Francesco Beguinot – Neapolitan Zombie in Düsseldorf!

Düsseldorf is a German city famous for its millionaires and its modern art (think Joseph Beuys!). It is less famous for its post-war-founded Heinrich Heine University and its medical school, except that Leonid Schneider was almost prevented from graduating with PhD there. On the premises of this medical campus stands the university’s German Diabetes Center (DDZ), which is sponsored by the Leibniz Association.

On its scientific advisory board, this ghoulish apparition from Italy takes the first place:

• “Prof. Dr. Francesco Beguinot, University of Naples Frederico II, Napoli”

What the actual f***. A zombie scientist with 4 retractions and 50 ridiculously fraudulent papers on PubPeer. OK, maybe this is acceptable or rather expected from a professor in Italy, certainly in Naples, but I hoped Germany had higher standards. After all, as a board’s member, Beguinot is paid from German research funds, and decides about recruitments and policies at DDZ.

Here are three of Beguinot’s retractions, in a journal called Diabetes, so even the DDZ geniuses should be able to figure out a potential relevance to whatever their center is supposed to be doing. Number 1:

Gerolama Condorelli , Giovanni Vigliotta , Alessandra Trencia , Maria Alessandra Maitan , Matilde Caruso , Claudia Miele , Francesco Oriente , Stefania Santopietro , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Beguinot Protein kinase C (PKC)-alpha activation inhibits PKC-zeta and mediates the action of PED/PEA-15 on glucose transport in the L6 skeletal muscle cells Diabetes (2001) – doi: 10.2337/diabetes.50.6.1244

Number 2:

Francesco Oriente , Salvatore Iovino , Serena Cabaro , Angela Cassese , Elena Longobardi , Claudia Miele , Paola Ungaro , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Blasi , Francesco Beguinot Prep1 controls insulin glucoregulatory function in liver by transcriptional targeting of SHP1 tyrosine phosphatase Diabetes (2011) doi: 10.2337/db10-0860 

And Number 3:

In November 2017, the three papers received an Expression of Concern (here, here and here) and in January 2019, they were retracted with similar notices (here, here and here):

“On November 6, 2017, ADA contacted the corresponding author’s institution, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Naples, Italy), to request an investigation into the possible duplication of several images presented in this article. […]

In March 2018, the University informed ADA that a three-person committee had been appointed to investigate the issues cited above, but since then the University has not responded to requests for information on the status of the investigation. Therefore, ADA’s Panel on Ethical Scientific Programs (ESP) has independently reviewed these issues. The ESP determined that the concerns cited above are valid and that these and other instances of potential image duplication compromise the overall reliability of the study. ADA has chosen to retract this publication on the basis of the ESP’s assessment.”

What did you expect from a university in Italy, especially in the south, especially this infamous university in Naples which even managed to whitewash their fraudster professor Alfredo Fusco? By the way, here is another toxic Neapolitan, Antonio Giordano:

As a disclaimer, I should mention that I personally knew Beguinot’s penultimate author on one of these retracted papers, Francesco Blasi, from my past postdoctoral work at IFOM institute in Milan, Italy. Blasi has his own problematic PubPeer record of bad science, I also personally knew some of co-authors from his lab, and it worries me to see their names on very problematic papers. Like here (it seems all of Blasi’s papers are about a protein called PREP1):

But back to Blasi’s collaboration with Beguinot, again I recognise some names as people I personally used to know:

As penultimate co-author on the other two retracted papers you will find Beguinot’s protege and fellow University of Naples professor, Pietro Formisano. His is a recurrent name on Beguinot’s PubPeer record, in fact their PubPeer records largely overlap. Like Beguinot, Formisano did not reply to my emails.

Here is Formisano’s fake paper without Beguinot, but with their Neapolitan university’s most famous research fraudster, Alfredo Fusco:

Another recurrent coauthor of Beguinot’s is Claudia Miele, research director at Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) in Naples, she is quite possibly Beguinot’s wife (Miele and Beguinot never replied when asked to deny this supposition). And since we speak about family and nepotism, Francesco Beguinot most likely owes his professorship to his late father and University of Naples professor Corrado Beguinot. Who possibly in turn hinself inherited his professorship – Italian academia is dynastial.

Now look at this impressive contribution to medical science, in yet another society journal called Diabetologia (where our hero Beguinot used to be Associate Editor and advisory board member):

F. Oriente , S. Iovino , A. Cassese , C. Romano , C. Miele , G. Troncone , M. Balletta , A. Perfetti , G. Santulli , G. Iaccarino , R. Valentino , F. Beguinot , P. Formisano Overproduction of phosphoprotein enriched in diabetes (PED) induces mesangial expansion and upregulates protein kinase C-beta activity and TGF-beta1 expression Diabetologia (2009) doi: 10.1007/s00125-009-1528-z

Or these studies in the same journal:

And how about this charming approach to diabetes, in another society journal, where Beguinot used to be a member of the editorial board?

Matilde Caruso , Maria Alessandra Maitan , Giuseppe Bifulco , Claudia Miele , Giovanni Vigliotta , Francesco Oriente , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Beguinot Activation and Mitochondrial Translocation of Protein Kinase Cδ Are Necessary for Insulin Stimulation of Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex Activity in Muscle and Liver Cells Journal of Biological Chemistry (2001) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m105451200 

Same journal, same authors:

Francesco Oriente , Francesco Andreozzi , Chiara Romano , Giuseppe Perruolo , Anna Perfetti , Francesca Fiory , Claudia Miele , Francesco Beguinot , Pietro Formisano Protein kinase C-alpha regulates insulin action and degradation by interacting with insulin receptor substrate-1 and 14-3-3 epsilon Journal of Biological Chemistry (2005) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m508570200 

 

Thing is, this fraud can never be retracted, the journal which once used to be at the forefront of the research integrity (until it got assimilated by Elsevier) declared such papers as too old to bother and chose to take no action.

Again, in the same society journal JBC:

Francesca Fiory , Francesco Oriente , Claudia Miele , Chiara Romano , Alessandra Trencia , Anna Teresa Alberobello , Iolanda Esposito , Rossella Valentino , Francesco Beguinot , Pietro Formisano Protein kinase C-zeta and protein kinase B regulate distinct steps of insulin endocytosis and intracellular sorting Journal of Biological Chemistry (2004) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m308751200

More JBC shame, never to be acted upon:

A. Teresa Alberobello , Vittoria D’Esposito , Daniela Marasco , Nunzianna Doti , Menotti Ruvo , Roberto Bianco , Giampaolo Tortora , Iolanda Esposito , Francesca Fiory , Claudia Miele , Francesco Beguinot , Pietro Formisano Selective disruption of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) signaling via phosphoinositide-dependent kinase-1 prevents the protective effect of IGF-1 on human cancer cell death Journal of Biological Chemistry (2010) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m109.097410

Look, a JBC vintage:

Claudia Miele , Matilde Caruso , Veronique Calleja , Renata Auricchio , Francesco Oriente , Pietro Formisano , Gerolama Condorelli , Almerinda Cafieri , Dominique Sawka-Verhelle , Emmanuel Van Obberghen , Francesco Beguinot Differential role of insulin receptor substrate (IRS)-1 and IRS-2 in L6 skeletal muscle cells expressing the Arg1152 –> Gln insulin receptor Journal of Biological Chemistry (1999) doi: 10.1074/jbc.274.5.3094 

An even better vintage JBC, where probably ALL western blots are utterly fake:

Matilde Caruso , Claudia Miele , Francesco Oriente , Alessandra Maitan , Giuseppe Bifulco , Francesco Andreozzi , Gerolama Condorelli , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Beguinot In L6 skeletal muscle cells, glucose induces cytosolic translocation of protein kinase C-alpha and trans-activates the insulin receptor kinase Journal of Biological Chemistry (1999) doi: 10.1074/jbc.274.40.28637 

Wait, we have even older JBC classics!

Matilde Caruso , Claudia Miele , Pietro Formisano , Gerolama Condorelli , Giuseppe Bifulco , Andrea Oliva , Renata Auricchio , Gabriele Riccardi , Brunella Capaldo , Francesco Beguinot In skeletal muscle, glucose storage and oxidation are differentially impaired by the IR1152 mutant receptor Journal of Biological Chemistry (1997) doi: 10.1074/jbc.272.11.7290

Time to move on to other journals. The following train-wreck in a once society-published journal was fixed with a Correction just now, in March 2023:

Pietro Formisano , Francesco Oriente , Francesca Fiory , Matilde Caruso , Claudia Miele , Maria Alessandra Maitan , Francesco Andreozzi , Giovanni Vigliotta , Gerolama Condorelli , Francesco Beguinot Insulin-activated protein kinase Cbeta bypasses Ras and stimulates mitogen-activated protein kinase activity and cell proliferation in muscle cells Molecular and Cellular Biology (2000) doi: 10.1128/mcb.20.17.6323-6333.2000 

Look what else was flagged in 2018 on PubPeer and simply ignored:

There is more by Beguinot and Formisano in the same journal, like this:

Francesca Fiory , Anna Teresa Alberobello , Claudia Miele , Francesco Oriente , Iolanda Esposito , Vincenzo Corbo , Menotti Ruvo , Barbara Tizzano , Thomas E. Rasmussen , Steen Gammeltoft , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Beguinot Tyrosine phosphorylation of phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1 by the insulin receptor is necessary for insulin metabolic signaling Molecular and Cellular Biology (2005) doi: 10.1128/mcb.25.24.10803-10814.2005

Nature Group’s Oncogene may eventually issue a correction here, or continue to do nothing:

PLOS probably gave up on trying to retract this fabrication, there is just an eternal Expression of Concern:

Angela Cassese , Gregory A. Raciti , Francesca Fiory , Cecilia Nigro , Luca Ulianich , Ilenia Castanò , Vittoria D’Esposito , Daniela Terracciano , Lucio Pastore , Pietro Formisano , Francesco Beguinot, Claudia Miele Adenoviral gene transfer of PLD1-D4 enhances insulin sensitivity in mice by disrupting phospholipase D1 interaction with PED/PEA-15 PLoS ONE (2013) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060555

The Expression of Concern from February 2022 stated:

“A corresponding author re-reviewed Fig 4B and stated that there are differences between the lanes. They disagree with the concerns raised about Fig 4B and stated that there are differences between all bands shown. The corresponding author stated that the original underlying data for Fig 4B is not available and provided replication data from the original experiments instead (S2 and S3 Files). Due to the unavailability of the original underlying data for Fig 4B, the concerns are not resolved.”

In fact, it seems the Beguinot gang defecated into every allegedly respectable journal in biomedicine, and almost nobody minds, even today. Next to the three retractions in Diabetes, there was only this retraction in another society journal:

Luca Ulianich , Corrado Garbi , Antonella Sonia Treglia , Dario Punzi , Claudia Miele , Gregory Alexander Raciti , Francesco Beguinot , Eduardo Consiglio , Bruno Di Jeso ER stress is associated with dedifferentiation and an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition-like phenotype in PC Cl3 thyroid cells Journal of Cell Science (2008) doi: 10.1242/jcs.017202 

A Retraction arrived here already in 2016:

“Journal of Cell Science was alerted by a reader to potential band duplication and manipulation in the above named paper. The journal contacted Dr Di Jeso, the corresponding author, to request the original data.

The authors were unable to provide all of the original data requested, or account for the potential blot duplication and manipulation. Although they provided new data that appear to support the conclusions, the journal has decided that, in the absence of the original data, the best course of action is to retract the paper, in agreement with Dr Di Jeso.”

That reader, just like the PubPeer commenter on almost all Beguinot threads, was Clare Francis.

The last author of supported conclusions, Bruno Di Jeso, is professor at the University of Salento. And thanks to papers like these, his mentee Luca Ulianich is now a CNR-funded professor in Naples.

Finally, of course Beguinot and Formisano repeatedly published fraud in that Italian-run outlet called Cell Death and Depravity. Expect zero action:

S Iovino , F Oriente , G Botta , S Cabaro , V Iovane , O Paciello , D Viggiano , G Perruolo , P Formisano , F Beguinot PED/PEA-15 induces autophagy and mediates TGF-beta1 effect on muscle cell differentiation Cell Death and Differentiation (2012) doi: 10.1038/cdd.2011.201 

Now you saw why German diabetes researchers value Beguinot so much. Not just DDZ, where he sits on the scientific advisory board! The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), which also happens to reside in Düsseldorf, used to list Beguinot as their Honorary Secretary just a few years ago. He also used to be member of the EASD Council and Executive Committee, organising EASD conferences, but then EASD understood how unhelpful this appointment was. Presently it seems nobody outide of Naples will touch the zombie scientist Beguinot with a barge pole. Except at the German Diabtes Center of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, of course.

At the DDZ, there is indeed zero introspection or understanding. I wrote to the alpha males in charge of DDZ (yes, males, women are apparently not allowed to hold directorship positions there) and received no reply, except a brief email from the press office person telling me she forwarded my message to “the responsible employee”. Maybe to their legal counsel. Maybe they run around the University of Düsseldorf campus trying to get my PhD degree revoked.

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