Fake Data Prompts Major Journals To Retract Chemistry Papers

In Science and elsewhere, claims about using small forces to pull molecules apart seem fabricated

High profile journals are retracting papers byChristopher Bielawskis University of Texas, Austin, team amid an investigation into scientific misconduct. The moves followAngewandte Chemiesretraction of a 2012 paper from Bielawskis team in January 2015.A former research group member admitted to falsifying and/or fabricating data affecting this article, theAngewandte Chemienoticestates.

Notices of concern regarding papers inScience, Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) Journal of MaterialChemistry,Polymer ChemistryandChemical Sciencehave been published in the past few months and now the first retractions of these papers has been coming into effectone paper in Scienceandthree inJACS.

While many authors contributed to these papers, just two are common to them all: Bielawski and his former PhD studentKelly Wiggins. Bielawski is now at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, a move he tellsChemistry Worldhad been in the works for several years. For all other questions, he said hed been asked to direct enquiries to the University of Texas.Chemistry Worldwas unable to reach Wiggins for comment.

UT Austin says the US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act limits what it can say about its investigations outcome. A spokesperson indicates that there was no common type of data falsified or fabricated between the different publications. They also confirm that one author told officials that they had falsified and otherwise misrepresented data or figures in the papers, acting alone.

Reader tip-off Concerns first arose over theSciencepaper, in which Bielawskis team sought tomanipulate a polymer to mechanically pull apart a 1,2,3-triazole within its structure, formed by click chemistry. Acting on an email sent toScienceby a reader, Bielawski supervised a comprehensive evaluation according to the journal, tracing all figures back to their raw data files. In over 50% of the figure parts, the authors deemed the data unreliable due to uncertainty regarding the origin of data or the manner in which the data were processed, said astatement inSciencein July 2014.

This spurred UT Austin to conduct a confidential investigation, which concluded in December 2014. The university went on to contact a swathe of journals where Bielawski and Wiggins had published studies about the outcome. The majority of these also exploited polymer mechanochemistry, where ultrasounds effect on a polymer creates force that can drive specific reactions. For example,theAngewandte Chemiepaper reported using the approach to prepare the chiral ligand (S)-binol in high yield and enantiopurity from a racemic precursor in a single step.

One of theJACSpapers reportedgrowing a polymer from a [4 + 2] cycloaddition adductusing an initiator originating fromDavid Haddletons University of Warwick team. Polymerisation followed by ultrasound treatment carried out at UT Austin then reportedly reversed the cycloaddition, with the polymer mechanically pulling the ring apart. UT Austin also wrote to Haddleton, who was listed as an author on the paper, to notify him that it was in discussions with the publisher ofJACS, the American Chemical Society.

The initiator was well-characterised, we have no concern at all about the work carried out at Warwick and were disappointed in how our material was used, Haddleton stresses. He adds that the retraction for this paper was submitted toJACSon the grounds of concerns about the work done at UT Austin. Haddleton is also editor-in-chief ofPolymer Chemistry, where another affected paper was published, and voluntarily stepped aside from any involvement in the journals response to the situation.

Serious concern Rint Sijbesmafrom the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has cited Bielawskis polymer mechanochemistry work, though theyve never collaborated directly. Its bad for science if people cant rely on the literature, Sijbesma tellsChemistry World, noting that the effort required makes it particularly difficult to even try replicating the affected studies. However, Sijbesmas team has successfully used the force polymer mechanochemistry creates to activate catalysts, and he says it would be a pity if the field becomes tainted by association.

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Fake Data Prompts Major Journals To Retract Chemistry Papers