A second retraction has been issued in a case of research misconduct at the chemistry department of chemical engineering at the University of Utah.

The first retraction, in August of 2013, got a lot of attention for how poorly faked the figures were. At the time, an expression of concern was issued on the paper that has just been retracted.

Today, we exchanged emails with Jeffery Botkin, the research integrity officer at the University of Utah, who ran the investigation into the misconduct. He summarized the report for us below.

Ultimately, the school pinned the blame on graduate student Rajasekhar Anumolu and exonerated principal investigator Leonard F. Pease. Botkin also told us the investigation found that no federal money had been used in the experiments, despite notes on the two papers indicating otherwise.

Here’s the notice for the perhaps unintentionally ironically titled “Fabrication of Highly Uniform Nanoparticles from Recombinant Silk-Elastin-like Protein Polymers for Therapeutic Agent Delivery”:

This paper has been retracted due to manipulation in Figure 52C. On August 27. 2013, an Expression of Concern was posted on this article alerting readers to an investigation by the University of Utah, now completed. Authors J. Cappello, H. Ghandehari, J.A. Hustafson, J.J. Magda, and L.F. Pease all have been adjudicated non guilty of research misconduct by the University of Utah. The expression of concern has been removed upon retraction of this article. The original article was published on June 22, 2011, and retracted on November 3, 2014.

The paper has been cited 19 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s a summary of the investigation from Botkin:

My office was informed in June, 2013 about concerns over the online publication: Anumolu R, Robinson BJ, Pease LF. Chopstick nanorods: tuning the angle between pairs with high yield. Nano Letters (dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl400959z) Readers identified what appeared to be ³cut and paste² artifacts in several images. A second paper was subsequently identified by journal readers that appeared to have an image alternation in a supplemental figure S2c. This publication: Rajasekhar Anumolu, Joshua A. Gustafson, Jules J. Magda, Joseph Cappello, Hamidreza Ghandehari, and Leonard F. Pease. Fabrication of Highly Uniform Nanoparticles from Recombinant Silk-Elastin-like Protein Polymers for Therapeutic Agent Delivery. ACSNano 2011, 5(7), 53745382 [dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn103585f] The University conducted an inquiry followed by a full investigation. The Investigation Committee was comprised of three faculty members at the University of Utah, all of whom are full professors in relevant disciplines. The Investigation Committee submitted its final report on June 2, 2014. The Vice President for Research accepted the report. The investigation determined that all of the images in the Nano Letters paper were fabricated and, therefore, none of the data were valid. The supplemental figure S2c in the ACSNano paper was the only manipulated image identified in that paper. The manipulation consisted of a cut and past ³patch² over two relatively small areas of the image. These manipulations represent data falsification. For the ACSNano publication, the Investigation Committee could not determine a rationale for the image manipulation as the ³patches² did not appear to cover significant data elements in the image. Mr. Anumolu, a graduate student in Chemical Engineering, was, by all accounts, primarily responsible for data acquisition and manuscript preparation for the Nano Letters publication and for Figure S2c in the ACSNano publication. The Investigation Committee determined that Mr. Anumolu was responsible for the image manipulations and was guilty of research misconduct. The other authors were found not guilty of research misconduct. Mr Anumolu was not awarded his degree and is no longer affiliated with the University of Utah. Both papers have been retracted.

The ACSNano paper says that the research was funded by an NIH grant, so we asked Botkin to clarify how the federal funds were used:

The funding question is a little complicated. The authors acknowledged NSF and NIH funding for the Nano Letters paper and NIH funding for the ACSNano paper. However, the authors subsequently determined that federal funds were not used for the work reported in the NanoLetters paper and were not used for the work under question in the ACSNano paper. An internal investigation confirmed that federal dollars were not used and the annual progress reports to NSF and NIH for the relevant grants do not refer to the work in question. University of Utah funds were used to support the research. Therefore the acknowledgements in the Nano Letters paper were inappropriate. NSF and NIH were notified about the investigation when it began and both agencies (actually ORI and OIG) were provided the final reports of the investigation and our information regarding use of federal funds. I do not know the status of any discussion of the case at either ORI or OIG.

We’ve asked Anumolu and Pease for comment, and will update with anything we learn.

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