1/07/2011

2nd Potti paper retracted

The following is important, but not the MAJOR development in the Potti Mess that I alluded to earlier. We are still researching that.



First the Journal of Clinical Oncology. And tonight, another distinguished medical journal, Nature Medicine, has retracted an article written by Dr Anil Potti.

Potti was the Principal Investigator; others are Duke were involved including his mentor Dr Joseph Nevins.

“Genomic signatures to guide the use of chemotherapeutics,” was published in October 2006. Other scientists cited it as authority 252 times -- that's impressive -- according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

From Nature Medicine:

"We wish to retract this article because we have been unable to reproduce certain crucial experiments showing validation of signatures for predicting response to chemotherapies, including docetaxel and topotecan. Although we believe that the underlying approach to developing predictive signatures is valid, a corruption of several validation data sets precludes conclusions regarding these signatures. As these results are fundamental to the conclusions of the paper, we formally retract the paper. We deeply regret the impact of this action on the work of other investigators."

The journal also notes that “several of the earlier correction dates were either omitted or incorrect.” There were four such corrigenda before this retraction.

We are still working on other, breaking aspects of the Potti case this weekend. Check back.