Four years ago, a study found that cancer has unique microbial signatures that would allow a blood test to diagnose cancer. But in recent months, the study has faced scrutiny for inaccurate data, The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 30.
The study's lead author, Rob Knight, PhD, a University of California San Diego professor, is widely regarded as a pioneer of big-data microbial analysis, according to the report. His study was published in Nature and used more than 17,000 samples from 10,000 people with cancer. The research has been cited more than 600 times. Dozens of groups have based new work on the data and even the private sector has taken notice, with several companies attempting to create blood screening tests.
But in June, the paper was retracted following criticism from other scientists who brought up issues with its methodology and findings. In a statement through a university spokesperson, Dr. Knight told the Journal the retraction was warranted but that the paper's major conclusions are true.
However, skeptics say that some of the microbes flagged as components of cancer signatures weren't known to exist in humans.
The "near-perfect association between microbes and cancer types reported in the study is, simply put, a fiction," an analysis published October 2023 in the journal mBio stated. The analysis also found the researchers incorrectly deployed a genomic tool to match tumor data to microbial sequencing.
"It wasn't a close call," Steven Salzberg, PhD, a computational biologist at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, told the Journal. "This data is completely wrong."
When Nature retracted the study, it cited the above critiques and noted that the paper's authors agreed with its retraction. But the retraction has created a ripple effect, with many other studies having to correct or retract their work due to the original piece's flawed science.
Read the full article here.