Bristol Madness

Meet Paolo Madeddu and Costanza Emanueli, a husband and wife couple from hell. Both Italian cardiologists, both made careers at University of Bristol in UK, she then moved to the even fancier Imperial College London. Madeddu and Emanueli are separated now, but they keep polluting medicine with fake science, they gathered a whole gang of fellow cheaters around, and they raised a new generation of toxic cheaters, primarily Rajesh Katare, now professor at University of Otago in New Zealand.

I wrote about some of their papers in earlier Friday Shorts, back then it looked like Katare was the main culprit. But it seems, Katare is the son Madeddu always wanted to have. Look at this:

Andrew Moore , Amol Shindikar , Ingrid Fomison-Nurse , Federica Riu , Pujika E Munasinghe , Thrishila Parshu Ram , Pankaj Saxena , Sean Coffey , Richard W Bunton , Ivor F Galvin , Michael J A Williams , Costanza Emanueli , Paolo Madeddu , Rajesh Katare Rapid onset of cardiomyopathy in STZ-induced female diabetic mice involves the downregulation of pro-survival Pim-1 Cardiovascular Diabetology (2014) doi: 10.1186/1475-2840-13-68

A vintage Madeddu-Emanueli classic, Katare was still a twinkle in Madeddu’s eye back then:

The image integrity sleuth Clare Francis found lots of fraud in Madeddu’s papers, and the evidence is on PubPeer. Next to his ex-wife Emanueli and his academic clone Katare, a recurrent author is another former mentee of that hellish couple – Andrea Caporali, now senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in UK. An example of their joint, uhm, research:

Rajesh Katare, Andrea Caporali , Costanza Emanueli , Paolo Madeddu Benfotiamine improves functional recovery of the infarcted heart via activation of pro-survival G6PD/Akt signaling pathway and modulation of neurohormonal response Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2010.05.014

Madeddu and Emanueli are no small fishes. The University of Bristol informs us about Madeddu that he is “recognized as a world leader“, and:

“Madeddu has published 190 papers and obtained multimillion grants from the Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Heart Research UK, Diabetes UK, and the European Community since his relocation to Bristol in 2005 through a exceptional talent recruitment scheme. He is Chief Editor of Frontiers in Cardiovascular Biologics and Regenerative Medicine, Past Chief Editor of Vascular Biology, and Associated Editor of ATVB. He sits several International Grants Committees.

Yet, the achievement Madeddu is mostly proud consists of having fostered a new generation of raising stars in cardiovascular research, who, following Madeddu’s mentoring in Bristol, have reached a professorial status in different countries, including Nicolle Kränkel (Germany), Luciola Barcelos (Brasil), Rajesh Katare (New Zealand), Marco Meloni (France), Paola Campagnolo (UK), Ajman Al Haj Zen (Qatar). This meaning Bristol past-fellows are acting as ambassadors of the Bristol Heart Institute’s excellence across the world.”

The excellence is indeed awe-inspiring. Almost as good as the research produced by another British cardiologist, David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck College in London and billionaire heir whose own lawyers took charge of university’s investigation.

Emanueli is also very influential. She is even one of “10 inspirational women in science” in UK! Her research focusses on exosomes and therapeutic miRNA – you know, that utterly reproducible research field which largely consists of garbage, fraud and papermill fabrications.

Madeddu and Emanueli were found out by following other science cheaters. As Clare Francis said:

“Costanza Emanueli and Paolo Madeddu may very well fell like kissing Antonio P Beltrami on both cheeks.“

Now, the Italian professor Antonio Paolo Beltrami, a collaborator of infamous research fraudster Giorgio Zauli, in turn was found out via his University of Udine, where his father, Carlo Alberto Beltrami, is professor (perfectly normal in Italy). Beltrami Senior in turn is collaborator of the inventor of non-existent heart stem cells, the sacked Harvard fraudster Piero Anversa (see Beltrami’s PubPeer record). In this regard, both Beltramis (Sr & Jr) collaborated with their Udine colleague Claudio Schneider, praising in a common paper their successes with those fictional heart stem cells.

Naturally, if your research is about something non-existent and made up, like heart stem cells, you need to bully your way a lot to get your fairy tales published.

Maybe Caporali ended up in Edinburgh because this university continues pushing heart stem cell nonsense – their favourite bully sociopath David Argyle published in this area also.

And here are Madeddu, Katare, Emanueli and Beltrami at work, combining miRNA nonsense with heart stem cell fiction to achieve 370 citations to date, the study helped Madeddu’s trainee Paola Campagnolo to become Lecturer at University of Surrey in UK:

Rajesh Katare , Federica Riu , Kathryn Mitchell , Miriam Gubernator , Paola Campagnolo , Yuxin Cui , Orazio Fortunato , Elisa Avolio , Daniela Cesselli , Antonio Paolo Beltrami , Gianni Angelini , Costanza Emanueli , Paolo Madeddu Transplantation of human pericyte progenitor cells improves the repair of infarcted heart through activation of an angiogenic program involving micro-RNA-132 Circulation Research (2011) doi: 10.1161/circresaha.111.251546 

However, truly great scientists defecate not just all over their own research field. So the gang decided to move their heart stem cell fiction from cardiology to diabetes research, as if this field didn’t suffer already enough from fraud:

Rajesh Katare, Atsuhiko Oikawa , Daniela Cesselli , Antonio P Beltrami , Elisa Avolio , Deepti Muthukrishnan , Pujika Emani Munasinghe , Gianni Angelini , Costanza Emanueli , Paolo Madeddu Boosting the pentose phosphate pathway restores cardiac progenitor cell availability in diabetes Cardiovascular Research (2013) doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvs291

A common co-author on these last two and other Madeddu-Emanueli papers is Gianni Angelini MD MCh FRCS FETCS FMedSci, Head of Bristol Heart Institute and British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiac Surgery in the University of Bristol. Madeddu is also a department head at this institute. I wonder if the university will appoint Angelini as Madeddu’s chief investigator? Here is how research is done under Angelini’s watch and with his Bristol Heart Institute colleagues:

As it happens, the Italian name above, Massimo Caputo, belongs to a Bristol Heart Institute superstar who is celebrated by BBC for curing babies with stem cell injections into their hearts (read earlier Friday Shorts). And where do you think Caputo gets his umbilical cord stem cells? From Mark Lowdell, former collaborator of trachea transplanters Paolo Macchiarini and Martin Birchall, the latter formerly at Bristol University, where in fact the very first bioengineered trachea for human use was illegally prepared, in Birchall’s pig research lab. Read here:

But I digress. There is never enough for great scientists like Madeddu and Emanueli. Especially if you can defraud diabetes grants in parallel with cardiology grants!

Rajesh Katare, Andrea Caporali , Lorena Zentilin , Elisa Avolio , Graciela Sala-Newby , Atsuhiko Oikawa , Daniela Cesselli , Antonio Paolo Beltrami, Mauro Giacca , Costanza Emanueli , Paolo Madeddu Intravenous gene therapy with PIM-1 via a cardiotropic viral vector halts the progression of diabetic cardiomyopathy through promotion of prosurvival signaling Circulation Research (2011) doi: 10.1161/circresaha.110.239111 

More, with Katare and Caporali again, and I am showing only SOME problems with ONE single figure panel:

Rajesh G Katare , Andrea Caporali , Atsuhiko Oikawa , Marco Meloni , Costanza Emanueli, Paolo Madeddu Vitamin B1 analog benfotiamine prevents diabetes-induced diastolic dysfunction and heart failure through Akt/Pim-1-mediated survival pathway Circulation Heart Failure (2010) doi: 10.1161/circheartfailure.109.903450 

Another Italian co-author whose name keeps popping up is Marco Meloni. He did postdoc with Madeddu in Bristol, then worked as lecturer in Glasgow and in Edinburgh (where Caporali works), and since 2018 he works as team leader at Sanofi. I guess you can blindly trust any drug he develops:

A Caporali , G B Sala-Newby , M Meloni , G Graiani , E Pani , B Cristofaro , A C Newby , P Madeddu , C Emanueli Identification of the prosurvival activity of nerve growth factor on cardiac myocytes Cell Death and Differentiation (2008) doi: 10.1038/sj.cdd.4402263 

These people performed very painful experiments on living mice, the animals suffered a lot before their sacrificial deaths. Certainly not for the advance of medical science, because the authors just faked the results anyway.

It’s not just fake gels! There is micrograph recycling also, because how else does one treat diabetes?

And fake immunofluorescence and flawed faux cytometry, as adjuvant therapy for diabetes:

Andrea Caporali , Elisabetta Pani , Anton J G Horrevoets , Nicolle Kraenkel , Atsuhiko Oikawa , Graciela B Sala-Newby , Marco Meloni , Brunella Cristofaro , Gallia Graiani , Aurelie S Leroyer , Chantal M Boulanger , Gaia Spinetti , Sung Ok Yoon , Paolo Madeddu, Costanza Emanueli Neurotrophin p75 receptor (p75NTR) promotes endothelial cell apoptosis and inhibits angiogenesis: implications for diabetes-induced impaired neovascularization in ischemic limb muscles Circulation Research (2008) doi: 10.1161/circresaha.108.177386 

The next heart stem cell study is said to have brought Madeddu “widespread media attention” and immense money from British Heart Foundation and EU Commission, celebrated in a 2012 Spotlight in the journal Circulation:

Having learned all the tricks from Madeddu, Katare continued in New Zealand with what he does best. One paper, Manning et al 2019 was already retracted because “the statistical methodology we used did not adequately limit the impact of outlier data points on our findings.” More retractions are needed:

Joshua P. H. Neale , James T. Pearson, Kate N. Thomas , Hirotsugu Tsuchimochi , Hiroshi Hosoda , Masayasu Kojima , Takahiro Sato , Gregory T. Jones , Adam P. Denny , Lorna J. Daniels , Dhananjie Chandrasekera , Ping Liu , Andre M. Van Rij , Rajesh Katare, Daryl O. Schwenke Dysregulation of ghrelin in diabetes impairs the vascular reparative response to hindlimb ischemia in a mouse model; clinical relevance to peripheral artery disease Scientific Reports (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-70391-6

And again, Katare’s usual fake western blots:

Curiously, Katare claims these research interests on his university website:

• “Treatment of ischemic hearts with resident cardiac stem cells
• Development of engineered heart tissue using cardiac and mesenchymal stem cells“

As I mentioned cardiac stem cells do not exist, they were fabricated by the mega-fraudster Piero Anversa, with additional fabrications from people like Madeddu, Emanueli, Beltrami Sr & Jr, Joseph Loscalzo, Roberto Bolli, etc (probably a coincidence all these names are Italian). What is Katare hinting at here? That all his research is just as fake?

Katare made it to Head of Department at the University of Otago and is very well funded there. In 2022, he received a grant to invent “a novel, multi-use, off-the-shelf, biodegradable ulcer patch as an advanced wound-care product” using, can you guess what? Nanoparticles. But look, Katare is such a nice guy, he said he does this all to help the indigenous Maori people:

“In Aotearoa, there is a disproportionate increase in the rate of chronic non-healing ulcers in the Māori population, especially in those with diabetes. Current treatments fail to prevent amputation in more than 58 per cent of diabetic patients developing foot ulcers.”

It was not easy to get the universities to admit my notification of suspected research misconduct against their scientists. Caporale’s employer, the University of Edinburgh, replied first, after merely 2 emails and 4 days:

“Your email has been passed to the University’s Research Integrity Enquiries team, who will consider this matter and respond directly to you as soon as possible.“

Well, they did whitewash the bully Argyle, but they also previously sacked another Senior Lecturer who, like Caporale, was a foreigner – Irina Stancheva. After my reporting, as it happens.

Also the University of Bristol replied at the same time. Adam Taylor, Head of Research Governance, wrote to me:

“Thank you for your emails.  We have noted your concerns and will look into them and take appropriate action.”

He never replied to me again, and you will soon see why that was important.

Katare’s employer, University of Otago, needed 6 days and 5 emails. Their Pro-Vice-Chancellor Patricia Priest wrote to me:

“I have notified the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Enterprise, and we will take the matter under consideration. In doing so we will liaise as necessary with both Professor Katare and the University of Bristol. “

The most difficult case was the Imperial College London, where Emanueli is now full professor. They regularly whitewash research fraud there, even their own president Hugh Brady is no stranger to fake science:

The Imperial Research Integrity officer Jon Hancock simply ignored all my emails, and the Research Integrity Manager of UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) refused to help me reach through to Imperial, hinting it was not their job.

After trying for two weeks to get Hancock and his colleagues to admit my notification, all in vain, I complained to the leadership of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial, where Emanueli works. They already have a fraud case being whitewashed there:

Right the next day, Hancock replied:

“Dear Mr Schneider,
I am writing to acknowledge that the College is aware of the concerns that have been raised on PubPeer.  They will be considered in accordance with the College’s Research Misconduct Procedures.  The College will also cooperate with the other universities that have been made aware of these concerns.
Mr Jon B Hancock BA (Hons)”

Like the Imperial, the Bristol University are certainly not foreign to research fraud, and neither are they foreign to bullying. A reminder is the Abder Kaidi affair, which ended with the university retaliating against their own whistleblowers:

Well, guess what I was told. Both Madeddu and Emanueli were allegedly accused of bullying by their own lab members, in 2015-2016. The specific accusations were of shouting, long working hours and lack of supervision. Allegedly, the university’s HR department investigated this and held interviews with a number of staff on the condition of anonymity, but when HR forwarded the claims to Madeddu, the whistleblowers’ names were not redacted. The HR then made clear to the victims that they were not going to protect them. 

Now, I don’t know if the allegations of bullying were really made and even less so if they were true. I also can’t verify the claim I received that Madeddu knew about data manipulation happening in his lab, and took no action. So I put these allegations to Madeddu, Emanueli and the Bristol University responsibles. I invited them several times to deny these allegations. They never did. Draw your own conclusions.

I eventually received a reply from the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which invested lots of money into Madeddu’s fake science. For example, BHF gave him over £235k in 2019 to develop a “gene therapy to reduce the damage caused by aging in the heart“. As it happens, his ex-wife serves as Chair of Cardiovascular Science at BHF, re-elected in 2021. BHF announced to have forwarded my emails to their research integrity team “for further consideration and review”.

Madeddu is currently drawing a research grant from another British charity, Diabetes UK, “to develop a new treatment” with a magical “‘longevity’ protein, to help prevent heart problems” and to save “people with diabetes from potentially life-threatening complications.” A wild guess who approved this grant: the charity’s Board of Trustees member, a certain Costanza Emanueli. This charity did not reply to my email.

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