The English science supremacy

England. A world superpower. Not just in everything else, but also in science, which is world-beating. English spitfire pluckiness destroyed the Huns in two world wars and in Brexit, but also in scientific performance, both impact-factor and money-wise. Brexit Britain will be free of all diseases, because whatever an English scientist does, conclusions remain not affected.

The secret to English science supremacy is not just the limitless capacity of certain English researchers to fabricate exciting results and phony cures, anyone can do that. It is the unique arrogance and corruption of English universities and of British health authorities who regularly decree all data fakeries to be quality science, outside statute of limitations, and verified independently by many citations, while telling whistleblowers to get lost.

It is a game only the crooks can win. And tax payers, charity donors and patients pay the price.

Not matter what you hear from Brexit, it’s not like England is not tolerant and welcoming. Clean of foreign detritus, free Britain can now freely choose what kind of foreigner it will let it. The foreigner must bring the right skill, like Amato Giaccia did, when he arrived to Oxford from Stanford in USA, trailed by a string of questionable research. Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic showcased what the English ruling elites value most: defrauding and bullshitting the public. Science is just another coffer to plunder in this scam.

I previously celebrated the English science genius, with superior English minds like regenerative medicine enthusiast Martin Birchall, who took over Paolo Macchiarini‘s deadly technology to run some trachea transplants of his own. Birchall was acquitted in full by his own UCL, including for data irregularities, foreign scapegoats were assigned. Also Master of Birkbeck Sir David Latchman, CBE, was saved by UCL from unruly investigators whose reports were overruled by officials to determine no misconduct. Dame Kay Davies, DBE, was defended by her University of Oxford thanks to statute of limitations of 3 years for research misconduct charges, and by the publisher Oxford University Press where she as Editor-in-Chief retaliated against a fraud whistleblower. Paul Workman and Alan Ashworth, current and former director of ICR London, were both absolved in full, nothing at all worth retracting was found, while minor characters (not their protegees though) got the blame. Richard Marais of Cancer Research UK in Manchester weathered a research fraud scandal in his lab and a mountain of bullying accusations, he is still director of the institute.

Now, I shall celebrate more such talents, based on the sleuthing of Clare Francis. Cancer is cured, brain diseases vanquished, all thanks to the English scholars I want you to admire. Please raise, tuck in your shirt and comb your hair. The honour is all yours:

Nick Lemoine, FRCPath FMedSci

We shall start with Nicholas Lemoine. This cancer researcher is professor at the Queen Mary University of London and director of the Cancer Research UK Barts Centre. He is also an extremely high-ranking expert at the MRC (Medical Research Council), which means Dr Nick decides which biomedical researchers in UK gets funded and which don’t:

“He has served as Chair of the Clinical Training and Career Development Panel at the Medical Research Council, and as Vice-Chair of the MRC Stratified Medicine Expert Panel. He has previously served as Chair of the MRC Stem Cell Strategic Grant and Fellowship Panels, and has been a member of the MRC’s Molecular & Cellular Medicine Board.“

As medical director of NIHR Clinical Research Network, Dr Nick is now in charge of UK’s COVID-19 response:

Joining our digital debate, in collaboration with @pharmaphorum on 25 Feb is Prof Nick Lemoine, Medical Director, NIHR Clinical Research Network. We'll be discussing the UK's approach to the delivery of #ClinicalTrials in the #COVID19 #pandemic
Register: https://t.co/y5wqbZ7luU pic.twitter.com/sRLvKAbxJX

— NIHR for Industry (@NIHR_Industry) February 5, 2021

So what kind of science are you, a humble British scientist seeking to eke out a meagre grant from MRC or NIHR, expected to deliver in order to impress Professor Lemoine? Well, you could study from his own papers, here is one:

Iman El-Hariry, Massimo Pignatelli, Nicholas R. Lemoine FGF-1 and FGF-2 regulate the expression of E-cadherin and catenins in pancreatic adenocarcinoma International Journal of Cancer (2001)  DOI: 10.1002/ijc.1515

As you see, the Figure 4 is fake, it has 3 cloned bands. Which means, the conclusions are not affected. A correction was issued by the publisher Wiley in 2019:

“There is an error in the experimental conditions reported for the data presented in Figure 4 panel B. We apologize for these circumstances, which required clarification of the data.”

As it happens, Ashworth’s mentee and first author on a bunch of hilariously fake papers, Sarah Martin, is presently faculty member and Deputy Centre Lead at the Lemoine-ruled Bart’s and, this is really cruel: director of the graduate school. Now you see which qualifications you need to get employed at Barts, plus they probably sack PhD students for refusing to fake data there.

Maybe they use this paper by Limoine and his Barts colleagues to teach the students how to do cancer research properly:

Nothing was done. The Editor-in-Chief of this Nature Research Group journal is another professor in England, Georgios Giamas, owner of his own PubPeer record, and protege of the controversial, yet perfectly safe in his job, Imperial College professor Justin Stebbing. Giamas also holds a visiting professorship at Imperial, and he will definitely never do anything about the following paper by Limoine in Cancer Gene Therapy:

I A McNeish, T Tenev, S Bell, M Marani, G Vassaux, N Lemoine Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase/ganciclovir–induced cell death is enhanced by co-expression of caspase-3 in ovarian carcinoma cells Cancer Gene Therapy (2001) doi: 10.1038/sj.cgt.7700305

In November 2018, the first author and another Imperial College professor Ian McNeish posted on PubPeer the full investigative report by Limoine’s employer, Barts College, which was also approved by Imperial. McNeish, Limoine and the unnamed investigator agree that the raw data doesn’t exist (anymore, they say), that the two papers were submitted and reviewed simultaneously and that the gel bands are indeed duplicated. The investigator’s conclusions, as quoted by McNeish:

“None of these issues in my opinion change the conclusions made in the papers. I see no merit in retracting these important publications or publishing an erratum at this late stage, although agree that there have been errors made in producing the figures. […] The investigation stated that the conclusions made from the published studies were valid and important, even accounting for these reporting errors.“

This is the standard attitude of all English and in fact British universities. The wording is typical English passive-aggressiveness towards whistleblowers warning them never to waste the university’s time ever again or meet their due fate.

Below some more of Limoine papers, the rest is on PubPeer. The following is 7 years old, when it was posted the raw data was rather fresh, sometimes even piping hot. A key coauthor on all these papers is Yaohe Wang, another professor at Barts.

Barts College apparently decided instead to wait until this Photoshop travesty passes the 10 year statute of limitations. Expect another passive-aggressive investigative report in 2025, declaring Limoine and Wang innocent and all conclusions valid and not affected.

There was more data recycling, basically that paper in Neurodeg Dis is a copy of the previously published paper Dunys et al Biochemical J 2006, with all other authors the same. Neither journal, one by Portland Press, one by Karger, cares, never mind for research integrity, not even for their own infringed copyright.

The prestigious 2017 Ryman Prize presented to Prof. Peter St George-Hyslop by the Rt. Hon. Bill English, PM of NZ. https://t.co/cKB87lN8y9 pic.twitter.com/x1aCqPXP7L

— Ryman Healthcare (@RymanHealthcare) August 10, 2017

Here more by St George-Hylop and his French ally, some gel band copy-pasting:

 

Here another interesting collaboration of our esteemed English upper class scientist, this time with Masaya Tohyama in Japan:

The evidence is years old, but nothing has happened so far. Yet one St George-Hyslop coauthored publication was retracted in 2020. Its first author Sabine Wislet is professor in Belgium and has a number of other papers questioned on PubPeer, including another retraction.

Sabine Wislet-Gendebien, Cheryl D’Souza, Toshitaka Kawarai, Peter St George-Hyslop, David Westaway, Paul Fraser, Anurag Tandon Cytosolic proteins regulate alpha-synuclein dissociation from presynaptic membranes The Journal of biological chemistry (2006) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m605965200

Now the fun starts. Clare Francis of course notified the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust (which funds St Seorge-Hyslop’s research). This was their decision, as penned to Clare Francis by the Policies & Governance Officer of Wellcome Trust, Lucy Douch, in February 2017:

“Further to your email of 17 August 2016, we raised your concerns about Professor Peter St George-Hyslop with the University of Cambridge, the employing institution.

The University conducted an investigation under its Misconduct in Research policy. The investigation concluded that the allegations made are entirely unfounded.”

This is not even passive aggressive, it sounds almost like a legal threat from Wellcome Trust. In fact, this is a proud English Fuck You to every single whistleblower who dares to impugn the greatness of English science genius.

Robert Kiley, Head of Open Research at Wellcome, discusses publication and research integrity from the Wellcome perspective. #cope2017 pic.twitter.com/iccflWKTxa

— BJR Journals (@BJR_Radiology) May 25, 2017

Although, to be fair, I suspect the Cambridge University probably has same statute of limitations on research fraud as Oxford, of 3 years. Because there was nothing for them to investigate in those older paper, they declared the allegations as “entirely unfounded”.

If you enjoyed St George-Hyslop’s aristocratic antics, you should also have a look at the PubPeer record of another Cambridge professor, Dame Carol Mary Black, DBE, FRCP, BSD, Principal of the Newnham College. Here a sample, with the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire as last author, Denton et al JBC 2005:

Xin Lu, FRS

Britain is open to foreigners, as we know. Not the lowly kind who don’t know how to get rich quick. If you know how to play the game, you can become part of the English science elite. Xin Lu studied in her home land China, and in UK she eventually arrived to the Ludwig Cancer Centre, first at its London branch and later to take over the directorship of the central seat in Oxford.

Ludwig Oxford Director Xin Lu credits Ludwig’s long-term research commitment, nurturing environment and flexible management structure for allowing researchers to pursue cutting-edge projects over the last 50 years that ultimately benefit cancer patients. pic.twitter.com/6m8ocidS3u

— Ludwig Cancer (@Ludwig_Cancer) February 4, 2021

Yes, Oxford is the university with 3 year statute of limitation for research misconduct. Nothing to see here at all:

Daniele Bergamaschi, Yardena Samuels, Alexandra Sullivan, Marketa Zvelebil, Hilde Breyssens, Andrea Bisso, Giannino Del Sal, Nelofer Syed, Paul Smith, Milena Gasco, Tim Crook, Xin Lu iASPP preferentially binds p53 proline-rich region and modulates apoptotic function of codon 72–polymorphic p53 Nature Genetics (2006) doi: 10.1038/ng1879

So many cloned gel bands, and yes, Clare Francis informed the University of Oxford of this and other masterpieces. The first author on that paper, Daniele Bergamaschi is now lecturer at the Queen Mary University of London, his lab is at Barts. You see again which kind of talents Barts boss Lemoine expects from his principal investigators. Bergamaschi also authored this work of art with Lu:

Daniele Bergamaschi, Yardena Samuels, Boquan Jin, Sai Duraisingham, Tim Crook, Xin Lu ASPP1 and ASPP2: common activators of p53 family members Molecular and Cellular Biology (2004) doi: 10.1128/mcb.24.3.1341-1350.2004

And this one by Bergamaschi and Lu, in Oncogene (remember the Editor-in-Chief Justin Stebbing?):

Daniele Bergamaschi, Yardena Samuels, Shan Zhong, Xin Lu Mdm2 and mdmX prevent ASPP1 and ASPP2 from stimulating p53 without targeting p53 for degradation Oncogene (2005) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1208535

I hope you are learning from Bergamaschi and Lu how to make career in English science. It’s not that difficult, all you need is the will to succeed. Another common author on all these papers is Yardena Samuels. She went back to Israel where she is now professor at the Weizmann Institute. Here more by Bergamaschi (and Samuels):

 

The last author on one of those papers is Geoffrey Smith, head of Pathology Department at University of Cambridge and member of all possible learned societies including the German Leopoldina. People of this calibre can’t be associated with bad science, so don’t expect even a correction.

But the next two papers from Lu lab doesn’t have Bergamaschi among its authors. Here one:

These are two very fraudulent figures, bands were erased in one version by a rascal. But this paper, like others, is too old for anyone to give a toss about. Here something more recent:

Min Lu, Hilde Breyssens, Victoria Salter, Shan Zhong, Ying Hu, Caroline Baer, Indrika Ratnayaka, Alex Sullivan, Nicholas R. Brown, Jane Endicott, Stefan Knapp, Benedikt M. Kessler, Mark R. Middleton, Christian Siebold, E. Yvonne Jones, Elena V. Sviderskaya, Jonathan Cebon, Thomas John, Otavia L. Caballero, Colin R. Goding, Xin Lu Restoring p53 function in human melanoma cells by inhibiting MDM2 and cyclin B1/CDK1-phosphorylated nuclear iASPP Cancer Cell (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.ccr.2013.03.013 

An Erratum was issued by Cell Press in 2016 and declared:

“This error does not affect any of the findings reported in the paper.”

With English research fabrications it is just like with Brexit: get over it, they won. Science is an English colony and the rotten upper classes are busy plundering it.

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