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A scientific paper that had captured widespread attention because its subjects were massive grizzly bears was retracted on Tuesday after one of the authors was said to have manipulated some of the data.

The paper attracted news coverage around the world after its publication in August 2014 in the journal Cell Metabolism, which put on its cover an image of a grizzly bear clutching a fish between its jaws.

The paper discussed how grizzly bears' metabolisms adjust to hibernation, and the key role of a certain fat protein, which offered a clue to a new kind of treatment for diabetes. Biotech Amgen Inc. was working on the bear research to get a better grip on the biology behind diseases like obesity and diabetes.

But Amgen said it discovered late last year, in reviewing the computer files of one of its researchers, that some experimental data cited in the Cell Metabolism paper had been changed in a way the company said made some of the results look stronger.

Amgen and its collaborators at Washington State University and the University of Idaho said they quickly asked Cell Metabolism for a retraction. The journal then reviewed the matter, resulting in the paper's retraction.

Amgen, along with researchers at Washington state's bear-research center and the University of Idaho, said the data manipulation was the work of a lone company scientist and didn't affect the paper's overall finding about the bears' metabolisms. Neither Amgen nor the university researchers would identify the scientist, who has been fired.

"We know data were actually manipulated and that just cannot stand," Alexander Kamb, Amgen's research chief, said in an interview. Dr. Kamb wasn't an author of the paper.

"Amgen holds our scientists to the highest standards of ethical research. Amgen has internal policies and practices in place to prevent and detect this type of activity and we deeply regret this circumstance. We extend our sincere apologies to the scientific community," the biotech company said.

Lynne Nelson, one of the paper's lead authors who is a professor of cardiology at Washington state, said its bear-research center was stunned to learn of the doctoring from Amgen and is now repeating the research itself to confirm the findings.

"We did nothing wrong, and we're still going to pursue the hibernation physiology in bears because we think it's an important thing to do," she said.

The paper had 12 authors, six of whom had worked for Amgen while conducting the research. The senior author was Kevin Corbit. Dr. Corbit said he was let go from Amgen for fabricating research "on another matter." He said he fabricated that data to help a co-worker in what he said was an isolated incident and a regrettable decision.

He said he stands behind the grizzly-bear paper, and he believes that "if independent experiments were conducted, as dictated by proper scientific discourse, the work would be reproduced." He says his co-authors have no involvement in any dispute over the work.

Dr. Corbit's and Amgen's work was the subject of a 2013 article in The Wall Street Journal about how bears could offer clues to the mechanism of diseases like obesity and diabetes in humans. Grizzly bears gain considerable weight and fat before going into hibernation, but don't develop diabetes like some humans whose fat mass increases.

The Cell Metabolism paper concluded the bears turn on and off their sensitivity to insulin, a hormone that controls how much the body stores for energy from the sugars in food. As they gain weight in preparation for hibernation, the bears are much more sensitive to insulin. Then during hibernation, they switch off their insulin responsiveness.

This "metabolic switching" isn't in doubt, according to Drs. Kamb and Nelson, and it could inform how bears are able to utilize their fat stores during hibernation and prevent the onset of diabetes. But the data manipulation calls into question the paper's explanation of how the bears do this, involving a protein called PTEN.

The protein still could be responsible, or it could be something else, Dr. Nelson said. "It's hard for me to say at this point what's real or what's not."

Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 01, 2015 12:25 ET (16:25 GMT)

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