It seems to me that there needs to be a centralized agency (that is,
an agency unaffiliated with any one publisher) that collects and vets
reports of questionable structures, rather than relegate these reports
to the hard-to-stumble-upon discussions (like the ones linked in this
thread) that are managed exclusively by the journal involved, and
involve a likely already over-taxed individual who plays the
moonlighting role of journal editor.
What if, for example, it was the wwPDB itself that served as a
repository for these complaints? The wwPDB would collect and vet the
populace's reports of questionable structures, and make this
collection available online. Over time, there may emerge an
infrastructure (easier done because it is the wwPDB) whereby the
report filed therein becomes dynamically, digitally linked with not
only the PDB id of the flagged model, but also the publication that is
associated with that PDB id.
This sort of setup would not deal directly with what publishers
ultimately do with the original publication of the bad/incorrect
model, but it will do precisely what all these whistle-blowers
ultimately intend, which is to help keep a poor/wrong model of a
protein's structure from informing future scientific and medical
endeavors; viewers of the flagged PDB models could make a much more
informed decision based on the model and its publication.
This sounds like the proposal of a whole new journal, which isn't
trivial, I realize. Has this ever been proposed? Is it too idealistic
or otherwise impractical?
Emily.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 11:56 AM, Patrick Loll <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Bernhard is absolutely right. The urge is definitely noble, but also quixotic, and reality has a way of bashing the quixotic. We once stumbled on a purported protein-ligand structure, for which the evidence for ligand binding was simply nonexistent. I spent many, many hours over the course of several years going back and forth with the authors, and then the editors (the journal, which will remain nameless, is part of the high-profile stable of journals beginning with the word N****e). At first, everyone paid lip service to idea of fixing the problem, but eventually it became evident that no one was incentivized (as they say) to actually do so. In the end, nothing changed (except perhaps my disposition, which used to be all sweetness and light. Really).
>
> Pat
>
>> On 21 Jan 2016, at 11:15 AM, Bernhard Rupp (Hofkristallrat a.D.) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Ø The overall improvement of the public resource that is the PDB
>> takes precedence over anything else…. I might be moved to write this
>> up in a letter to the editor of the journal
>>
>> This is an exceptionally noble thought that gets routinely clobbered by reality. Recent example:
>>
>> http://www.jimmunol.org/content/196/2/530.2.short
>>
>> Follow the comments, replies, and final editorial perception of this disaster as a ‘lively debate’
>>
>> No retraction, no PDB update, no consequences for peptide models whose
>> geometry precludes their existence, and which are not supported by density.
>>
>> Paul Feyerabend was right, after all. Anything goes.
>>
>> Cheers, BR
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Patrick J. Loll, Ph. D.
> Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
> Director, Biochemistry Graduate Program
> Drexel University College of Medicine
> Room 10-102 New College Building
> 245 N. 15th St., Mailstop 497
> Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192 USA
>
> (215) 762-7706
> [log in to unmask]
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