan, J., Dumont, A.S., Prevedello, D.M., Oskouian, R.J., Lopes, B., Jane, J.A. Jr, Laws, E.R. Jr. “Genetics of pituitary adenomas: Current theories and future implications.’ Neurosurgical Focus 19(5):E4, 2005 (retracted “due to plagiarism,’ Neurosurgical Focus 30(2):E4r, 2011);

5. Jagannathan, J. “Role of calcium influx and modulation of local neurotransmitters as hallmarks of pediatric traumatic brain injury.’ Biomarkers Med. 3:95-97, 2009 (retracted online 9/11/ 2010).

Dr. Jagannathan has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement (Agreement) and has voluntarily agreed for a period of 4 years, beginning on October 20, 2011:

(1) To have his research supervised; Respondent agreed to ensure that prior to the submission of an application for U.S. PHS support for a research project on which his participation is proposed and prior to his participation in any capacity on PHS-supported research, the institution employing him must submit a plan for supervision of his duties to ORI for approval; the plan for supervision must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of his research contribution; Respondent agreed that he will not participate in any PHS-supported research after 60 days from the effective date of the Agreement until a plan for supervision is submitted to and approved by ORI; Respondent agreed to maintain responsibility for compliance with the agreed upon supervision plan;

(2) That any institution employing him must submit, in conjunction with each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which Respondent is involved, a certification to ORI that the data provided by Respondent are based on actual experiments or are otherwise legitimately derived and that the data, procedures, and methodology are accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract;

(3) To submit a letter to the journal editor for publication 3 (Neurosurgical Clinics of North America) listed above, requesting that the paper be retracted because Respondent had plagiarized portions of text reported in it; the letter must be sent to ORI for approval prior to being sent to the editor; and

(4) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

Notice is hereby given that ORI has taken final action in the following case:

Based on an inquiry conducted and written admission obtained by the University of Pittsburgh and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Ms. Marija Manojlovic, former graduate student, Department of Chemistry, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by P50GM067082, P01CA078039, U54MH074411, and R01AI033506.

ORI found that the Respondent engaged in research misconduct by falsifying and fabricating the synthesis and spectral data that were included in one poster presentation and in one pre-submission draft of a paper to be submitted for publication.

Specifically, ORI found that the Respondent knowingly falsified and fabricated the synthesis and characterization, largely in the form of manipulated 1H- and 13C-NMR spectral data, for 5 intermediate steps and the final product, 9-desmethylpleurotin, and presented these false results in a poster, “Efforts Towards the Total Synthesis of Pleurotin,’ presented at the 2011 National Organic Symposium, and in a manuscript, “Total Synthesis of 9-desmethylpleurotin,’ prepared for submission to Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Ms. Manojlovic has voluntarily agreed for a period of 3 years, beginning on September 26, 2011:

(1) To have her US PHS-supported research supervised; Respondent agreed that prior to the submission of an application for PHS support for a research project on which her participation is proposed and prior to her participation in any capacity on PHS-supported research, she shall ensure that a plan for supervision of her duties is submitted to ORI for approval; the supervision plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of her research contribution; Respondent agreed that she shall not participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervision plan is submitted to and approved by ORI; Respondent agreed to maintain responsibility for compliance with the agreed upon supervision plan;

(2) That any institution employing her shall submit, in conjunction with each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which she is involved, a certification to ORI that the data provided by Respondent are based on actual experiments or are otherwise legitimately derived and that the data, procedures, and methodology are accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract; and

(3) To exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.