More Retractions from Nobel Laureate Linda Buck

After retracting an influential paper from Nature a year and half ago, Nobel laureate Linda Buck is now retracting two more papers from Science and PNAS, respectively, as they have failed to reproduce the findings in these papers. All three papers were first-authored by Zou Zhihua (邹志华), a Chinese researcher who worked as a postdoc for Buck from 1997 to 2005.

The Scientist magazine also reported the retractions:

In 2008, Zou wrote in a statement provided by UTMB [University of Texas Medical Branch] that he was "disappointed" by the Nature retraction, he "declined to sign" the Science retraction, as reported online today in Science. But "we have no information to suspect misconduct," Natasha Pinol, senior communications officer at the AAAS/Science Office of Public Programs, told The Scientist in an email.

In addition to the irreproducible results, the PNAS paper also contained "figures inconsistent with original data," according to the FHCRC statement. While the PNAS retraction is "not embargoed," according to Managing Editor Daniel Salsbury, the journal refused to share any information with The Scientist.

Zou Zhihua is reported to be currently in China and unavailable to comment.

Buck's Retraction and Zou's Rebuttal

The high-profile retraction of a published paper by Nobel Prize winner Linda Buck has been widely reported in mainstream media. The retraction contains a paragraph outlining Author Contributions to the original paper, which appears to be pointing a finger to one of the co-principal authors. Without explicitly accusing forgery, it says that the said author Zou Zhihua (邹志华) had "prepared and analysed the mice and provided all figures and data for the paper". The authors now find that they "have been unable to reproduce the reported findings" and that there are "inconsistencies between some of the figures and the data published in the paper and the original data."

The news got much attention in Chinese media and community primarily because Zou Zihua is a Chinese and received college education in China. He had earned his Masters degree from the No. 1 Military Medicine University in GuangZhou, China, and then a Ph. D. from Osaka University School of Medicine in Japan. After that he joined Professor Buck's laboratory and performed the experiments now in dispute.

After the news broke out, Zou had maintained a public silence and declined all media interviews. However, he appeared to have entered a couple of comments himself on the Nature News site. In one of them, he was clearly resentful that he was being singled out as the sole responsible party. Despite the fact that he had also signed the retraction, he still stood by his data and figures:

Yes, I signed the retraction letter and hope every scientist who is aware of the problems with a paper will take similar actions immediately. However, I stand behind the conclusions of the paper and believe the experiments can be repeated. I am planning to do so. This will undoubtedly be daunting to a struggling junior faculty, and no one can guarantee success. I agree with the view that everyone who is on a publication should take full responsibility. Otherwise, stay in the acknowledgment.

Meanwhile, having totally lost her confidence in Zou's work, Professor Buck had asked for a review of two other publications in which Zou was also the lead author.