University says it found no misconduct in anti-inflammatory research. Critics are unconvinced

Related article Critics challenge data showing key lipids can curb inflammation BY Gunjan Sinha Doubts about work claiming that certain molecules actively quell inflammation in the body have intensified. Critics have doubled down on their objections with a recent paper, and Science has learned that although a university publicly exonerated one of the researchers involved of misconduct, it appears to have at one point reached a different conclusion. The furor surrounds pioneering work on lipids known as specialized proresolving mediators (SPMs), done by Brigham and Women’s Hospital biochemist Charles Serhan and his former postdoc Jesmond Dalli, a molecular pharmacologist now at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). More than a dozen scientists who have analyzed SPM research by Dalli, Serhan, and others formally published a critique of the work in Nature Communications last week. The analysis, which appeared last year as a preprint, attacks the method used to detect SPMs in many papers for producing misleading results. The critics’ concerns had sparked misconduct investigations by QMUL and Harvard Medical School (HMS), of which Serhan’s hospital is an academic affiliate. This summer, in response to an inquiry from Science , QMUL said it had cleared Dalli of wrongdoing. “There were absolutely no f...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news