Schneider Shorts 22.09.2023 – Digging into still available archives and remaining lab-books
Schneider Shorts 22.08.2023 - Italian health minister not worried, Argentinian researchers going silent, Elsevier issuing amazing corrections, EMBO Press issuing inaction, and an MDPI Jesus declaring corrections a sin.
Schneider Shorts of 22 September 2023 – Italian health minister not worried, Argentinian researchers going silent, Elsevier issuing amazing corrections, EMBO Press issuing inaction, and an MDPI Jesus declaring corrections a sin.
Table of Discontent
Science Elites
There are anomalies – Italian Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci published fake science
Have a good day – MDPI Jesus delivers a sermon on COPE guidelines
Science Elites
There are anomalies
The Italian newspaper Il Manifestoreported on 15 September 2023 (thanks to Sylvie Coyaud for the tip):
“There are anomalies in some of the research published by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci from 2018 to 2022: the same images used several times to illustrate different experiments.”
Orazio Schillaci used to be medical dean and then rector of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and since October 2022 he is member of the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni (to be fair, Italy doesn’t have conservative parties, only far-right). This is the original Il Manifesto article in Italian, here an English-language explainer, and here is an interview with Elisabeth Bik, who helped the journalists with their investigation and posted the evidence on PubPeer (currently 7 papers).
Elisabeth Bik: “Orange boxes: Panels F (‘numerous caspase 3 positive PC3 cancer cells after 120 h of sestamibi treatment’) and H (‘After 24 h of the treatment with sestamibi no/rare AIF positive cells are detected’) appear to be showing the same cells in the blue fluorescence, with the red fluorescence appears to be completely missing in panel H.“
Bik: “Cyan boxes: Figure 2C from [2018] paper (left, BM+, RUNX2 staining) appears to overlap with the bottom right panel in Figure 1A of the CRR2020 paper (right, Ki67 staining? – not clear). The scale bars on the two panels do not match.”Bik on Urbano et al 2019: “Red boxes: Panels C (BMP-2 immunostaining) and F (VDR immunostaining) appear to show the same tissue, albeit at different magnifications.[…] Purple boxes: Panel B (Vimentin immunostaining) appears to be showing the same panel as Figure 1C in Scimeca M et al.“Bik: “Teal boxes: Figure 1F from this JCM2019 paper (shown left) appears to show the same specimen as Figure 1A of Urbano N et al., Cancer Res Rep (2020) […] Figure 1F from JCM2019 is derived from a 64-year-old patient with 4+4 Gleason group, while Figure 1A from CRR2020 is described as from a 69-year-old patient with 5+4 Gleason group.”Bik: “Blue boxes: Figure 4E from this paper (right; vimentin immunostaining of an LNCAP xenograft tumor) appears to overlap with Figure 4D of another paper from the same research group, i.e. Figure 4D from Scimeca M et al., Int. J. Mol. Sci. (November 2019), DOI: 10.3390/ijms20225633 (left; BMP-4 immunostaining of breast carcinoma).”
Bik: “Red boxes: Panel I from this 2019 paper (shown on the right) looks remarkably similar to Figure 2A of another paper by some shared authors, i.e. Magda Gioia et al., Cell Death Discovery (2018), DOl: 10.1038/541420-018-0055-4 (shown left). In the CDD2018 paper, that panel represents human primary osteoblasts (hpOBs) from healthy donors. In this IJMS2019 paper, the panel represents MDA-MB-231 cells, a breast cancer cell line,”
Schilacci is investigating himself, as the newspaper reported:
“Contacted by il manifesto, one of the scientists in Schillaci’s group, a co-author of all the publications in question, readily admitted the errors when confronted with the evidence, but claimed they were nothing more than accidental mishaps that are always possible in such cases.
The Health Minister responded to us as follows: “This is the first time I’m hearing about this news, I had no knowledge of it. I am not an expert in electron microscopy, I trusted the person who provided those images. We will check if there are indeed errors.””
In Italy, this all is big news, and abroad Sciencereported:
“He is a prolific author, with more than 400 papers registered in Scopus, a database of scientific literature. During the years in which the papers with duplications were published, he produced papers at a rate of one every 12 days; he has continued to publish since becoming health minister for Italy’s far–right-wing government in 2022.”
Giorgio Zauli’s rectorship term ends. Will research fraud, media harassment and whistleblower persecution be a thing of the past at the University of Ferrara? Ma dai, basta cazzate.
Science then makes Bik share credit with Jennifer Byrne (why….), and brings in the voice of true authority, Daniele Fanelli, who famously proclaimed in 2018 that concerns “with research integrity and reproducibility” are “misguided” and “unjustified“. Science quotes Schillaci:
““I am not worried. I have not manipulated anything,” he said. “The images do not come from my laboratory, but from other colleagues that have not done anything wrong.””
The papers are all very new, so the excuses of “raw data was lost in a flood” and “this was allowed back then” won’t work. My prediction is: this obscure radiologist Nicoletta Urbano will get the blame but with zero consequences, and the Italian authorities will determine that Schillaci bears no responsibility at all because he is merely the last author who rightfully contributed nothing. There may be some corrections about unaffected conclusions.
“I am Jorge de Burgos. I believe research should pause in searching for the progress of knowledge. Right now, we don’t need more papers, we rather need more knowledge by going through a continuous and sublime recapitulation to figure out what is true and what is fake” – Aneurus Inconstans
Anyway, I myself don’t understand what the fuss is about. Schillacci was actually the perfect university rector and is now the perfect minister for Italian academic biomedicine, where fake science seems to be the standard, not the deviation. Also in Rome, also at Tor Vergata:
Is the journal Cell Death and Disease a disease itself, parasitised by Chinese paper mills? Can it be cured? Not with this team of doctors on editorial board.
An Italy-trained Argentinian scientist, the President of Institute Leloir in Buenos Aires, Vanesa Gottifredi (read earlier Friday Shorts), wrote me this email:
“I have not committed fraud at any time in my career, and there is no fraud in the paper you have indicated in your email. As of now, I must follow the research compliance lawyer`s advice and cannot engage with you anymore.”
I understand, because it is not just old papers by Gottifredi from her PhD in Italy and postdoc in USA (with Carol Prives) which contain data manipulations, like this vintage classic:
Actinopolyspora biskrensis: “Concern: two segments of the image displayed in Figure 1B seem to be mirror images of each other. Shown below in false color (ImageJ).“
“There also appear to be some duplicated regions in Figure 4B (blue and yellow boxes).”
Nope, there are also new papers on PubPeer, from Dr Gottifredi’s CONICET-funded lab in Argentina, now that Aneurus Inconstans joined the treasure hunt!
I reported Gottifredi and the following case to CONICET. No reply.
Digging into the still available archives and remaining lab-books
We stay in Argentina, and now meet another CONICET-funded researcher, Mario Galigniana, Professor of Biological Chemistry at University of Buenos Aires and group leader at the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine (IBYME). These are his papers on PubPeer, and this is my selection:
I wrote to Galigniana, and he replied, informing me that he is currently in New Zealand because his daughter has given birth:
“When we return to Buenos Aires by the middle of October, I will address every possible issue after digging into the still available archives and remaining lab-books. Because my lab is empty nowadays, nobody can advance me anything since I have not incorporated students since the last one graduated in March. It happens that I am 65 and our system forces me to get retired by the end of the current year.”
Well. At 65, Galigniana is not that old and frail, he can still travel, change diapers, cook, and tidy his daughter’s house, maybe explore New Zealand in his free time. I am not sure whether the expression “still available archives and remaining lab-books” makes sense though. The papers are rather fresh, did the professor trash the records in expectation of his upcoming retirement, or what?
In any case, Gisela Mazaira seems to have taken her boss’ reins teaching biochemistry at University of Buenos Aires. More importantly, Galigniana’s close associate Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk is Independent Investigator of CONICET, in the same IBYME department as Galigniana.
Update 29.09.2023: turned out, Piwien-Pilipuk is Galigniana’s wife! The rest of the text was updated accordingly.
There are active researchers, his own wife included, who should have stopped the retiring new grandfather from destroying the lab records. Also for this paper:
Maybe even the data for this one can be found in archives, and do appreciate the irony that the first author Pablo Echeverria now works at the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in Switzerland as “Graphic Arts Project Manager”:
And who knows, maybe even here some raw data might be found behind the fridge? Galigniana stopped replying to my emails as new PubPeer evidence kept arriving:
The first author Guillermo Vicent is now in Spain, training as CSIC-funded group leader at Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona (IBMB) the next generation of research cheaters.
And maybe, just maybe, Professor Emeritus Galigniana will be able to find out which little rascal soiled the gel in this paper:
Wait, there’s more! Emeritus professor Galigniana used to collaborate with another problematic IBYME colleague, the cheater Patricia Elizalde (see for example Salatino et al 2006). You can read about Elizalde’s fake science here:
“No matter if the data behind medical protocols and oncological treatments are imaginary! Since science is long dead, we can always rely on the haruspices.” – Aneurus Inconstans
And now, meet another daughter of our hero, Natalia Galigniana, who is presently postdoc in Oslo, Norway. She did her PhD at IBYME in 2014-2018 under… her mommy, Piwien-Pilipuk! Also her dad’s friend, Elizalde, helped Natalia’s career:
The Oncogene paper was just corrected on 8 September 2023 because of “mistake in the assembly of Figure 3f, which does not affect the conclusions of the article.“
Gosh, what fun awaits our Emeritus when he returns to Buenos Aires.
Scholarly Publishing
To ensure utmost accuracy
Elsevier corrects a fake paper by Mohammad Arjmand, Canada’s greatest materials scientist.
“Our research team has invested significant time and resources into the study of UiO-66. Regrettably, during the submission process, an inadvertent oversight led to an unintended replacement of Fig. 1 with an unrelated figure from a separate UiO-66 study. It is vital to underscore that the descriptions supporting this figure maintain its original integrity and relevance. […]
Furthermore, there is a minor mistake found in Fig. 2, specifically concerning the labeling. In the SEM images, label (d) was inadvertently substituted for label (b). As a consequence, the accurate SEM image corresponding to label d was incorrectly positioned. Despite these errors, it is important to note that the descriptions and explanations accompanying Fig. 2, as well as the overall content, remain unaffected. […]
In order to ensure utmost accuracy, the XRD patterns of the deposited nanofibers on glass substrates were re-evaluated, and the conclusive results are presented in Fig. 3a. It is important to note that the peaks observed at approximately 2θ = 23° and 41° correspond to the inherent crystalline nature of the glass substrate, which is consistently observable across all nanofiber samples in the XRD patterns. However, it is crucial to emphasize that this clarification does not alter the content of the article. Furthermore, the FTIR analysis was conducted once more, and the corresponding spectra are depicted in Fig. 3b. […]”
Now, it’s nice of Elsevier to have found even more fraud that originally flagged on PubPeer, but some do wonder if that paper should have been retracted instead. A certain PubPeer user Orchestes quercus made this “comparison of the as-published and corrected XRD data”:
” the corrected XRD data removes the ugly ‘all curves differ only by a scaling factor’ issue that plagues the original submission.”
See, Elsevier allowed the authors to remove the quadruplicated XRD spectra, “to ensure utmost accuracy“, because this “does not alter the content of the article“.
Some small errors
Elsevier in fact are real experts in correcting papermill fraud.
“Whole cohorts of peer-reviewers have been trained to view all these mannerist stylings as what western blots should look like. […] It will be a challenge to convince them otherwise.” – Smut Clyde.
“I am open to the possibility that they both outsourced their Western Blot production to a single, independent Wurst-Meister specialist.” – Dr Smut Clyde, art historian of the Chinese Papermill Renaissance.
Hoya camphorifolia: “Fig 6. The images of ‘xenograft tumors’ seem to have been created by cutting out photographs of potatoes and pasting them into a featureless gray screen.”
The publication history in Genomics says: “Received 15 July 2020, Revised 24 February 2021, Accepted 5 March 2021“. The preprint was posted already in November 2019. Most likely, the preprinted manuscript was initially submitted to a different journal, where the peer reviewers spotted the fake tumours in Figure 6, which led to rejection. The authors, or rather their trusty papermill, replaced the offending tumours with a less obvious forgery and sent it to Genomics. Or maybe it was submitted to Genomics in the first place, and the editors invited the authors (or the papermill) to replace the fake tumours with “new experiments”, such things do happen. In any case, all the quantitative data for that same tumour xenograft experiment remained as before.
In January 2022, Elsevier published a Corrigendum to the peer-reviewed paper in Genomics, where the same procedure took place yet again! A third set of tumours:
“The authors regret< that we have made some small errors in the previous Western blot experiment and nude mouse tumor formation experiment, which may cause the results to be unreliable. We repeated the previous experimental results and put the corrected experimental results in the new Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 6. The experimental results are consistent with those before>.”
Smut Clyde noted about the corrected Figure 6:
“Curiously, these entirely new experimental results have the same averages and errors as the two previous versions.”
Also:
“The new Figures 1 and 2 are targeted to eliminate the evidence of the “eyebrow” Western Blots: other aspects and summary statistics are unchanged.”
I bet Elsevier and Genomics‘ Editor-in-Chief Colum Patrick Walsh (professor at Linköping University in Sweden) were very proud about this astonishingly high reproducibility of research results! Walsh and Elsevier did not reply to my email.
Meh, let them sulk. They forgot to remove those fake eyebrow blots in Figure 7:
No further action will be taken
EMBO Press educated its readers how to think right.
Since you are here on For Better Science, you will probably know how reliable a paper can be if its author is the Harvard professor and anti-aging supplement salesman David Sinclair. Yes, not at all.
The MIT professor Li-Huei Tsai explained on PubPeer:
“These experiments were performed almost 20 years ago, and we are still trying to locate the original films. While the bands indicated appear similar at first glance, they are not the same.”
She even posted an ImageJ histogram analysis to prove the bands are totally different. And even “The EMBO Journal” commented on PubPeer in March 2023:
“The editors consider this matter resolved”
Cheshire was still unconvinced and made this analysis:
“The EMBO Journal” reiterated in September 2023 on PubPeer:
“Figure 1A has been re-assessed. No further action will be taken.”
But the bands are the same. So I contacted Bernd Pulverer, Head of Scientific Publications at EMBO Press. Who replied to me “on behalf of the EMBO Press data integrity office” and the EMBO J chief editors:
“1) The resolution of the figures is low. At this resolution the bands are not definitely identical. As the authors noted, they have at present not located the source data for this panel. For a paper from 2007, we would only require source data if the case was clear-cut and crucial for the claims of the paper. The authors proactively posted a quantification on PubPeer that is inconsistent with band identity.
2) Scientific impact: Fig. 1A shows that in mice overexpressing p25 there is more SIRT1. They show examples at 5 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks and 12 weeks after induction of p25 (and wild type controls). In 1B this is quantified (pooling together samples from mice from 2 to 12 weeks). The authors conclude SIRT1 is expressed at higher levels in mice re-expressing p25 (a toxic coactivator of cyclin-dependent kinase 5) and that this is the case up to 12 weeks after induction. Based on data from 5 weeks and 12 weeks, and the quantification in 1B, in our assessment the conclusion stands irrespective of the datapoints for 8 and 10 weeks.
3) This is the only potential issue flagged for this paper.“
I would add point 4, which makes much more sense than the rest: the authors are bigwigs at MIT and Harvard.
Duplicated images in Fig 3: “The fields are slightly shifted, and the white arrows are not all the same, but it is abundantly clear that the original images are identical.”
In April 2018, Tsai reacted on PubPeer:
“We thank the reader for bringing this to our attention and we are currently working with the journal to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
Nothing at all was done, Cell Press resolved the issue the same way EMBO Press now did. More recent case:
The first author Joel Blanchard explained in November 2021:
“The referenced images in panels a and b describe the same exact experimental conditions. As stated in the legend, both are APOE3/3 iBBBs exposed to fAD conditioned media. We could have displayed one representative image for this figure. However, for clarity and symmetry we displayed two images representing the same condition.“
This means in best case they only ever did the experiment once and worse, ever took one single picture which they declared representative. That’s how you do quality science at MIT. Learn and emulate.
On 13 September 2023, Sholto informed the authors and MDPI, whose Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team informed him right away:
“We will coordinate with the journals editorial office and we will investigate this situation further.”
The co-corresponding author Simi Ali, Professor of Immunobiology at Newcastle University in UK, informed Sholto that “We do take the integrity of our work very seriously and do stand by everything we publish” and that the figure was “part of a PhD thesis of the first author” who “had collected samples from 8 primary breast cancers (RVI, Newcastle Upon Tyne) which were consented for use in research.” In another email, he stated about the duplication:
“It does not affect our data or conclusion based on this figure, which states that there is expression of CXCR4 and CXCR7 in breast cancer. […] If agreeable to the publishers, we can publish a correction with the right control or delete the figure.“
Ali also informed us that the last author John Kirby has retired and is not responding to the emails due to health issues in the family. And:
“He is a very responsible scientist and would want to make sure that we correct the mistake as now it has been brought to our attention. He is also keen that we make contact with the first author to fully understand how has this happened.“
Alexander Magazinov presents you two russian professors whom Elsevier and MDPI consider respectable: a Lt Colonel of putin’s mass-murdering army, and a machine-gun totting rascist. Both buy from papermills.
But then MDPI put their foot down. A “Dr. Jesús Gᴀʀᴄíᴀ Cᴀɴᴏ, Journal Relations Specialist of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences“, announced on 14 September 2023 (highlights mine):
“After checking your email thread and with a closer regard to the pointed out images, it is clear that there has been an image duplication. Since the Authors have checked the original data and claimed that there was no intention of fabricating data or faking the scientific conclusions of this work, no major disciplinary actions are to be carried out.
It is our aim to keep only correct and scientifically sound materials published. However, since this article was published long ago and there is no way that this noticeable mistake could drive to wrong conclusions and since its correction would not lead to any different interpretation, we have convened together with the Journal Management and the Academic Editors Boardto dismiss any proposal of correction derived from this particular situation.
Thank you very much for your attention and for your interest on the IJMS.
Have a good day.“
So much to unpack. First, even if you are named Jesus, even Jesus of MDPI, you have no right to perform any “disciplinary actions” on people. A retraction is about correcting literature, not a punishment for sinners. But now, about “this article was published long ago“, i.e. 5 years ago. This is not long ago, unless you are of kindergarten age. But the worst thing is that MDPI forbids Ali to publish a correction. Well, what can you expect from such a dump.
In 2019, MDPI published a Special Issue “Beyond Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability”, one year later its owner Shu-Kun Lin expressed admiration for Trump and said “Black Lives Matter. White Lives Matter. All Lives Matter.”
Sholto suggested to authors to publish the correction at least on PubPeer and reminded everyone:
“Especially for research on human samples, an appropriate level of seriousness is required. Finding and uploading the right picture is ethically (and scientifically) the correct thing to do. It’s the minimum level of behaviour I would expect if I’d donated my own samples for research.”
And then once again, Jesus delivered another sermon (highlights mine):
“It is noteworthy, however, that the correction process is a very complex procedure that must stick in an absolute strict way to the standard guidelines accepted by our Ethic Committees in agreement with common statements such as those of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and what is to be required from the top scientific publication databases. In this sense, as it has already been indicated, we are not in position to issue a correction of the article for a minor mistake that will not affect the scientific interpretation or the final conclusions of the work.
On the contrary, we do agree with you that a clear explanation in Pubpeer from the side of the Authors is more than advisable and that checks should be done in order to discard any major such errors in the rest of the paper.
May you think that there is other issue on this respect, we would be more than glad to investigate them and call on independent Academic Editors to help us decide how to proceed.
Have a good day.“
Jesus is full of sh*t – COPE guidelines say exactly the opposite. In his email to me, he basically admitted to have lied: the decision to prevent a correction was of course not based on COPE guidelines, but all MDPI’s.
But then, Sholto figured out why Jesus sees corrections as a sin.
Mycosphaerella arachidis: “Figure 2A and Figure 5B: α-tubulin bands more similar than expected, including background.”
And this fudged microscopy data:
María Llanos Valero , Francisco Jose Cimas , Laura Arias , Pedro Melgar-Rojas , Elena García , Juan Luis Callejas-Valera , Jesús García-Cano, Leticia Serrano-Oviedo , Miguel Ángel De La Cruz-Morcillo , Isabel Sánchez-Pérez , Ricardo Sánchez-Prieto E1a promotes c-Myc-dependent replicative stressCell Cycle (2014) doi: 10.4161/cc.26754
To be fair, Jesus’ former boss from Madrid, Ricardo Sánchez-Prieto (group leader and member of “Equality Committee” at Alberto Sols Biomedical Research Institute) has a serious PubPeer record of bad science. Our MDPI expert should be grateful he wasn’t there yet when the awfully fake Galan-Moya et al 2008 was published. And here, Springer Nature already announced to investigate:
Argentina and Italy are known for having close historical and cultural ties. About half the people have Spanish family names, and about half have Italian family names.
Ha! Brothels used to be full of virgins! In the good olden days, a responsible father took his young teenager son to brothel so he can become “a man”. The boy got mentally damaged in the process, and became a functioning member of a misogynous warmongering patriarchate society. Maybe something similar happens to honest people stumbling into scholarly publishing.
“For this, he counted on the unconditional support of his best classmate at the University and still is his greatest friend in life, his wife, Graciela.”
It seems quite likely that Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk is Mario Galigniana’s wife.
“During the last years of his career, he attended ad honorem the Institute Campomar, which was directed by the Nobel laureate Dr. Luis Leloir. ”
And who is today’s President of Leloir Institute? Vanesa Gottifredi.
What a shitshow.
I wonder if the problematic data by Vanesa Gottifredi, Martin Monte, Mario D Galigniana and Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk will prompt others in Buenos Aires to take the problematic data seriously, and lead to the problematic data being corrected, and if the problematic data cannot be corrected, or are too numerrous, being retracted?
The fact that Vanesa Gottifredi is part of the authorities, president of an institute, does not bode well for the problematic data being corrected, or retracted.
Is there a critical mass of people in Buenos Aires, Argentina at large, especially amongst decision makers, which could get the ball rolling?
Will the problematic data simply be ignored and passed off as ” the way of the world”?
I see that CONICET, the Argentinian state science funder, is into boasting about which people have been awarded prizes by Germans, but it seems, CONICET is not into checking the data.
“We need more women taking the lead to break the glass ceiling of science”
Vanesa Gottifredi obtained the highest…
The world has many excellent female scientists. CONICET should choose one of them. The glass ceiling needs to be broken by scientific means, not political means.
The young woman on the right in Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk’s video looks anxious.
That might simply be because she is on camera, but perhaps the young woman knows, and others at IBYME already know, about Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk’s and Mario Galigniana’s problematic data over decades. Of course the videos may have been in the works a while, and it is sheer chance that the videos have been released in the last 10 days.
IBYME will have a duty of care to find any doctoral students, or otherwise, other supervisors.
“M A De La Cruz-Morcillo , M L L Valero , J L Callejas-Valera , L Arias-González , P Melgar-Rojas , E M Galán-Moya , E García-Gil , J García-Cano, R Sánchez-Prieto P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apoptosis and autophagy triggered by 5-fluorouracil: implication in resistance Oncogene (2012) doi: 10.1038/onc.2011.321“
5 March 2024 retraction.
PubPeer – P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apopto…
Retraction Note: P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apoptosis and autophagy triggered by 5-fluorouracil: implication in resistance | Oncogene (springer.com)
Retraction to: Oncogene https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2011.321
The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. Concerns have been raised regarding the flow cytometry and western blot data presented in the figures, specifically:
Fig. 2e SB203580 Control and 5-FU plots appear highly similar to Fig. 4d HCT116 p53++ DMSO and 5-FU plots;
Fig. 3a and f Tubulin blots appear to overlap;
Fig. 3b and 4a Tubulin blots appear highly similar;
Fig. 3b p38MAPK appears highly similar to Fig. 3e Tubulin;
Fig. 3e p38MAPK appears highly similar to Fig. 3a and f Tubulin;
Fig. 6e HT29 5-FU Control and SB203580 plots appear highly similar.
The authors have stated that the similarities occurred due to errors in figure preparation and provided the original flow cytometry data for validation. However, the original western blot data are no longer available.
Due to the number of errors in the figures, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the presented data.
M A de la Cruz-Morcillo, M L L Valero, L Arias-González, P Melgar-Rojas, E M Galán-Moya, E García-Gil, J García-Cano and R Sánchez-Prieto do not agree to this retraction. J L Callejas-Valera has not responded to any correspondence from the editor or publisher about this retraction.Author information
Author notes
These authors contributed equally: M. L. L. Valero, J. L. Callejas-Valera.
Authors and Affiliations
Laboratorio de Oncología Molecular, Centro Regional de Investigaciones Biomédicas, CRIB/PCYTA, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, UCLM, Albacete, SpainM. A. de la Cruz-Morcillo, M. L. L. Valero, J. L. Callejas-Valera, L. Arias-González, P. Melgar-Rojas, E. M. Galán-Moya, E. García-Gil, J. García-Cano & R. Sánchez-Prieto
For Better Science 
These two Mario Galigniana/Martin Monte co-productions
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=Monte+Galigniana+
are “cross-over events”, where one problematic scientist meets another, and were the route to finding Mario Galigniana’s problematic data.
https://ar.linkedin.com/in/martin-monte-3b522697
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=Martin+Monte+
All that odd data from Trieste, Italy!
Argentina and Italy are known for having close historical and cultural ties. About half the people have Spanish family names, and about half have Italian family names.
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“EMBO Press trusts MIT and not their own lying eyes”. Also relevant to Martin Monte, who is a co-author.
Lovely EMBO J paper?
https://pubpeer.com/publications/211B629BF1B79BF8ABA4DC344D721E
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Martin Monte published quite often with the more senior Claudio Schneider in Italy, Trieste and nearby Udine.
A Claudio Schneider/Giannino Del Sal Nature paper, which doesn’t seem quite natural.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/EAFC2E7FB75B47F0EBA2402C88D4DF
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Monte is a mentee of Claudio Schneider.
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“EMBO Press trusts MIT and not their own lying eyes”
3 more lovely EMBO J papers.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/A90AD9ED62228467A9FF63E3683CF7
https://pubpeer.com/publications/6FF461864727D915AEF3AEAD4F7AF4
https://pubpeer.com/publications/0F6F8651B20FBBD42C8E4C02AC31F6
Could the EMBO J editors pull their finger out?
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Martin Monte’s denying problematic data in figure 4E was a gift. Martin Monte derves heartfelt thanks for raising further suspicions.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/B3FE56B6A8C8CC8A1B07B4DD0F50FB
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understand that Buenos Aires has a vibrant modern/contemporary art scene.
Here is a piece (mostly in green, with some red to accentuate the green) identified by a colleague.
Something of a Miro to it.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/B79C6B1B143052AB3E668DBC6C23EA#3
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Oh Jesús! He is a cheater too! Finding an honest one in scholarly publishing is like looking for a virgin in a brothel.
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Ha! Brothels used to be full of virgins! In the good olden days, a responsible father took his young teenager son to brothel so he can become “a man”. The boy got mentally damaged in the process, and became a functioning member of a misogynous warmongering patriarchate society. Maybe something similar happens to honest people stumbling into scholarly publishing.
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A very odd interaction with MDPI Jesus. Still hard to fathom why he’s so strongly against correcting a paper that isn’t his own.
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One can only hope the new President of MIT has the experience necessary to handle difficult cases involving high-powered colleagues.
https://president.mit.edu/about-mit-president-sally-kornbluth
Click to access TCL010915.pdf
https://pubpeer.com/publications/C8ECF3BABB1BCA31DBFC39F83D3401
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oh. MIT president Sally Kornbluth and Canadian bigwig Tak W. Mak
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Yet another lovely creation by Mario Galigniana:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/C5E1BF5658568536D66CEC1EE3A00C
This is paper #14 for him on PubPeer.
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Mario & Graciela 4ever
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https://www.gf.org/fellows/mario-d-galigniana/
“For this, he counted on the unconditional support of his best classmate at the University and still is his greatest friend in life, his wife, Graciela.”
It seems quite likely that Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk is Mario Galigniana’s wife.
In any event, teamwork!
Current status.
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=galigniana
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=piwien-pilipuk
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“During the last years of his career, he attended ad honorem the Institute Campomar, which was directed by the Nobel laureate Dr. Luis Leloir. ”
And who is today’s President of Leloir Institute? Vanesa Gottifredi.
What a shitshow.
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I wonder if the problematic data by Vanesa Gottifredi, Martin Monte, Mario D Galigniana and Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk will prompt others in Buenos Aires to take the problematic data seriously, and lead to the problematic data being corrected, and if the problematic data cannot be corrected, or are too numerrous, being retracted?
The fact that Vanesa Gottifredi is part of the authorities, president of an institute, does not bode well for the problematic data being corrected, or retracted.
Is there a critical mass of people in Buenos Aires, Argentina at large, especially amongst decision makers, which could get the ball rolling?
Will the problematic data simply be ignored and passed off as ” the way of the world”?
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understand that Buenos Aires has a vibrant modern/contemporary art scene.
Here is a piece (mostly in green, with some red to accentuate the green) identified by a colleague.
Something of a Miro to it.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/B79C6B1B143052AB3E668DBC6C23EA#3
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This 2020 J Cell Sci paper becomes much more problematic.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/48191FB4482069E53FAB1E0E0876E4#2
What is the matter with J Cell Sci?
It also failed to notice the shenanigans in another 2020 paper!
https://pubpeer.com/publications/72943AB30690CA846582B31B20D26D
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yes, Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk is Mario’s wife and mother of Natalia.
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Is it Natalia with twins in New Zealand? Or is there another daughter?
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They have two daughters, one in NZ (I don’t know her name) and Natalia in Oslo.
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I see that CONICET, the Argentinian state science funder, is into boasting about which people have been awarded prizes by Germans, but it seems, CONICET is not into checking the data.
https://www.conicet.gov.ar/?lan=en
I believe that Vanesa Gottifredi was also awarded funding by Germans.
https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/connect/explore-the-humboldt-network/singleview?tx_rsmavhsolr_solrviewhumboldtians%5BpPersonId%5D=1192342&cHash=2e67371780ed748795781160850fb6cc
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What a laugh! For its money the Humboldt Foundation got this example of bilocation after a bit of stretching!
https://pubpeer.com/publications/034A70B51B887D1A710A1BC16831C3
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https://www.conicet.gov.ar/we-need-more-women-taking-the-lead-to-break-the-glass-ceiling-of-science/
“We need more women taking the lead to break the glass ceiling of science”
Vanesa Gottifredi obtained the highest…
The world has many excellent female scientists. CONICET should choose one of them. The glass ceiling needs to be broken by scientific means, not political means.
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If Vanesa Gottifredi had any sense she would be using this publication that she was being groomed in Rome.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/B79D94D28A83601F6A626CBBA9F36A
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12 October 2023 correction in Oncogene for Vanesa Gottifredi.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41388-023-02854-9
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“The authors wish to apologize for any inconvenience this involuntary mistake might have caused.”
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1 December 2023 correction for Vanesa Gottifredi
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283623004229
prompted by
https://pubpeer.com/publications/C9FBA92826FA5B9953F0251E7B8381
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14 November correction for Vanesa Gottifredi
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10645417/
prompted by
https://pubpeer.com/publications/7725B88BE4284DAD6AED99752AB92F
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Pingback: Claudio and Giannino evaluate and analyze – For Better Science
Departamento de Química Biológica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/63045B6C007474A1209FB81A739CB1#1
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CIBICI-CONICET, Departamento de Bioquímica Clínica, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 5000 Córdoba, Argentina.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/86E3B8CCE9E16A0E32371577AAFD79#1
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Mario Galigniana and Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk may feel like kissing Martin Monte on both cheeks.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/11001B97070C275419F1E6BF6F3AD4#10
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Mario Galigniana just released a video.
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He doesn’t look very retired, no? Now I wonder if they even have a second daughter in New Zealand, with or without newborn twins
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Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk releases a video.
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The young woman on the right in Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk’s video looks anxious.
That might simply be because she is on camera, but perhaps the young woman knows, and others at IBYME already know, about Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk’s and Mario Galigniana’s problematic data over decades. Of course the videos may have been in the works a while, and it is sheer chance that the videos have been released in the last 10 days.
IBYME will have a duty of care to find any doctoral students, or otherwise, other supervisors.
IBYME needs to think ahead a bit.
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I didn’t mention it, but Piwien Pilipuk’s name is most likely of Ukrainian origin.
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I had thought Polish.
Polish/Ukrainian all part of a gradient.
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Uh uh it’s like saying English and Irish are all part of a gradient.
But just as there are englishized Irish, there were polonized Ukrainians.
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Buenos Aries retraction.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295781
Some background.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/9C6A4A8D0765DE68D1F6C70D7BABFA
https://pubpeer.com/publications/FA383D736DADF6096F4878A8FD185E#1
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“M A De La Cruz-Morcillo , M L L Valero , J L Callejas-Valera , L Arias-González , P Melgar-Rojas , E M Galán-Moya , E García-Gil , J García-Cano, R Sánchez-Prieto P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apoptosis and autophagy triggered by 5-fluorouracil: implication in resistance Oncogene (2012) doi: 10.1038/onc.2011.321“
5 March 2024 retraction.
PubPeer – P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apopto…
Retraction Note: P38MAPK is a major determinant of the balance between apoptosis and autophagy triggered by 5-fluorouracil: implication in resistance | Oncogene (springer.com)
Retraction to: Oncogene https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2011.321
4 comments on PubPeer (by: Rytidosperma Pallidum, Mycosphaerella Arachidis, Hoya Camphorifolia)
, published online 15 August 2011
The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. Concerns have been raised regarding the flow cytometry and western blot data presented in the figures, specifically:
Fig. 2e SB203580 Control and 5-FU plots appear highly similar to Fig. 4d HCT116 p53++ DMSO and 5-FU plots;
Fig. 3a and f Tubulin blots appear to overlap;
Fig. 3b and 4a Tubulin blots appear highly similar;
Fig. 3b p38MAPK appears highly similar to Fig. 3e Tubulin;
Fig. 3e p38MAPK appears highly similar to Fig. 3a and f Tubulin;
Fig. 6e HT29 5-FU Control and SB203580 plots appear highly similar.
The authors have stated that the similarities occurred due to errors in figure preparation and provided the original flow cytometry data for validation. However, the original western blot data are no longer available.
Due to the number of errors in the figures, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the presented data.
M A de la Cruz-Morcillo, M L L Valero, L Arias-González, P Melgar-Rojas, E M Galán-Moya, E García-Gil, J García-Cano and R Sánchez-Prieto do not agree to this retraction. J L Callejas-Valera has not responded to any correspondence from the editor or publisher about this retraction.Author information
Author notes
These authors contributed equally: M. L. L. Valero, J. L. Callejas-Valera.
Authors and Affiliations
Laboratorio de Oncología Molecular, Centro Regional de Investigaciones Biomédicas, CRIB/PCYTA, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, UCLM, Albacete, SpainM. A. de la Cruz-Morcillo, M. L. L. Valero, J. L. Callejas-Valera, L. Arias-González, P. Melgar-Rojas, E. M. Galán-Moya, E. García-Gil, J. García-Cano & R. Sánchez-Prieto
Corresponding author
Correspondence to R. Sánchez-Prieto.
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Jesus wept
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