Nature retracts paper for data manipulation by Ph.D. student
Nature has retracted a paper after an investigation at a U.K. institution found the first author—then a doctoral student—manipulated data. The paper, published in April 2023, examined the sensitivity of lung cancers to immunotherapy and has been cited 192 times, according to Clarivate's Web of Science. The retraction notice, published today, states that first author Kevin Ng was responsible for the manipulation in the paper, including manipulated data in several figures. At the time of the experiments, Ng was a Ph.D. student at the Francis Crick Institute in London under the supervision of co-corresponding author George Kassiotis. Ng is now a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University in New York, according to his OrcID profile. The Francis Crick Institute's integrity team was made aware of concerns regarding the study after it was published, and the corresponding authors on the article—Kassiotis, Charles Swanton, and Julian Downward—all agreed with the retraction. The investigation found no evidence of malpractice by other authors. The manipulated data supported the paper's main conclusion, and the institute recommended the paper be retracted. The Crick Institute notified the journal about its findings, and on November 21, Nature added an editor's note to the article alerting readers to data reliability concerns. Co-corresponding author Julian Downward, associate research director at the Crick Institute, has faced scrutiny for image concerns in multiple papers, including one retracted from Nature in 2015 for data issues. Retraction Watch encourages readers to support our work through tax-deductible contributions, follow us on social media, and provide feedback via email.
