Hannover Scheibenkleister

There is a very obscure German heart physiology researcher at Hannover Medical School (MHH) named Renate Scheibe. For some reason she never became a professor, despite leading a lab at MHH for almost three decades. Coincidence or not, Scheibe’s science is very dodgy. But some powerful men at MHH seem to see it differently. One of them is the head of research integrity commission and Scheibe’s direct boss, ironically the same who recently requested retractions of papers by Heike and Thorsten Walles. And the MHH Ombudsman office is even less enthusiastic.

The MHH is a medical university in northern Germany, and it had its share of medical scandals. For example, declaring the MD dissertation of Ursula von der Leyen as “scientifically new, valid and of practical relevance” because they found no intention to cheat despite proven plagiarism. Among the otherwise unreported affairs: MHH is the place where the killer surgeon Paolo Macchiarini started his career in trachea transplanting, together with his subordinates, the aforementioned Walles couple. Macchiarini remains adjunct professor at MHH to this day. MHH’s then-rector even issued an order some years ago forbidding an investigation of the Macchiarini-supervised medical thesis of his right-hand man, Philipp Jungebluth. That MD thesis was about their very first trachea transplant, done in 2008 in Spain, a basis of a disastrous Lancet paper and a surgical killing spree, and it’s beyond dishonest. But not for MHH of course.

Macchiarini’s patron at MHH, Axel Haverich, once had big plans to grow human hearts with the help of his Italian star. Failing that, Haverich set up a business of “growing” heart valves which he initially tested on children on Moldova to bypass German ethics oversight. Maybe he is one of the big alpha men at MHH preventing an investigation into Scheibe’s heart biology papers?

Clare Francis did the bulk of the work scrutinising Scheibe’s research, there is now a nice PubPeer record of almost 10 papers. And how did our sleuth find Scheibe? He followed another cheater, Angel Nebreda! This ICREA professor at the IRB Barcelona in Spain has a worrisome PubPeer record, his other collaborators are toxic figures like Eric Lam (sacked by Imperial College London), Pura Munoz-Canoves, or Manuel Benito and Angela Valverde. I briefly wrote about Nebreda in this article about another one of his German collaborators:

Now, this paper by Nebreda and Scheibe is really something:

Joachim D Meissner, Kin-Chow Chang, Hans-Peter Kubis , Angel R Nebreda, Gerolf Gros , Renate J Scheibe The p38alpha/beta mitogen-activated protein kinases mediate recruitment of CREB-binding protein to preserve fast myosin heavy chain IId/x gene activity in myotubes Journal of Biological Chemistry (2007) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m609076200

The first author Joachim Meissner spent his entire career at MHH and is currently a group leader there, studying stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Like Scheibe, also Meissner hasn’t made it to professor, maybe this stands in the way (and one can’t blame Nebreda here):

Joachim D Meissner , Robert Freund , Dorothee Krone , Patrick K Umeda , Kin-Chow Chang , Gerolf Gros, Renate J Scheibe Extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2-mediated phosphorylation of p300 enhances myosin heavy chain I/beta gene expression via acetylation of nuclear factor of activated T cells c1 Nucleic Acids Research (2011) doi: 10.1093/nar/gkr162 

An overlay by Orchestes quercus:

Here, Scheibe uploaded images of raw data and stated:

“The composite Figure 5 was generated in 2010 and consists of two images of large-scale electromobility shift gels and a bottom panel A. Each of these single panels had to be reduced in size and resolution prior to figure submission.
Figure 5, bottom panel A, date of file 11/11/2010 High resolution original image demonstrates that bands are similar but, in fact, not identical.“

The provided raw data for Figure 5 is of lower resolution than published figure. Strange in itself. How to explain that the published bands looks utterly identical, but the bands in the “raw data” do not, and now have a different background?

There was more wrong with Figure 5A as Cheshire noticed:

Scheibe didn’t reply to new evidence.

A coauthor on the above two papers is Gerolf Gros, emeritus professor and since 1986 head of the Vegetative Physiology lab at MHH. He shared his expert views on another study by Scheibe:

Renate J Scheibe , Gerolf Gros, Seppo Parkkila , Abdul Waheed , Jeffrey H Grubb , Gul N Shah , William S Sly , Petra Wetzel Expression of membrane-bound carbonic anhydrases IV, IX, and XIV in the mouse heart Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry (2006) doi: 10.1369/jhc.6a7003.2006 

Gros weighted in on PubPeer (typos his):

“Similar but clearly not identical!! We are looking at highly regular structures. […] There has been no editing of all the figures! The (unknown) critical reader my himself look up photogrophs of light or electron microscopic pictures of sarcoplasmic reticulum and other highly regular structures in muscle, as published in the literature and in tetbooks or comprehensive reviews.“

Here another one by Scheibe, Gros and a Petra Wetzel, who did her “habilitation” (a German post-PhD degree) under Gros’ mentorship:

Renate J. Scheibe , Karsten Mundhenk , Tilman Becker , Janine Hallerdei , Abdul Waheed , Gul N. Shah , William S. Sly , Gerolf Gros , Petra Wetzel Carbonic anhydrases IV and IX: subcellular localization and functional role in mouse skeletal muscle AJP Cell Physiology (2008) doi: 10.1152/ajpcell.00228.2007 

Quite possibly Gros also managed Scheibe’s and Meissner’s “habilitations”, I couldn’t find their CV to prove that. Have instead some vintage classics by Scheibe and Meissner:

Scheibe and Meissner never replied to my email inquiries.

Now, to a very interesting paper. Because of its co-author, the MHH professor Matthias Gaestel, who is Director of the Institute for Cell Biochemistry where Scheibe’s works. Not just this: Gaestel is the Deputy Head of the Commission for Good Scientific Practice at MHH. Before you look at his paper with Scheibe, some backstory regarding the former MHH researchers and Macchiarini collaborators, Heike and Thorsten Walles.

Years ago, I caused an investigation of Walles’ papers at the University of Würzburg, at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, and at the MHH. The former found Heike Walles guilty of research misconduct, the latter covered everything up, being responsible for the horrible suffering of two deceased tracheal transplant patients. But MHH unexpectedly investigated the Walleses. In February 2023, Matthias Gaestel posted this on PubPeer, for seven Walles papers:

” This publication was the subject of an investigation by the Commission for Good Scientific Practice (GSP Commission) of Hannover Medical School (MHH). Upon recommendation of the Commission, the MHH President requested the authors to retract this publication in April 2019. As this publication has still not been retracted by January 12, 2023, the MHH President has instructed the Chair of the GSP Commission to publish this commentary.”

The details of these 7 papers are in earlier Friday Shorts. None was retracted because Walles’ current employer, the University of Magdeburg in eastern Germany, seems to be preventing the retractions. Gaestel did not give me the investigative report or even its summary when I asked him.

Now, his paper with Scheibe:

Madeleine Scharf , Stefan Neef , Robert Freund , Cornelia Geers-Knörr , Mirita Franz-Wachtel , Almuth Brandis , Dorothee Krone , Heike Schneider , Stephanie Groos , Manoj B Menon , Kin-Chow Chang , Theresia Kraft , Joachim D Meissner , Kenneth R Boheler , Lars S Maier , Matthias Gaestel , Renate J Scheibe Mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein kinases 2 and 3 regulate SERCA2a expression and fiber type composition to modulate skeletal muscle and cardiomyocyte function Molecular and Cellular Biology (2013) doi: 10.1128/mcb.01692-12

Also here, Scheibe shared images of raw data and declared:

“These higher resolution images demonstrate that, although the lanes of question seem very similar, they are, however, not identical. Figure 5, Panel B, date of file 3/24/2009 Figure 5, panel J, date of file 5/14/2008. The composite Figure 5 was generated in 2011 and consists of a large number of 12 single panels from A-L, all related to the same thematic issue.”

In an email to me, Gaestel agreed (translated):

“…Dr. Scheibe presented to me the original blots (from 2008 and 2009) in electronic form and put them in PubPeer as an author’s response. I think that’s pretty convincing.”

He refused to change his mind when challenged with this evidence of raw data fabrication:

Scheibe’s boss and deputy head of research integrity commission Gaestel told me that he sees no conflict of interests here and would only recuse himself when this paper of his would be subject of investigation. In any case, he explained, his commission can only investigate cases if the Ombudsman Thomas Werfel and the President of the MHH Michael Manns allow it. As a reminder, the investigation of Jungebluth’s MD dissertation was forbidden in 2017 on explicit order of the then-MHH president, Christopher Baum. That’s how academic freedom works at MHH.

I received no reply from Werfel. The person in charge of MHH Ombudsman office, Beate Schwinzer, replied only after many attempts. Translated:

“To date, neither the ombudsman nor one of the ombudspersons has received an official report of a suspected violation of the GWP (reports that only reach us in the cc are not processed).

When suspected cases regarding good scientific practice are reported, the responsible committees at the Hannover Medical School are bound by the guidelines of the Hannover Medical School for safeguarding good scientific practice and procedural rules for dealing with scientific misconduct to strict confidentiality. Absolute confidentiality and the protection of everyone involved in a suspected case is one of the basic requirements that the DFG also makes when dealing with suspected cases. Therefore – and of course also for reasons of data protection – we are not allowed to give any information. The usual procedure at the MHH in suspicious cases can be found in our guidelines (§13).

Please understand that we are therefore unable to answer your inquiries.“

I asked Schwinzer if that means she, Werfel and Gaestel refuse to admit my notification, and even if they would eventually allow me to jump through hoops to place it, they would never tell me when they reject it as baseless and unfounded. No reply. Schwinzer also did not deny my supposition that MHH knew for years of the problems with Scheibe’s and Meissner’s research.

If my supposition is true, MHH considers the case as dealt with ages ago. Fact is, Scheibe and Meissner spent already 3 decades at MHH and were still not given the title of professor. It seems everyone knows what kind of science they produce, even the national founder, the German Research Council (DFG). Scheibe’s only recorded DFG grant was a modest “Individual Research Grant” (Sachbeihilfe), financed 2009-2020. Meissner’s one and only DFG grant was also a Sachbeihilfe, financed 2006-2010. Basically, they fully depend on MHH’s goodwill for their jobs, research funds, and lab members. Both Scheibe and Meissner hardly ever publish papers, in recent years they were mostly picked up as coauthors. From their publication records, the patronage of Gros is more than obvious.

It’s not really a big fraud scandal, but a trashy provincial farce.

I don’t think Scheibe or Meissner are that important to the MHH bigwigs (except for Gros who retired anyway). These two bring no money whatsoever, only costs and embarrassment. But MHH is categorically unable to admit to any malpractice, they will cover up and suppress everything by default. That’s why Haverich was allowed to run the heart clinic as his private fiefdom, why Jungebluth can still call himself Dr med, and why Macchiarini is still adjunct professor at MHH.

Let’s end with Jungebluth singing. Really.

Note: the cell biologist Renate Scheibe of MHH shouldn’t be confused with the plant scientist Renate Scheibe of the University of Osnabrück, a member of the DFG Ombuds Committee for scientific integrity in Germany.

---