Retraction: Simultaneous Recovery of DNA and RNA from Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Tissue and Application in Epidemiologic Studies

The article titled “Simultaneous Recovery of DNA and RNA from Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Tissue and Application in Epidemiologic Studies,” which was published in the April 2010 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (1), is being retracted at the request of the author, Timothy Sheehy, following an investigation conducted by The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The ORI investigation made a finding of misconduct that affects the main conclusions of this article, related specifically to the data in Table 1, concluding that author Timothy Sheehy “fabricated the quantitative and qualitative data for RNA and DNA purportedly extracted from 900 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) colorectal tissue samples presented in Table 1 of the CEBP paper and falsely reported successful methodology to simultaneously recover nucleic acids from FFPE tissue specimens, when neither the extractions nor analyses of the FFPE samples were done. Thus, the main conclusions of the CEBP paper are based on fabricated data and are false” (2).

No other authors on the article are named in the findings of the ORI investigation of this article.