Falsified Figures

A former researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School was found to have fabricated data and figures, reports The Boston Globe. An investigation by the US Office of Research Integrity, Brigham and Women's, and Harvard found that Jian Ma, a former research fellow, falsified figures in a manuscript — on the role of a gene in lung cancer development and sensitivity to rapamycin — that was accepted by the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The paper was withdrawn prior to publication. "It was noted that there were some irregularities with one of the immuno-blots depicted in one of the figures," says Kwok-Kin Wong, the paper's senior author, in a statement. "When we asked the postdoctoral fellow to show us the original film … he confessed to splicing the figure together from several blots." Ma is now on a three-year probation during which any research he is involved with will be subject to increased oversight, the Boston Business Journal adds.