No MAGIC in Science paper

Science will most probably retract a paper published by Tae Kook Kim and colleagues at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and CGK Co. (Korea) (Science 2008, 319, 1468–1469). The authors had described a novel technology called magnetism-based interaction capture (MAGIC) to identify intracellular targets of small molecules (Science 2005, 309, 121–125). AC profiled the paper 3 years ago (2005, 77, 417 A).

The chair of the Internal Investigation Committee at KAIST notified the Science editors that the paper, as well as another paper by the same group (Nat. Chem. Biol. 2006, 2, 369–374), is being investigated after scientists at CGK, a company founded by Kim, struggled to get MAGIC to work. The editors of Science expressed their concern about the paper after the chair informed them that preliminary findings were sufficient to convince the chair that “the two papers do not contain any scientific truth” (Science 2008, 319, 1335).

The first author of the two papers, Jaejoon Won, has admitted scientific misconduct. Editors of the two journals say they are waiting to hear from all the authors, or be informed about the investigation’s final outcome, before retracting the papers.