The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has decided to withdraw from its scientific journal (PNAS) the article published by a group of researchers, including the Spanish Mariano Barbacid, on advances to combat pancreatic cancer, after detecting a “relevant” conflict of interest.
The academy, as reported by the newspaper El País, decided to withdraw the article after verifying that they had not disclosed the conflict of interest at the time of submission, as Mariano Barbacid and two of the co-authors of the work, Vasiliki Liaki and Carmen Guerra, have financial interests in Vega Oncotargets, which was created with the aim of developing therapies against this type of cancer, one of the most aggressive.
The Academy has decided to withdraw the article for not disclosing the “relevant” conflict of interest at the time of submission
The journal has published the retraction of this article, and has reported that PNAS’s editorial policy for its contributions states that Academy members who have conflicting interests, financial or otherwise, that could be considered to significantly influence their objectivity or create an “unfair” competitive advantage for any person or organization linked to the research, “must submit their work as a direct submission.”
Barbacid’s team at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) published in that journal the results of a research work that allowed them to eliminate the most common pancreatic cancer in mice, ductal adenocarcinoma, with a combined therapy of three drugs that prevents the appearance of resistance and has no significant side effects.
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The therapy would be the first to achieve complete cure in experimental models and, to publicize the results of their work, Mariano Barbacid appeared before the media at a press conference last January, along with the principal investigators, representatives of the CRIS Foundation against cancer, and patients.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, of which Mariano Barbacid is a member, has decided to withdraw the article for not disclosing that “relevant” conflict of interest at the time of submission.
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