Nobel Prize-winning scientist Frances Arnold retracts paper
American scientist Frances Arnold, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, has retracted her latest paper.
Ms Arnold shared the prestigious award in 2018 with George P Smith and Gregory Winter for their research on enzymes.
A subsequent paper on enzymatic synthesis of beta-lactams was published in the journal Science in May 2019.
It has been retracted because the results were not reproducible, and the authors found data missing from a lab notebook.
Reproduction is an essential part of validating scientific experiments. If an experiment is a success, one would expect to get the same results every time it was conducted.
Ms Arnold came forward with the news herself on Twitter on 2 January.
"For my first work-related tweet of 2020, I am totally bummed to announce that we have retracted last year's paper on enzymatic synthesis of beta-lactams. The work has not been reproducible," she tweeted.
"It is painful to admit, but important to do so. I apologize to all. I was a bit busy when this was submitted, and did not do my job well."
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