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Published online 14 October 2009 | Nature 461, 859 (2009) | doi:10.1038/461859a
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Key protein-design papers challenged
Chemists question stability of proteins from 2003 Nature study.
Two papers published by protein engineer Homme Hellinga's lab at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, have been challenged.
Last year, Hellinga retracted papers in Science1 and the Journal of Molecular Biology2 after John Richard, a physical chemist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found that enzymes designed by Hellinga's lab did not work as reported3.
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If perceived power of in-silico predictions is not supported by appropriate robust experiments and if reviewers of higly acclaimed journals get carried away by the over expectations that computerization weaves (like any new highly moving technology always ushers), such non-reproducible results will cloud around and decelerate the scientific field in question.
Jeff Smith has contacted Nature requesting that the editors clarify that of the three proteins he tested, one signaled reproducibly in an in vivo assay and the other two did not signal reproducibly in the same assay. In his opinion this is quite different from the statement that 'two consistently did not work.' Additionally, he says that what convinced him that the one design worked was that another lab independently reproduced his results in another organism.