A chemistry journal plans to deal with an acrimonious dispute over a submitted paper by taking the unusual step of publishing it along with an addendum that disputes some of its conclusions.

Langmuir, which is published by the American Chemical Society, is planning to publish the nanotechnology paper on its website this week. An addendum states that the scientist who supervised the work takes issue with some of its content, its ownership and aspects of how the work was carried out.

The paper, written by Peter Schwartz, a physicist now at California Polytechnic State University, describes a way of patterning very thin lines of DNA onto a gold surface. Schwartz says he developed the technique while working in the laboratory of chemistry professor Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University, Illinois. Schwartz left Northwestern in August 2000 following several disagreements with Mirkin.

Langmuir accepted the peer-reviewed paper in March this year, but Mirkin effectively blocked its publication by writing to the society asserting that the data were incomplete and that Schwartz was trying to pass off collaborative research as his own. The journal agreed to publish the work only when Schwartz accepted the inclusion of the addendum. “The addendum solution is a compromise, but one that is not great for anyone involved,” Mirkin says.

Schwartz — who believes that his results cast doubt on the performance of a different DNA micropatterning technique called 'dip pen lithography', developed by Mirkin's group — says he is “very relieved” that other researchers can now attempt to reproduce his work.

→ http://pubs.acs.org/journals/langd5/index.html