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. 2026 Jan 14;649(8099):1330. doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10104-7

Retraction Note: Antibodies against endogenous retroviruses promote lung cancer immunotherapy

Kevin W Ng 1,#, Jesse Boumelha 2,#, Katey S S Enfield 3,#, Jorge Almagro 4, Hongui Cha 5,6, Oriol Pich 3, Takahiro Karasaki 3,6,7, David A Moore 3,6,8, Roberto Salgado 9,10, Monica Sivakumar 6, George Young 1,11, Miriam Molina-Arcas 2, Sophie de Carné Trécesson 2, Panayiotis Anastasiou 2, Annika Fendler 12, Lewis Au 12,13, Scott T C Shepherd 12,13, Carlos Martínez-Ruiz 6,14, Clare Puttick 3,6,14, James R M Black 6,14, Thomas B K Watkins 3, Hyemin Kim 5, Seohee Shim 15, Nikhil Faulkner 1,16, Jan Attig 1, Selvaraju Veeriah 6, Neil Magno 6, Sophia Ward 3,6,17, Alexander M Frankell 3,6, Maise Al Bakir 3,6, Emilia L Lim 3,6, Mark S Hill 3, Gareth A Wilson 3, Daniel E Cook 3, Nicolai J Birkbak 3,6,124,125,126, Axel Behrens 4,127,128,129, Nadia Yousaf 13,18, Sanjay Popat 18,19, Allan Hackshaw 20; TRACERx Consortium; CAPTURE Consortium, Crispin T Hiley 3,6, Kevin Litchfield 6,21, Nicholas McGranahan 6,14, Mariam Jamal-Hanjani 6,7,22, James Larkin 13,23, Se-Hoon Lee 5,15, Samra Turajlic 12,13,23, Charles Swanton 3,6,22,, Julian Downward 2,, George Kassiotis 1,24,
PMCID: PMC12851933  PMID: 41535475

Retraction to: Nature 10.1038/s41586-023-05771-9

The authors have retracted this article. An investigation by The Francis Crick institute found concerns regarding some of the data presented in the figures, specifically:

1. The A549 cell binding data in Fig. 5c are manipulated and could not be reproduced.

2. The antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) experiments shown in Fig. 5d and 5e may contain manipulated data.

3. The integrity of the source data for the B cell and antibody quantitation in Fig. 3c and Extended Data Fig. 5c could not be verified.

The Francis Crick Institute’s investigation found that co-first author Kevin Ng was responsible for these analyses.

The investigation recommended that the paper be retracted. A statement concerning the investigation is available on The Francis Crick Institute’s website (https://www.crick.ac.uk/about-us/our-approach-to-science/research-integrity/2025-research-integrity-news).

The authors apologize to the scientific community for any confusion and misunderstanding that may have arisen. They are committed to publishing a revised and properly validated research report in the near future.

There is no indication that the investigation’s findings impact the integrity of the TRACERx and CAPTURE clinical and genetic data associated with this work.

Contributor Information

Charles Swanton, Email: charles.swanton@crick.ac.uk.

Julian Downward, Email: julian.downward@crick.ac.uk.

George Kassiotis, Email: george.kassiotis@crick.ac.uk.

TRACERx Consortium:

Kevin W. Ng, Katey S. S. Enfield, Oriol Pich, Takahiro Karasaki, David A. Moore, Roberto Salgado, Monica Sivakumar, Carlos Martínez-Ruiz, Clare Puttick, James R. M. Black, Thomas B. K. Watkins, Selvaraju Veeriah, Sophia Ward, Alexander M. Frankell, Maise Al Bakir, Emilia L. Lim, Mark S. Hill, Gareth A. Wilson, Nicolai J. Birkbak, Allan Hackshaw, Andrew Rowan, Ariana Huebner, Brittany B. Campbell, Chris Bailey, Claudia Lee, Dhruva Biswas, Emma Colliver, Foteini Athanasopoulou, Haoran Zhai, Jayant K. Rane, Kristiana Grigoriadis, Michelle Dietzen, Michelle Leung, Mihaela Angelova, Olivia Lucas, Othman Al-Sawaf, Rachel Rosenthal, Jerome Nicod, Abigail Bunkum, Antonia Toncheva, Christopher Abbosh, Corentin Richard, Cristina Naceur-Lombardelli, Francisco Gimeno-Valiente, Jie Min Lam, Kerstin Thol, Krupa Thakkar, Mariana Werner Sunderland, Martin D. Forster, Nnennaya Kanu, Paulina Prymas, Robert Bentham, Sadegh Saghafinia, Sergio A. Quezada, Sharon Vanloo, Simone Zaccaria, Siow Ming Lee, Sonya Hessey, Wing Kin Liu, Dionysis Papadatos-Pastos, James Wilson, Sarah Benafif, Tanya Ahmad, Elaine Borg, Mary Falzon, Reena Khiroya, Teresa Marafioti, Abigail Sharp, Camilla Pilotti, Harjot Kaur Dhanda, Kitty Chan, Nicole Gower, Rachel Leslie, Sean Smith, Andrew G. Nicholson, Eric Lim, Javier Herrero, Carla Castignani, Elizabeth Larose Cadieux, Jonas Demeulemeester, Peter Van Loo, Karl S. Peggs, Catarina Veiga, Gary Royle, Charles-Antoine Collins-Fekete, Alexander James Procter, Arjun Nair, Asia Ahmed, Magali N. Taylor, Neal Navani, Ricky M. Thakrar, David Lawrence, Davide Patrini, Emma Nye, Richard Kevin Stone, David Chuter, Mairead MacKenzie, Francesco Fraioli, Paul Ashford, Sam M. Janes, Miljana Tanić, Stephan Beck, Alexandra Rice, Anand Devaraj, Chiara Proli, Daniel Kaniu, Harshil Bhayani, Hema Chavan, Hilgardt Raubenheimer, Lyn Ambrose, Mpho Malima, Nadia Fernandes, Paulo De Sousa, Pratibha Shah, Sarah Booth, Silviu I. Buderi, Simon Jordan, Sofina Begum, Ekaterini Boleti, Aengus Stewart, Alastair Magness, Clare E. Weeden, Dina Levi, Eva Grönroos, Jacki Goldman, Mickael Escudero, Philip Hobson, Roberto Vendramin, Stefan Boeing, Tamara Denner, Vittorio Barbè, Wei-Ting Lu, William Hill, Yutaka Naito, Zoe Ramsden, Anca Grapa, Hanyun Zhang, Khalid AbdulJabbar, Xiaoxi Pan, Kayleigh Gilbert, Angeliki Karamani, Benny Chain, David R. Pearce, Despoina Karagianni, Elena Hoxha, Felip Gálvez-Cancino, Georgia Stavrou, Gerasimos Mastrokalos, Helen L. Lowe, Ignacio Matos, James L. Reading, John A. Hartley, Kayalvizhi Selvaraju, Kezhong Chen, Leah Ensell, Mansi Shah, Marcos Vasquez, Maria Litovchenko, Olga Chervova, Piotr Pawlik, Robert E. Hynds, Saioa López, Samuel Gamble, Seng Kuong Anakin Ung, Supreet Kaur Bola, Thanos P. Mourikis, Victoria Spanswick, Yin Wu, Emilie Martinoni Hoogenboom, Fleur Monk, James W. Holding, Junaid Choudhary, Kunal Bhakhri, Marco Scarci, Martin Hayward, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, Pat Gorman, Robert C. M. Stephens, Steve Bandula, Yien Ning Sophia Wong, Tristan Clark, Heather Cheyne, Mohammed Khalil, Shirley Richardson, Tracey Cruickshank, Babu Naidu, Gurdeep Matharu, Jacqui A. Shaw, Joan Riley, Lindsay Primrose, John Le Quesne, Kevin G. Blyth, Alastair Kerr, Alexandra Clipson, Anshuman Chaturvedi, Caroline Dive, Dominic G. Rothwell, Elaine Kilgour, Jonathan Tugwood, Lynsey Priest, Pedro Oliveira, Philip Crosbie, Gillian Price, Judith Cave, Keith M. Kerr, Colin R. Lindsay, Fiona H. Blackhall, Matthew G. Krebs, Yvonne Summers, Alan Kirk, Mathew Thomas, Mo Asif, Nikos Kostoulas, Rocco Bilancia, Gary Middleton, Michael J. Shackcloth, Angela Leek, Jack Davies Hodgkinson, Nicola Totten, Craig Dick, Lily Robinson, Peter Russell, Madeleine Hewish, Sarah Danson, Jason F. Lester, Fabio Gomes, Kate Brown, Mathew Carter, Akshay J. Patel, Aya Osman, Christer Lacson, Gerald Langman, Helen Shackleford, Madava Djearaman, Salma Kadiri, Aiman Alzetani, Jennifer Richards, Lydia Scarlett, Papawadee Ingram, Serena Chee, Silvia Austin, Amrita Bajaj, Apostolos Nakas, Azmina Sodha-Ramdeen, Dean A. Fennell, Keng Ang, Mohamad Tufail, Mohammed Fiyaz Chowdhry, Molly Scotland, Rebecca Boyles, Sridhar Rathinam, Claire Wilson, Domenic Marrone, Sean Dulloo, Angeles Montero, Elaine Smith, Eustace Fontaine, Felice Granato, Helen Doran, Juliette Novasio, Kendadai Rammohan, Leena Joseph, Paul Bishop, Rajesh Shah, Stuart Moss, Vijay Joshi, Hugo J. W. L. Aerts, Tom L. Kaufmann, Roland F. Schwarz, Judit Kisistok, Mateo Sokac, Miklos Diossy, Zoltan Szallasi, Krijn Dijkstra, Yinyin Yuan, Crispin T. Hiley, Kevin Litchfield, Nicholas McGranahan, Mariam Jamal-Hanjani, Charles Swanton, and George Kassiotis

CAPTURE Consortium:

Annika Fendler, Lewis Au, Scott T. C. Shepherd, Nadia Yousaf, Fiona Byrne, Laura Amanda Boos, Benjamin Shum, Camille L. Gerard, Andreas M. Schmitt, Christina Messiou, David Cunningham, Ian Chau, Naureen Starling, Nicholas Turner, Liam Welsh, Robin L. Jones, Joanne Droney, Susana Banerjee, Kate C. Tatham, Shaman Jhanji, Kevin Harrington, Alicia Okines, Alison Reid, Kate Young, Andrew J. S. Furness, Lisa Pickering, Emma Nicholson, Sacheen Kumar, Katalin A. Wilkinson, Anthony Swerdlow, Robert J. Wilkinson, James Larkin, Samra Turajlic, and George Kassiotis


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