Shane Mayack, a former postdoc in the Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, previously retracted two papers on which she was first author, both concerning stem cell niches associated with blood and bone. Today (August 28), the Office of Research Integrity found Mayack guilty of research misconduct and issued sanctions to supervise her federally funded research for the next 3 years.
Mayack was found to have copied figures from unrelated publications to falsely represent bone nodules formed as the result of experiments with osteoblastic niche cells in culture and mouse models. She also used the same flow cytometry contour plot eight times, only changing the labels and numerical percentages. A version of the plot appeared in both the Nature and Blood papers (cited 42 and 64 times respectively, according to Web of Science).
Mayack is settling without admitting to any of the charges, ...
