Flow cytometry data plots were re-used in two different papers by Shane Mayack.{credit}Mayack, S. R., Shadrach, J. L., Kim, F. S. & Wagers, A. J. Nature 463, 495–500 (2010); Mayack, S. R. & Wagers, A. J. Blood 112, 519–531 (2008).{/credit}
Shane Mayack, a former postdoctoral researcher at the Joslin Diabetes Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, engaged in research misconduct by duplicating figures in a pair of publications and poaching figures from other sources, according to the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which investigates fraud in federally funded research. The misconduct decision, noted yesterday in the Federal Register, concludes an investigation into the scientist’s work, which included two papers that were retracted during the past two years, one from this journal.
Mayack “neither admits nor denies ORI’s finding of research misconduct”, according to the note in the Federal Register. But she had previously argued in a post on the blog Retraction Watch that her publication in Nature was retracted hastily and without her consultation. Mayack has agreed to sanctions from the ORI that include close supervision for any work she might perform with federal funding in the next three years.