Schneider Shorts 10.11.2023 – Stupid, stereotypical, and offensive jokes about my Country

Schneider Shorts of 10 November 2023: Italy Special – Milanese bully’s Golden Girls, real data alla Parmigiana, special care for Italian EMBO members, retractions in Rome and Messina, plus other retractions from Argentina, USA and Ukraine, and finally, a Nigerian scammer with a name you won’t forget!

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Science Elites

The Price of Immortality

My colleagues delivered another blast from the past. A fudged paper, from the cancer research institute in Milan, Italy, where I did postdoc years ago. I already wrote about one of the authors, Pier Paolo Di Fiore:

Well, here is Di Fiore’s cancerous study with his mentee Sara Sigismund, who made it from Di Fiore’s postdoc to Associate Professor at the University of Milan and Head of the Endocytosis Research team at the IFOM-IEO Campus. The paper was recently flagged, the penultimate author is another associate professor and IFOM-IEO group leader, Simona Polo. She used to be Sigismund’s PhD mentor, and herself in turn also Di Fiore’s former postdoc:

Sara Sigismund, Elisabetta Argenzio , Daniela Tosoni, Elena Cavallaro , Simona Polo, Pier Paolo Di Fiore Clathrin-mediated internalization is essential for sustained EGFR signaling but dispensable for degradation Developmental Cell (2008) doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2008.06.012 

Now, the reused loading control in Figure 6 could be explained (with lots of good will) with negligence. But how does one explain the clearly duplicated gel bands in Figure 2A? DiFiorian Magic?

Of course there is more on PubPeer for Sigismund and for Polo, Di Fiore’s “golden girls”. Starting with this Nature classic, which paved the way to their professorships:

Simona Polo, Sara Sigismund, Mario Faretta, Monica Guidi , Maria Rosaria Capua , Giovanna Bossi , Hong Chen , Pietro De Camilli, Pier Paolo Di Fiore A single motif responsible for ubiquitin recognition and monoubiquitination in endocytic proteins Nature (2002) doi: 10.1038/416451a 

One can’t really correct this, so Nature didn’t. Another stepping-stone to professorships:

Sara Sigismund, Tanja Woelk , Claudia Puri , Elena Maspero, Carlo Tacchetti , Pietro Transidico , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Simona Polo Clathrin-independent endocytosis of ubiquitinated cargos Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2005) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0409817102 

The next study is rather new, but what luck for authors that Cell Press won’t bother anyway, also because two of co-authors (Harvard’s Tom Kirchhausen and German Leibniz Institute director Volker Hauke) are even bigger bigwigs than Di Fiore:

Roberta Pascolutti, Veronica Algisi , Alexia Conte , Andrea Raimondi , Mithun Pasham , Srigokul Upadhyayula , Raphael Gaudin , Tanja Maritzen , Elisa Barbieri , Giusi Caldieri , Chiara Tordonato , Stefano Confalonieri , Stefano Freddi , Maria Grazia Malabarba , Elena Maspero , Simona Polo , Carlo Tacchetti , Volker Haucke , Tom Kirchhausen , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Sara Sigismund Molecularly Distinct Clathrin-Coated Pits Differentially Impact EGFR Fate and Signaling Cell Reports (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.05.017 

Sigismund is President of a society called ABCD (Associazione di Biologia Cellulare e del Differenziamento), which stated mission is:

“Most importantly, ABCD emphasizes the importance of education and training of junior scientists. To this aim, ABCD contributes to professional development of young researchers at all levels, ranging from the acquisition of scientific scholarship to raising awareness of a scientist’s ethical and social responsibility.”

You saw Sigismund’s ethical responsibility in action. I am worried about this being taught.

The next paper corrected in 2015. Knowing what kind of character Di Fiore is, I shudder to think about what he may have done to the whistleblower who contacted the journal:

The Correction from July 2015 stated:

“In Fig. 2, the V1C1 western blot was inadvertently duplicated in panels A and B. The V1C1 western blot has been replaced with the correct image in panel B in the figure shown below. There are no changes to the figure legend, which is accurate. This error does not affect the conclusions of the study.”

Here, image reuse across papers, and it seems Polo is to blame, but since she fell to the level of MDPI – don’t expect a correction:

Carlos A. Niño, Nadine Wollscheid, Giovanni Giangreco, Elena Maspero, Simona Polo USP25 Regulates EGFR Fate by Modulating EGF-Induced Ubiquitylation Dynamics Biomolecules (2020) doi: 10.3390/biom10111548  

Still, maybe the main culprit is not Sigismund or Polo, maybe they just followed orders? Di Fiore’s own PubPeer record is, uhm, awe-inspiring. Here a paper by Di Fiore with another one of his mentee, Daniela Tosoni, who is currently a member of Sigismund’s group:

Daniela Tosoni, Claudia Puri , Stefano Confalonieri , Anna Elisabetta Salcini , Pietro De Camilli, Carlo Tacchetti, Pier Paolo Di Fiore TTP specifically regulates the internalization of the transferrin receptor Cell (2005) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2005.10.021

Totally fraudulent gels, and now think of the many people who did NOT succeed in Di Fiore’s lab, and why. Here, by Di Fiore and Polo:

Another problematic paper with Di Fiore’s input and again, I knew several co-authors personally, including the last author and yet another mentee of Di Fiore’s, Giorgio Scita:

Andrea Disanza , Sara Mantoani , Maud Hertzog , Silke Gerboth , Emanuela Frittoli , Anika Steffen , Kerstin Berhoerster , Hans-Juergen Kreienkamp , Francesca Milanesi , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Andrea Ciliberto, Theresia E. B. Stradal , Giorgio Scita Regulation of cell shape by Cdc42 is mediated by the synergic actin-bundling activity of the Eps8–IRSp53 complex Nature Cell Biology (2006) doi: 10.1038/ncb1502

Now you know of certain talents which people like Sigismund, Polo and others had to prove in order to achieve an academic career in Italy. Because the science mafia don Di Fiore is not a toxic exception. He is the admired norm. And if you hoped for Science to eventually advance one funeral at a time: Di Fiore just announced to live forever. In a recent book, for which he received the 2021 “Galileo Prize”:

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Stupid,  stereotypical, and offensive jokes about my Country

Elsewhere in Italy, a professor declares fake results to be real.

Alessandro E Caccamo , Maurizio Scaltriti , Andrea Caporali , Domenico D’Arca , Francesca Scorcioni , Serenella Astancolle , Massimo Mangiola, Saverio Bettuzzi Cell detachment and apoptosis induction of immortalized human prostate epithelial cells are associated with early accumulation of a 45 kDa nuclear isoform of clusterin Biochemical Journal (2004) doi: 10.1042/bj20040158 

Saverio Bettuzzi, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Parma, Italy, replied on PubPeer like this:

“The results are real. The pictures have been superficially generated by Dr Caccamo. He has been fired from the lab time ago because of this. But, again, the general result is real.”

His comment was moderated by PubPeer. Bettuzzi eventually wrote this to me in an email:

“I trusted Dr Caccamo for the figures, then I checked the results one by one, and the results are real. The figures have been manipulated because he was under pressure. But I did it after the publication of the paper. This was my fault. The results were later confirmed by other Authors.

Again, the result is real.

Because Dr Caccamo did not want to spend too much time with the figures, and I gave him my trust, what he did was  bad enough to convince me to fire him. 

My trust was misplaced and I too was a victim  of it. But he is not working in ANY UNIVERSITY in Italy any longer. Because we are much better than you think.

My University has nothing to do with all this. 

I retired a few years ago.

Therefore, please avoid making stupid,  stereotypical, and offensive jokes about my Country and, instead, try to think of something more useful for the best of science.“

No Caccamo here though:

Bettuzzi’s reaction on PubPeer was:

“In the blot there is a mistake (please ask other Authors for that) but the quantitative data is real.“

There is more for Bettuzzi on PubPeer, he hasn’t replied there yet and he didn’t address those threads in his email to me. Thus, we must assume that these results are real:

Maurizio Scaltriti , Lucia Belloni , Andrea Caporali , Pierpaola Davalli , Daniel Remondini , Federica Rizzi , Serenella Astancolle , Arnaldo Corti , Saverio Bettuzzi Molecular classification of green tea catechin-sensitive and green tea catechin-resistant prostate cancer in the TRAMP mice model by quantitative real-time PCR gene profiling Carcinogenesis (2006) doi: 10.1093/carcin/bgi287

This blot may also contain a “mistake” which Bettuzzi might want to ask the authors for:

No data can get any more real than that:

Tingan Chen , Joel Turner , Susan McCarthy , Maurizio Scaltriti , Saverio Bettuzzi , Timothy J Yeatman Clusterin-mediated apoptosis is regulated by adenomatous polyposis coli and is p21 dependent but p53 independent Cancer Research (2004) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-04-2077 

Reality is merely a state of mind:

Mohamed Kamel Hassan , Hidemichi Watari, Lane Christenson, Saverio Bettuzzi, Noriaki Sakuragi Intracellular clusterin negatively regulates ovarian chemoresistance: compromised expression sensitizes ovarian cancer cells to paclitaxel Tumor Biology (2011) doi: 10.1007/s13277-011-0207-0 

And yes, the Schneider Rule of following research fraudsters around applies. Here are Bettuzzi and his fellow Parma professor Federica Rizzi with the US gang of Paul Dent, Steven Grant and Paul B. Fisher of the Virginia Commonwealth University. Read about them here:

Ta-da:

Sujit K. Bhutia , Swadesh K. Das , Timothy P. Kegelman , Belal Azab , Rupesh Dash , Zhao-zhong Su , Xiang-Yang Wang , Federica Rizzi , Saverio Bettuzzi , Seok-Geun Lee , Paul Dent , Steven Grant , David T. Curiel , Devanand Sarkar , Paul B. Fisher mda-7/IL-24 differentially regulates soluble and nuclear clusterin in prostate cancer Journal of Cellular Physiology (2012) doi: 10.1002/jcp.22904

In 2014, the paper was fixed with a Correction:

“In [1], the incorrect slides were presented in Figure 6. The corrected figure appears below.
This erratum corrects the error.”

Why yes, the replacement Figure 6 was fraudulent also:

By the way, also the first author and Fisher’s mentee Sujit Bhutia featured on For Better Science:

Maybe Bettuzzi should do something more useful for the best of science and retract his fraudulent papers?

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Unethical behavior in German academia

A preprint was published by German psychologists:

Nicole Boessel-Debbert, Annette Kluge, Daniel Leising, Dorothee Mischkowski, Le Vy Phan, Franz Richter, Manfred Schmitt, Jutta Stahl An analysis of functional relationships between systemic conditions and unethical behavior in German academia PsyArXiv (2023) doi: 10.31234/osf.io/bza29.

“In January 2022, the board of the German Psychological Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie, DGPs) appointed a new commission, tasked with (a) identifying the structural conditions that enable, or even promote, unethical behavior in academia, and with (b) proposing concrete measures for improvement. In February 2023, the commission submitted a report on its findings to the DGPs board, which then decided to publish it in full (Bössel et
al., 2023). The present paper is an abridged and updated version of that report in English.”

The need for the report primarily arose because of the fraud scandal at the Technical University (TU) Dresden, specifically the case of Hans-Ulrich Wittchen which is briefly described here:

“…the following problematic issues were identified: (P1) negligent or fraudulent scientific practices, (P2) power abuse, (P3) insufficient mentoring of Early Career Researchers, (P4) insufficient quality of teaching, (P5) counterproductive
incentives, (P6) overburdening of professors with tasks, (P7) fixed-term contracts for everyone except professors, (P8) unnecessarily steep power differentials, (P9) dysfunctional peer-review system, (P10) lack of quality in personnel selection procedures, (P11) low awareness and commitment regarding ethical norms, and (P12) weak mechanisms for detecting and sanctioning unethical behavior.”

Each problem area is discussed in detail, its “causes / contributing factors” are listed and “recommendations” are supplied. Some of these many recommendations:

• “Public commitment by researchers to a (low) maximum number of authorships per year”
• “Longer-term contracts and more permanent positions for ECRs”
• “Establish and explicate procedures for complaining about poor supervisions, including possible sanctions”
• “Academic institutions and advocacy groups should publicly distance themselves from the use of invalid productivity metrics in science evaluation.”
• “Establish and publish standard procedures for changing supervisors, to make this more of a normality”
• “Explicit use of Good Scientific Practice criteria when evaluating the scientific output and potential of applicants”
• “Establishment of independent ethics offices at the state or federal level. The most important issue here is to decouple these offices from individual academic institutions”
• “Testing the viability of anonymous reporting of misconduct”
• “Reduce the power associated with professorships by distributing some of the respective functions”

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Nigerian Prince

There is a Nigerian Prince I would like you to meet. Well, not a prince really, but a scammer for sure. A papermiller, in fact. And the reason I want you to meet him is his name.

Hitler Louis.

Hitler. No, he is real, not a fake identity made-up by a drunk papermiller seeking to troll western editors. OK, it is not Hitler Louis’ fault that his parents were insane, but the dude is apparently proud of his name and sees no need to hide or change it.

Look at Hitler’s exponentially rising publication output: 23 papers and 197 citations in 2021, 83 papers and 947 citations in 2022 and already 137 papers and 2326 citations in 2023! Some of these papers are already on PubPeer, thanks to Sylvain Bernès. Some products must have come from very cheap papermills, for example how can one write already in the abstract of a study presenting a potential cure for Alzheimer’s (Eno et al 2022):

“Alzheimer’s disease is a major public brain infection that has resulted in many deaths as revealed by the world health organization (WHO).“

Hitler’s cheap papermill trash is only good enough for Elsevier:

Tomsmith O. Unimuke , Hitler Louis , Wilfred Emori , Precious S. Idante , Ernest C. Agwamba , Irechukwu C. Nwobodo , Kun Wei , Chun-Ru Cheng , Stephen A. Adalikwu , Victoria M. Bassey , Chinyere A. Anyama Spectroscopic and molecular electronic property investigation of 2-phenylpyrimidine-4, 6-diamine via 1H NMR, UV–vis, FT-Raman, FT-IR, and DFT approach Journal of Molecular Structure (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.molstruc.2022.133195 

Drawn by a very drunk hand. More of this cheap papermill trash:

Faith S. Patrick-Inezi , Wilfred Emori, Hitler Louis , Chioma G. Apebende , Ernest C. Agwamba , Tomsmith O. Unimuke , Kun Wei , Chun-Ru Cheng , Victoria M. Bassey , ThankGod C. Egemonye , Precious S. Idante , Emmanuel I. Ekeng-ita , John A. Agwupuye Analeptic activity of 2-Hydroxyl-5-Nitrobenzaldehyde: Experimental, DFT studies, and in silico molecular docking approach Healthcare Analytics (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.health.2022.100030

Of course, the citations to Hitler’s papers are also bought from papermills. Like this one, with russian authors (they do love everything Hitler there!)

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Scholarly Publishing

Reproduced and widely quoted

A society publisher went passive-aggressive with an Expression of Concern.

Few days ago, the last author Wei Li, Professor of Dermatology at Keck School of Medicine of University of South California, posted this on PubPeer:

“This issue (of a study of14 years ago) has been resolved with JCS . JCS and we has co-issued a statement.”

He also shared the Expression of Concern about his own work, which was published on 6 November 2023:

“There is a potential issue in Fig. 1 in J. Cell Sci. (2009) 122, 1495-1498 (doi:10.1242/jcs.047894).

It is possible that lanes 1, 2 and 3 in Fig. 1Db may have been duplicated and flipped to create lanes 3, 2 and 1, respectively, in Fig. 1Eb. This issue was highlighted to us via the PubPeer website.

Owing to the period of time that has passed since the experiments were conducted, the original data for this study could not be found. However, the authors state that the main finding in the paper has been reproduced and widely quoted in the Hsp90 community and by many independent laboratories, so this issue does not affect the results of the study.

Without the original data, it is difficult to determine how the issues arose, so the journal is publishing this note to make readers aware of the potential duplication.”

This society journal by “Company of Biologists” often shies from making the main step towards research integrity. Like in this case:

Now, I am aware that “Wei Li” is a difficult name to search on PubPeer, but here is the correct Californian Wei Li as co-author:

Jinming Zhang , Wenshan Zhong , Yuanyuan Liu , Weimou Chen , Ye Lu , Zhaojin Zeng , Yujie Qiao , Haohua Huang , Xuan Wan , Wei Li, Xiaojing Meng , Fei Zou , Shaoxi Cai, Hangming Dong Extracellular HSP90α Interacts With ER Stress to Promote Fibroblasts Activation Through PI3K/AKT Pathway in Pulmonary Fibrosis Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.708462 

Here, Li’s collaborator Hangming Dong announced on PubPeer:

“Presently, we have contacted the editor of this journal to resubmit the correct figure as shown in the above. Although it did not affect our results and conclusion“

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No further action will be taken

EMBO Press continues implementing its policy of special favours for EMBO Members (Fellows of the European Molecular Biology Organization). Here, the society publisher has a dual approach to fraud.

Where retraction is deemed unavoidable, a Correction is issued instead, to remove and/or replace the offending figures. In cases when the papers are sufficiently old, EMBO Press simply warns critics to shut the hell up because there is nothing to see there.

Like EMBO Press did now, for the EMBO Members from Italy, Claudio Schneider and Giannino Del Sal, regarding this paper:

R Benetti , G Del Sal , M Monte , G Paroni , C Brancolini , C Schneider The death substrate Gas2 binds m-calpain and increases susceptibility to p53-dependent apoptosis The EMBO Journal (2001) doi: 10.1093/emboj/20.11.2702

The publisher stated this on PubPeer in November 2023, two months after the evidence was first posted:

“Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 have been re-assessed. No further action will be taken.”

The EMBO Journal

Please observe what kind of data forgery exactly warrants no action exactly:

You can read about these same authors below. One of them, Martin Monte, is currently under investigation in his home country Argentina. The others are NOT under investigation because they are in Italy.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Second shoe drops

Congratulations to the Italian cancer researcher Susanna Scarpa, professor of experimental medicine at “La Sapienza” University of Rome, to her second retraction. You can read about her in earlier Friday Shorts. We recently found out that the university abolished its ethics commission and does not react to notification of suspected research misconduct.

This is the first shoe to drop, Taglieri et al 2017, retracted by Spandidos in July 2023:

“After having conducted an independent investigation of these figures in the Editorial Office, the Editor of Oncology Letters has decided that this paper should be retracted from the Journal on account of a lack of confidence in the presented data.”

This was now the second shoe to drop, and expect many more to follow:

Giulia Stazi , Ludovica Taglieri , Alice Nicolai , Annalisa Romanelli , Rossella Fioravanti , Stefania Morrone , Manuela Sabatino , Rino Ragno , Samanta Taurone , Marcella Nebbioso , Raffaella Carletti , Marco Artico , Sergio Valente , Susanna Scarpa, Antonello Mai Dissecting the role of novel EZH2 inhibitors in primary glioblastoma cell cultures: effects on proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, migration, and on the pro-inflammatory phenotype Clinical Epigenetics (2019) doi: 10.1186/s13148-019-0763-5 

Previously, Scarpa shared some raw data on PubPeer and blamed her PhD student:

“I’m trying to respond to your request, but for me it is not easy, because the PhD student Dr. Ludovica Taglieri which has done all the experimental work has left from Rome and from University and she is no longer doing research. I don’t have contact with her and therefore I have problems in finding original data.”

Taglieri is easy to find on LinkedIn, we learn she works at Astra Zeneca as Product Specialist.

This is the retraction notice from 7 November 2023:

“The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. After publication, concerns were raised regarding image similarities in the western blot and invasion assay data presented in the figures. Specifically:

• Fig. 5a H3K27me3 GL1 lanes 2 and 3 appear highly similar.
• Fig. 5b H3K27me3 lane 1 appears highly similar to lane 5.
• Fig. 7a and 9a appear to share the same beta-actin control blot.
• Fig. 9b U-87 MC4040 and MC4041 images appear to originate from the same sample, although the stated treatments are different.

The authors have stated that the overlapping images in Fig. 9b were included by mistake. They have also provided partial raw data to address the western blot concerns; however, further checks by the Publisher have found that a number of western blot images presented in the article don’t accurately represent the original data. The Editors-in-Chief therefore no longer have confidence in the presented data.

Susanna Scarpa does not agree to this retraction. Giulia Stazi, Rossella Fioravanti, Manuela Sabatino, Rino Ragno, Samanta Taurone, Marcella Nebbioso, Raffaella Carletti, Marco Artico, Sergio Valente and Antonello Mai have not responded to any correspondence from the publisher about this retraction. The publisher has not been able to obtain current email addresses for Ludovica Taglieri, Alice Nicolai, Annalisa Romanelli and Stefania Morrone.”

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The publisher found additional cases

Another first retraction, again for Italian cancer researchers. This time, it’s the Campo brothers: Giuseppe M. Campo (35 papers on PubPeer) and Salvatore Campo (24 papers on PubPeer), both are professors at the University of Messina. Read about them here:

This paper has camped out now, its co-authors, Messina’s associate professor Angela D’Ascola and technician Angela Avenoso are very likely the wives of the Campo brothers:

Giuseppe M. Campo , Angela D’Ascola, Angela Avenoso, Salvatore Campo, Alida M. Ferlazzo , Carmelo Micali , Laura Zanghì , Alberto Calatroni Glycosaminoglycans reduce oxidative damage induced by copper (Cu⁺²), iron (Fe⁺²) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in human fibroblast cultures Glycoconjugate Journal (2003) doi: 10.1023/b:glyc.0000018587.67742.4b

The retraction arrived on 9 November 2023:

“The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article because concerns were raised regarding a number of highly similar images presented in Fig. 2 with different brightness, stretching or rotation. The authors have shared the raw data for validation; however, further checks by the publisher found additional cases of image similarities and inconsistencies in the original images. The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the presented data.

Giuseppe M. Campo does not agree to this retraction. None of the other authors have responded to any correspondence from the editor or publisher about this retraction.”

Expect more retractions soon, not just for the Campos and other Messina fabricators, but also for their fallen rector, Salvatore Cuzzocrea.

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Natalia and Patricia do not agree

A retraction over one fake gel, but the publisher recognised who they dealt with- the Argentinian cheater Patricia Elizalde, CONICET-funded PI at Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental (IBYME) in Buenos Aires. Read about her here:

This is the retracted paper, its authors are the usual members of Elizalde’s fraud gang, but also a certain Natalia Galigniana, the daughter of Elizalde’s IBYME colleagues, Mario Galigniana and Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk (read about them in earlier Friday Shorts):

María C Díaz Flaqué , Natalia M Galigniana , Wendy Béguelin, Rocío Vicario , Cecilia J Proietti , Rosalía Cordo Russo , Martín A Rivas , Mercedes Tkach , Pablo Guzmán , Juan C Roa , Esteban Maronna , Viviana Pineda , Sergio Muñoz , María Florencia Mercogliano , Eduardo H Charreau , Patricio Yankilevich , Roxana Schillaci, Patricia V Elizalde Progesterone receptor assembly of a transcriptional complex along with activator protein 1, signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and ErbB-2 governs breast cancer growth and predicts response to endocrine therapy Breast cancer research : BCR (2013) doi: 10.1186/bcr3587 

The Retraction notice from 2 December 2023:

“The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. After publication, concerns were raised regarding the western blot images presented in the figures. Specifically:

• In Fig. 6g, the two pErbB2 blots appear highly similar, including the background features, with a couple of bands showing differences. In the pErbB2 (Tyr927), lanes 6 and 10 appear highly similar, and there appears to be a splice mark to the left of lane 10.
• In Fig. 6g pp44/pp42 MAPK blot, lanes 3 and 4 appear highly similar to lanes 9 and 10, and there appears to be a splice mark to the left of lane 9.
• In Fig. 6g p42/p44 MAPK blot, lanes 1 and 5 appear highly similar.
• In Fig. 8a, there appears to be a splice mark in the p–c-Jun blot between lanes 2 and 3. There are no splices in the c-Jun blot.
• In Fig. 8f and g, three of the four p42 and p44 MAPK western blot bands appear highly similar, although the figures represent different cells.

The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the presented data.

María C Díaz Flaqué, Natalia M Galigniana, Patricio Yankilevich and Patricia V Elizalde do not agree to this retraction. None of the other authors have responded to any correspondence from the editor or publisher about this retraction.”

Young Natalia, who graduated with PhD under her mum’s supervision (yes!), should brace herself for the retractions which her bulldozer parents will experience soon. An example, and this is NOT the worst from thsi family on PubPeer:

Luciana I. Gallo , Mariana Lagadari , Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk , Mario D. Galigniana The 90-kDa heat-shock protein (Hsp90)-binding immunophilin FKBP51 is a mitochondrial protein that translocates to the nucleus to protect cells against oxidative stress Journal of Biological Chemistry (2011) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m111.256610 

And here Natalia’s parents with Claudio Schneider’s mentee Martin Monte whom you met above, what small world:

Mario D Galigniana, Alejandra G Erlejman , Martín Monte , Celso Gomez-Sanchez , Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk The hsp90-FKBP52 complex links the mineralocorticoid receptor to motor proteins and persists bound to the receptor in early nuclear events Molecular and Cellular Biology (2010) doi: 10.1128/mcb.01190-09

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The first and last author will check

Another science bigwig faces retractions, this time in USA. Francis Hornicek, formerly double-chair at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, now professor of orthopaedics at the University of Miami, has to pay for his mentee Zhenfeng Duan‘s forgeries and his own incompetence (Duan is now also professor in Miami). Read about them here:

Here the recent retraction, to follow the two from before, and expect more to follow:

Tao Guo , Ran Wei , Dylan C. Dean , Francis J. Hornicek, Zhenfeng Duan SMARCB1 expression is a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for osteosarcoma Bioscience Reports (2022) doi: 10.1042/bsr20212446

Back in July 2023, Hornicek announced on PubPeer:

“The first and last author will check.”

The Retraction Notice from 3 November 2023 was short:

“This article is being retracted from Bioscience Reports at the request of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board following receipt of a notification from a reader, alerting the Editorial Board to duplications in Figure 1A.

The authors have contacted the Journal to correct the Article however, given the extent of the issues raised, the Editorial Board stand by the decision to retract the article. The authors do not agree to the Retraction.”

The reader was Sholto David.

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Insufficient washing protocols

While other journals don’t care about many fake gels, PLOS One retracted paper over just one fake gel. Because indeed, you can’t trust such authors, and if one looks closer, there will be more.

In fact, this may have even been fabricated by an Egyptian papermill:

Nashwa W. Yassa , Sofia Khalil , Samar R. Saleh , Doaa A. Ghareeb , Maha A. El Demellawy , Mohamed M. El-Sayed Ipriflavone and Ipriflavone loaded albumin nanoparticles reverse lipopolysaccharide induced neuroinflammation in rats PLoS ONE (2020) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237929 

The Retraction notice from 2 November 2023 stated:

“Following the publication of this article [1], concerns were raised regarding Fig 8. Specifically,

• The bands in the following lanes appear more similar than would be expected from independent results:
  • Fig 8A p38-MAPK: lane 2 and lane 6
  • Fig 8A p38-MAPK: lanes 8–9 and lanes 11–12
  • Fig 8A p-p38-MAPK: lane 3 and lane 9
  • Fig 8A β-actin: lanes 2–3 and lanes 11–12
• In all panels, when levels are adjusted to visualize the background, the signal surrounding the bands appears to be discontinuous with the rest of the panel.

The Supporting Information files do not include the original blots for Fig 8 as per the journal’s requirements at the time of publication [2].

The corresponding author of this article stated that the original data for Fig 8 were not available for editorial review. They also stated that discontinuities in the background signal may be due to insufficient washing protocols. In the absence of the raw data required to support the published results PLOS is unable to resolve the above issues.

In light of the concerns affecting this figure and the absence of original data that question the reliability of these data, the PLOS ONE Editors retract the article.

NWY, DAG, and MAED did not agree with the retraction. SK, SRS, and MMES either did not respond directly or could not be reached.”

Actually, there was even more!

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Some bad apples

Nature finally retracted the SECOND fraudulent room-temperature superconductor paper by Ranga Dias of University of Rochester in USA. AS remidner, that second paper was published after the first one was retracted under suspicions of fraud.

The second Nature paper was this, and it was also retracted under suspitions of an even bigger fraud, upon demands from Dias’ coauthors, including his business partner, Ashkan Salamat of University of Nevada Las Vegas (read earlier Friday Shorts):

Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Elliot Snider, Raymond McBride, Hiranya Pasan , Dylan Durkee , Nugzari Khalvashi-Sutter, Sasanka Munasinghe, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Keith V. Lawler , Ashkan Salamat, Ranga P. Dias Evidence of near-ambient superconductivity in a N-doped lutetium hydride Nature (2023) doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05742-0 

And read Maarten van Kampen’s analysis of why that paper was not to be trusted:

The retraction notice from 7 November 2023 stated:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the authors Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Elliot Snider, Raymond McBride, Hiranya Pasan, Dylan Durkee, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Keith V. Lawler and Ashkan Salamat. They have expressed the view as researchers who contributed to the work that the published paper does not accurately reflect the provenance of the investigated materials, the experimental measurements undertaken and the data-processing protocols applied. The above-named authors have concluded that these issues undermine the integrity of the published paper.

In addition, and separately, concerns have been independently raised with the journal regarding the reliability of the electrical resistance data presented in the paper. An investigation by the journal and post-publication review have concluded that these concerns are credible, substantial and remain unresolved.

Nugzari Khalvashi-Sutter, Sasanka Munasinghe and Ranga P. Dias have not stated whether they agree or disagree with this retraction.”

There is also Nature News coverage of this retraction, where scientists wonder how Dias’ bullshit managed to pass peer review:

““The highly qualified expert reviewers we selected raised a number of questions about the original submission, which were largely resolved in later revisions,“ says Karl Ziemelis, chief physical sciences editor at Nature. “What the peer-review process cannot detect is whether the paper as written accurately reflects the research as it was undertaken.””

Funny, when other, uninvited scientists read the peer reveiwed Nature study they imemdiately understood it was trash. Even without knowing about the fraud. And now superconductor scientists are concerned that their field is poisoned by constant fraud scandals (remember the Korean fairy tale?):

“We face a serious communication problem, to make people understand that the field is healthy — that although there may be some bad apples, the community’s standards are much higher”

Right…. I searched PubPeer, there is of course papermill fraud (e.g, Khan et al 2020), but not only:

M. F. Hansen , S. Layek , J. -B. Vaney , L. Chaix , M. R. Suchomel , M. Mikolasek , G. Garbarino , A. Chumakov , R. Rüffer , V. Nassif , T. Hansen , E. Elkaim , T. Pelletier , H. Mayaffre , F. Bernardini , A. Sulpice , M. Núñez-Regueiro , P. Rodière , A. Cano , S. Tencé , P. Toulemonde, M. -H. Julien, M. D’Astuto Magnetic and structural properties of the iron silicide superconductor LaFeSiH arXiv (2023) arxiv: 2309.02241 

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Ukrainian papermill

As Anna Abalkina posted on PubPeer, the British Educational Research Association and Wiley just retracted an entire Special Issue in the journal Review of Education. All papers have Ukrainian authors, and they were purchased from a Ukrainian papermill named “Scientific Publications”, described here:

Abalkina made a Google Sheets file on the products of this papermill, currently over 1100 of papers, published with different journals and publishers. The Special Issue at Review of Education named “The development of education research in ex-Soviet states” was hosted by an employee of Scientific Publications, Lyudmilla Mashtaler (using an affiliation with Dragomanov University in Kyiv), and Stephen Gorard, Professor of Education and Public Policy at Durham University in UK, and the journal’s Lead Editor. It all went down with this retraction notice from 5 November 2023:

“The journal’s Lead Editors, the British Educational Research Association and John Wiley and Sons Ltd have retracted the articles below.

Following publication, concerns were raised by a third party. Further investigation by the publisher revealed concerns about guest editorship, authorship and peer review. The retractions have been agreed due to evidence indicating that the peer review of these articles was compromised. The authors have been informed of this decision. The authors of https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3320 disagree with the retraction of this paper.

• Mashtaler, L., & Gorard, S. (2022). Special Issue: The development of education research in ex-Soviet states. Review of Education, 10, e3329. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3329
• Zavaruieva, I., Bondarenko, L., & Fedko, O. (2022). The role of colour coding of educational materials when studying grammatical categories of the Ukrainian language by foreign students. Review of Education, 10, e3312. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3312
• Bulakh, V. P., & Shandruk, S. I. (2022). The future of Ukrainian EFL professional education: Certificates of excellence or certificates of attendance. Review of Education, 10, e3315. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3315
• Demchenko, I. V., & Demchenko, O. N. (2022). Dynamics of professional motivation of technical university students. Review of Education, 10, e3316. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3316
• Osodlo, V., Rakhmanov, V., Krykun, V., Tarasenko, N., & Aristarkhova, M. (2022). Officers’ foreign language training in educational and information environment of the Higher Military Educational Institution. Review of Education, 10, e3317. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3317
• Grytsenko, I., Borysenko, N., Sydorenko, N., Vashchuk, V., & Valuieva, I. (2022). Higher education institution: Distance learning and modern communicative opportunities. Review of Education, 10, e3318. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3318
• Goncharova, O., Maslova, A., Kirsanova, S., Rutkovska, A., & Yehorova, Y. (2022). Virtual learning anxiety: A case study of Pedagogical University (Ukraine). Review of Education, 10, e3320. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3320
• Krymets, L. V., Saienko, O. H., Bilyakovska, O. O., Zakharov, O. Y., & Ivanova, D. H. (2022). Quality management in higher education: Developing the methodology on the basis of total quality management. Review of Education, 10, e3322. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3322
• Kuleshova, V., Aksakova, N., Malazoniia, S., & Kovalenko, S. (2022). Professional training of future engineers-teachers: The societal needs of modern educational technologies introduction. Review of Education, 10, e3323. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3323
• Kalinina, T. S., Karnaukhova, A. V., Mashovets, M. A., Shvaliuk, T. M., & Telna, O. A. (2022). Practical implementation of inclusive preschool education in Ukraine. Review of Education, 10, e3311. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3311

I hope these authors wish they donated the money to Ukrainian Army instead. I contacted the co-editor Gorard who informed me that it was Mashtaler who approached him, and:

“I agreed and we edited the papers slightly together for coherence. You can see from the editorial that I was not happy with the quality for standard RoE journal articles. But we wanted to encourage nascent work. This is the real tragedy. I am not disposed to help up-and-coming areas in this way again. I have since noticed many more pieces coming in the same format, and we just desk reject. The dishonesty is the problem, not the quality as such (a lot of rubbish is published in other journals anyway).”

I like the last sentence. Describes the current state of scholarly publishing very well.

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