09/04/2012 Melissa Lee Phillips
Former Harvard postdoc Shane Mayack reaches a settlement with the ORI but
maintains that the duplication of flow cytometry images was an error, not
fabrication.
The U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has concluded that former
Harvard postdoctoral fellow Shane Mayack engaged in research misconduct
while working in the Joslin Diabetes Center lab of high-profile stem cell
biologist Amy Wagers.
The U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has concluded that former
Harvard postdoctoral fellow Shane Mayack engaged in research misconduct
while working in the Joslin Diabetes Center lab of high-profile stem cell
biologist Amy Wagers. Source: IdeaConnection
On August 28, the ORI posted a notice to the Federal Register indicating
final action has been taken in the case, which lasted for two years and
involved the retraction of two papers. Mayack has agreed to a voluntary
settlement surrounding the case, although she "neither admits nor denies ORI
's finding of research misconduct."
In August 2010, Wagers told Nature editors she had noticed a problem with
her lab's January 2010 Nature paper "Systemic signals regulate ageing and
rejuvenation of blood stem cell niches," which claimed that age-related
changes in blood stem cells might be reversible (1). Mayack, who was the
first author on that paper, used a flow cytometry plot that appeared
identical to one in a 2008 Blood paper by Mayack and Wagers (2), but it was
used to represent a different experiment with different results.
A retraction notice appeared in Nature in October 2011, but Mayack refused
to sign it and maintained that the results were valid. In the same month,
Wagers also published a statement of concern in Blood for the 2008 paper, "
Osteolineage niche cells initiate hematopoietic stem cell mobilization."
That paper was retracted in late 2011, also without Mayack's signature.
In a 2011 guest post on the blog Retraction Watch, Mayack admitted to
mishandling data—publishing the same plots but with different labels and
results—but said that it was the result of mistakes in data retrieval. "
Errors, not fabrications, were made in assembling figures for these
manuscripts," she wrote. "I am likely the one who made these errors."
However, ORI's final report concludes that Mayack not only duplicated eight
flow cytometry images but also "falsely represented" two images of bone
nodules, by copying them from other authors' unrelated publications.
Mayack maintains that the errors were unintentional, according to a
statement through her lawyer that was posted on Retraction Watch this week:
"These were mistakes in representation and presentation of the data, as
corroborated by ORI’s findings of ‘falsely presented,' and were not due to
fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism of scientific results."
Wagers said in an email that she has "nothing to add to the ORI conclusions,
other than I am glad the matter is concluded."
ORI's notice specifies that the settlement does not constitute admission of
liability by Mayack but notes that she has voluntarily agreed to be
supervised in any federally funded research that she conducts during the
next three years and that she will not serve in any advisory capacity to
federally funded research for that time period as well.
References
Mayack, S. R., J. L. Shadrach, F. S. Kim, and A. J. Wagers. 2010. Systemic
signals regulate ageing and rejuvenation of blood stem cell niches. Nature
463(7280):495-500.
Mayack, S. R., and A. J. Wagers. 2008. Osteolineage niche cells initiate
hematopoietic stem cell mobilization. Blood 112(3):519-531.