According to international practice, the conclusions of articles published by research teams must be repeatable. "Taking the initiative to withdraw the manuscript shows that the Han Chunyu team is also aware that there are problems in their articles that cannot be repeated." Lou Zhenkun, a professor at the Mayo Medical Center in the United States, said, "It takes courage to take the initiative to withdraw the manuscript. Many authors of articles that cannot be repeated are reluctant to take the initiative to withdraw the manuscript. There may be many reasons why the experiment cannot be repeated, and there is no evidence that Han Chunyu's team is cheating. Generally, passive retraction is to find fraud. I hope that the Han Chunyu team can publish the original data and materials of the experiment, and the researchers can repeat it step by step according to the experimental records to see if it can be repeated. "
Wang Liming, a professor at Zhejiang University, thinks that withdrawing the manuscript is an "important step", which gives me some confidence in scientific research. He is also looking forward to his next move. "The unsolved problem now is whether there is academic misconduct. Whether it is fraud or simple experimental errors. "
It is understood that scholars can voluntarily withdraw published papers in many cases. For example, it is considered that the evidence of the paper is insufficient, and the experimental data can't reach the conclusion in the paper, or that the data is improperly processed and it is not suitable for publishing the paper for the time being.
Some interviewees think that withdrawing the manuscript does not mean fraud. However, many researchers are puzzled: If the data are true and reliable, under such pressure, why is the Han Chunyu team always reluctant to publish the test records?
Shao Feng, an academician of China Academy of Sciences, commented that after Han Chunyu's technology was widely questioned last year, some people in the industry have actually reached a conclusion-this is an unreliable research result. "I have carefully studied the relevant knowledge and literature myself, and found that NgAgo can't theoretically have the same gene editing function as Cas9."
Several senior scientists in the field of biology said: "Several of our colleagues discussed and carefully analyzed Han Chunyu's paper, and realized in July 20 16 that it should be academic fraud." Generally speaking, this protein doesn't have enough energy to open DNA for cutting. Read the paper carefully and you will know that the experiment can't be successful.
Rao Yi, director of Peking University Science Department, said: "The routine of news is to report important progress quickly. The international standard of science news is to invite many experts to read papers and make comments. But even so, sometimes we can't judge the problem. Fortunately, the judgment of scientific research still has time to test, as well as the repetition and verification of peers. "
Liu, deputy director of the high school classroom of the Education Development Research Center of the Ministry of Education, believes that on the one hand, innovation should be encouraged and trial and error allowed; On the other hand, we should have the ability to think independently and distinguish between real research and fake research. This must be solved by constantly improving the scientific research management system, so as to "encourage innovation and put an end to fraud".
Zhang Xinnian, a lawyer of Beijing Shi Jing Law Firm, believes that if it is intentional, it will constitute academic fraud. But if this result is not subjective, but a purely methodological or technical problem, it should not be regarded as academic fraud.