Robert Weinberg from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research has retracted two papers, reports Retraction Watch.
These two new retractions concern papers that appeared in Genes and Development in 2009 and 2011. Both papers reported on the role of microRNAs in cancer metastasis. According to the retraction notices, which were, as Retraction Watch notes, identical, the papers were removed because they built upon a 2009 Cell paper that is also to be retracted.
That to-be-removed Cell paper — a spokesperson tells Retraction Watch that the official notice is forthcoming — also examined the role of miR-31 in breast cancer metastasis, but is being pulled "because original data were compiled from different replicate experiments in order to assemble certain figure panels," as the notices for the Genes and Development papers say.
In 2013, Weinberg retracted a paper and issued a correction for another, both for the improper presentation of figures, Retraction Watch adds.