Schneider Shorts 1.12.2023 – Determined to undermine people’s reputations

Schneider Shorts of 1 December 2023 – MDPI apprehends a thief, Sicilian fraudster’s trouble with women, a papermill fraudster appointed as EiC, a Dutch research fraudster ushers fascism in, retractions for some and concerns for others, and finally, a science terrorist undermining Belfast!

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Science Elites

Determined to undermine people’s reputations

Sometime in around mid-2022 Sholto David decided to bother the mighty Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland (UK) about two papers by their professor in pharmaceutics, Raghu Raj Singh Thakur. It ended with Sholto getting gaslighted and being told to get lost.

Maybe it’s because Thakur is Founder & Chief Technical Officer of this university’s spin-off biotech Re-Vana which markets biologics drugs for blindness prevention. In 2022, Thakur’s company raised $11.9 million in funding. So you see why he can never be associated with fake science.

Thakur is the only British author on these 2 papers, the others, including the corresponding author Samiullah Khan, are all based in Pakistan.

Samiullah Khan , Muhammad Usman Minhas, Naveed Akhtar , Raghu Raj Singh Thakur Sodium alginate/N-(Vinylcaprolactam) based supramolecular self-assembled subcutaneously administered in situ formed gels depot of 5-fluorouracil: Rheological analysis, in vitro cytotoxic potential, in vivo bioavailability and safety evaluation International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.05.035 

The data was reused in another paper by Thakur, which is about curcumin as magic multi-purpose drug, and had its own issues:

Samiullah Khan , Naveed Akhtar , Muhammad Usman Minhas, Hassan Shah , Kifayat Ullah Khan , Raghu Raj Singh Thakur A difunctional Pluronic^®127-based in situ formed injectable thermogels as prolonged and controlled curcumin depot, fabrication, in vitro characterization and in vivo safety evaluation Journal of Biomaterials Science Polymer Edition (2021) doi: 10.1080/09205063.2020.1829324

A rather clear case. The papers are very new, they contain fabricated data, and no way the authors can provide original data. Simply because these studies were generated by a papermill, considering that other papers by Samiullah Khan were most definitely bought from papermills (fake data, tortured phrases, nonsense references, authors from all over the world, see Zulfiqar et al 2022). The Belfast University could have solved this quickly and easily. Except they couldn’t be arsed.

Back in 2022, Sholto was informed in an out-of-office message that Louise Dunlop, Head of Research Governance, Ethics and Integrity, was unavailable due to a death of a close family member. But her Ethics and Integrity Team employs 10 more and unbereaved people, so Sholto waited, and in October 2023 and in November 2023 he wrote again, to numerous responsible addressees in Belfast, to inquire about the progress. There, he suddenly received this bizarre email from Dunlop:

“Dear Sholto David,

Thank you for your email, which need only be sent to Professor Thakur and I.   You are not being ignored, rather I have been on extended bereavement leave following the death of a significant family member.  I’m sure you received my out of office.

Unfortunately, your scatter gun approach has undermind a process that is undertaken confidentially under the Regulations Governing an Allegation of Misconduct in Research. Whilst I have confidence my Team will treat as confidential, I have no control over other parts of the University.  It is sad that you are determined to undermine people’s reputations in the way you do.  

This matter has been investigated and efforts are ongoing with the journals to make the necessary erratum. 

Regards,

Louise“

Yes, they think Thakur is an innocent genius and Sholto is an evil thug who terrorises scientists. Yes, there never was any real investigation and yes, they now gaslight Sholto for sabotaging by his indiscretion. Yes, they ratted out Sholto’s identity to Thakur the first thing. Yes, the papermill forgery will be fixed with a correction to explain that no conclusions were ever affected.

Great British Research Integrity, you know. Anyhow, for the glory of the Crown and of Protestant Ireland, Thakur must continue cooperating with Samiullah Khan and Muhammad Usman Minhas, because these two gentlemen will get him the finest papermill goods from the old colonies. A sample:

Samiullah Khan , Muhammad Usman Minhas , Muhammad Tahir Aqeel , Ihsan Shah , Shahzeb Khan, Mohsin Kazi , Zachary N. Warnken Poly (N-Vinylcaprolactam-Grafted-Sodium Alginate) Based Injectable pH/Thermo Responsive In Situ Forming Depot Hydrogels for Prolonged Controlled Anticancer Drug Delivery; In Vitro, In Vivo Characterization and Toxicity Evaluation Pharmaceutics (2022) doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics14051050 

Another one:

Sholto David previously made a whole video about Minhas (his PubPeer record here, over 30 fake papers):

Minhas reacted like a proper scholar. By threatening Sholto:

What a great collaboration to help Queen’s University Belfast and their ophthalmology spin-off to money. And the best thing: Thakur may even get his authorship gratis from Minhas’ and Khan’s papermill, because he is a professor in the UK!

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None of the work was performed

Aneurus Inconstans has written an update to his last article about the former rector of University of Messina, Salvatore Cuzzocrea, to include even more member of that Messina fraud gang. Read here:

In this regard: Cuzzocrea replied on two PubPeer threads blaming some women. Yet another woman however makes him the key responsible.

Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Barbara Pisano , Laura Dugo , Angela Ianaro, Michael Ndengele , Daniela Salvemini Superoxide-Related Signaling Cascade Mediates Nuclear Factor-κB Activation in Acute Inflammation Antioxidants & Redox Signaling (2004) doi: 10.1089/1523086041361659

The last and corresponding author, Daniela Salvemini is since 2005 professor at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in USA. For that and the other paper, she provided as her affiliation the biotech Metaphore Pharmaceuticals in St. Louis, where she at that time worked as Vice President of Research. It is not clear why this US researcher was designated as corresponding author because the experiments were allegedly done in Italy. If they were ever done at all, that is.

Noteworthy: Salvemini worked 1987-1992 at the William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) where she did PhD under its founder, the Nobelist John Vane. Cuzzocrea also did his training at WHRI, although later and under Vane’s former PhD student Christoph Thiemermann. Thiemermann’s own papers are full of fraud even without Cuzzocrea, read here:

Now, Salvemini commented on PubPeer regarding that paper:

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I cannot comment because none of the work was performed in my lab. All data was provided by the first author. He should be able to address this for all of us.”

For some reason, PubPeer moderated Salvemini’s comment. This is strange, because the first author she fingers, Cuzzocrea, also commented, and his comment was left standing. Here the key bit of Cuzzo’s long reply:

” both the experiments have been carried out in Ianaro lab in the same time.”

Now, Angela Ianaro is a politician and former Italian MP, first for Movimento 5 Stelle and now for Partito Democratico. From her records at University of Naples, it doesn’t seem she had her own lab before 2005 at least. And anyway, Salvemini’s moderated comment says Cuzzocrea created those figures. Also in this thread, Salvemini’s reply was deleted:

Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Emanuela Mazzon, Rosanna Di Paola, Tiziana Genovese , Ivana Serraino , Laura Dugo, Elisabetta Cuzzocrea , Francesco Fulia , Achille P. Caputi, Daniela Salvemini Protective effects of M40401, a selective superoxide dismutase mimetic, on zymosan-induced nonseptic shock Critical Care Medicine (2004) doi: 10.1097/01.ccm.0000098859.67006.45 

Elisabeta is Cuzzo’s sister. Salvemini’s deleted comments were:

“I cannot comment because none of the work was performed in my lab. All data was provided by the first author. He should be able to address this for all of us.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I cannot comment because none of the work was performed in my lab. All data was provided by the first author. He should be able to address this for all of us.”

The first author Cuzzocrea replied here as well, and this is the main bit of his comment:

” It is really important to point out that in all our manuscript the histologist responsible was Dr E.M. (as indicated in all the manuscript) who performed all the histological/immunohistochemistry experiment as well as the preparation of the final figures that we have received. Dr. E.M. was depended to another Department (Department of Biomorphology, School of Medicine, University of Messina, Italy).”

Here he blames yet another woman, Emanuela Mazzon. I wrote to Salvemini, and shared the recovered comments of hers and Cuzzocrea’s accusations against Ianaro and Mazzon. Salvemini replied to me on 15 November 2023:

“I take these matters very seriously and these are very concerning to me. To this end, I immediately contacted Dr Cuzzocrea who provided the data. I asked for clarification and requested that he contact the journals as soon as possible to address corrections/retractions as needed. He has recently notified me that he did contact both journals; he is in discussion with them regarding next steps and he will update all authors on outcomes.“

Not a word why her comments were deleted, maybe because they contradicted Cuzzo’s accusations towards other women? I asked Salvemini to see that raw data which she said Cuzzocrea provided to her. As reminder, she is the corresponding author on both papers. She kept directing me towards Cuzzocrea. I wondered if there even was any raw data, Salvemini retorted:

“I have not refused to provide the raw data as I do not have any raw data. Dr Cuzzocrea is in communication with the journals and has the raw data- contact him directly“

Again, the corresponding author is the main responsible for such things, but I do understand that there is no raw data to share. Likely also here, a very recent collaboration of Salvemini and Cuzzocrea:

Susan A. Farr , Salvatore Cuzzocrea , Emanuela Esposito , Michela Campolo , Michael L. Niehoff , Timothy M. Doyle , Daniela Salvemini Adenosine A receptor as a novel therapeutic target to reduce secondary events and improve neurocognitive functions following traumatic brain injury Journal of Neuroinflammation (2020) doi: 10.1186/s12974-020-02009-7 

Here, Salvemini’s comment on PubPeer escaped moderation. She mentioned that there was “indeed a copy/paste error in Figure 4b” , that the authors contacted the journal “to issue a correction and have supplied them with a new Figure 4” , and that the “results and the conclusions drawn from the data were not altered by this correction“. Salvemini still has not commented on her other papers with Cuzzocrea, like Little et al 2013, and this one:

Timothy M. Doyle, Kali Janes , Zhoumou Chen , Peter M. Grace , Emanuela Esposito, Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Tally M. Largent-Milnes, William L. Neumann, Linda R. Watkins, Sarah Spiegel , Todd W. Vanderah, Daniela Salvemini Activation of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor subtype 1 in the central nervous system contributes to morphine-induced hyperalgesia and antinociceptive tolerance in rodents Pain (2020) doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000001888

Salvemini didn’t reply when asked to share this fresh raw data from her own lab. Does it exist? Who cares! In 2022, a press release announced “breakthrough findings“, where our “renowned Saint Louis University pain researcher” together with Cuzzocrea found a drug “to reduce chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment“, published in Squillace et al 2022. Salvemini was quoted describing her work as “fascinating“, “very translational“, and “a groundbreaking shift towards enhancing patient quality of life in cancer treatment“.

This friendship between Cuzzo and Salvemini is interesting.

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Broad political support

As you may have heard, The Netherlands elected a fascist, Geert Wilders, and his fascist party PPV. But Wilders needs to form a coalition before his power grab, and Dutch conservatives hate Greens and the left so much that they are very much tempted to return to the good old 1930ies. After his coalition negotiator had to resign for being a financial fraudster, Wilders appointed someone with similar ethics. NL Times reports:

“On Tuesday, former PvdA minister Ronald Plasterk was appointed as the new scout for the Cabinet formation process. Wilders initially nominated PVV Senator Gom van Strien to lead the formation talks, but he stepped down from his role due to fraud allegations just a few hours before the first talks were scheduled on Monday morning. The appointment of Ronald Plasterk is said to enjoy “broad political support.” […]

Wilders stated that he was unaware of the fraud allegations when he nominated Van Strien. To avoid being caught off-guard again, Bergkamp said that Wilders has had a “serious conversation” with Plasterk. “Nowadays, everyone is under scrutiny, that’s just how it is. Therefore, it’s important that if there are issues, the person feels the responsibility to share them. […] In his most recent column in de De Telegraaf following the elections, Plasterk expressed a clear preference for a right-wing Cabinet with PVV…”

I wrote before about Ronald Plasterk, former scientific director of the Hubrecht Institute, entrepreneur and conservative politician, because Elisabeth Bik exposed data falsifications in his papers:

Since then, one of Plasterk’s papers, Sijen et al Science 2007, has been retracted for data forgery. It was indeed POLITICAL reasons which prevented further retractions. Like for this one:

Wigard P Kloosterman, Erno Wienholds , René F Ketting, Ronald H A Plasterk Substrate requirements for let-7 function in the developing zebrafish embryo Nucleic Acids Research (2004) doi: 10.1093/nar/gkh968 

That fake paper has an eternal Expression of Concern since July 2016:

“The Editors wish to alert the readers that the authors have raised questions about the validity of some of the figures presented in this article. Figures 3, 4, and 5b appear to contain duplicate images representing different experimental results, as well as additional signs of unacceptable splicing. As the laboratory that originally reported the work no longer exists, we are unable to request a more in-depth investigation of the original experiments. The Editors consider that this does not necessarily affect the validity of the results and the conclusions of the study…”

Also here, an Expression of Concern:

Wigard P Kloosterman, Anne K Lagendijk , René F Ketting , Jon D Moulton, Ronald H. A Plasterk Targeted inhibition of miRNA maturation with morpholinos reveals a role for miR-375 in pancreatic islet development PLoS Biology (2007) doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050203 

In April 2022, PLOS One issued a massive Expression of Concern listing the “concerns were raised regarding results presented in Figs 1, 2, 5, 6 and S2.” Original data was declared unavailable. In the nextcase, the society journal Genes & Development just did nothing, but this is their standard approach:

Joris Pothof , Gijs Van Haaften , Karen Thijssen , Ravi S. Kamath , Andrew G. Fraser , Julie Ahringer, Ronald H.A. Plasterk, Marcel Tijsterman Identification of genes that protect the C. elegans genome against mutations by genome-wide RNAi Genes & Development (2003) doi: 10.1101/gad.1060703

Now, I am usually the last one to defend research fraud, but this is the smallest problem with Plasterk. The main problem is that he the unscrupulous far-right crook who advocates for fascism.

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Scholarly Publishing

Bestowed with several awards

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) sounds like a very serious scholarly publisher, operated by the most qualified and respected scientists of the field.

The reality is disappointing. Maybe they are just stupid. Maybe worse.

On 24 September, a RSC journal named “New Journal of Chemistry” announced on X (former Twitter) and appointment of a new associate editor, Venkata Krishnan, professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

We are informed about Krishnan:

“He has published more than 170 articles in well-reputed scientific journals and is also a reviewer for various international journals. He has been bestowed with several awards, […] Apart from academics, he likes reading books and is interested in linguistics.”

He also likes publishing fraud.

Here is some, in this same journal he now joined, so send all your complaints to the new editor:

Suneel Kumar , Vipul Sharma , Kaustava Bhattacharyya , Venkata Krishnan Synergetic effect of MoS₂–RGO doping to enhance the photocatalytic performance of ZnO nanoparticles New Journal of Chemistry (2016) doi: 10.1039/c5nj03595c

More on PubPeer, and here another RSC journal:

Suneel Kumar , Vipul Sharma , Kaustava Bhattacharyya , Venkata Krishnan N-doped ZnO–MoS₂ binary heterojunctions: the dual role of 2D MoS₂ in the enhancement of photostability and photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation for tetracycline degradation Materials Chemistry Frontiers (2017) doi: 10.1039/c6qm00274a

And whoever cares (not RSC obviously) – Krishnan gets his “research” from papermills. The “data” in the following papers was also used in 7 other papers, by fellow papermillers like Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr, of these FOUR papers are already retracted and one flagged with Expression of Concern.

Soheila Asadzadeh-Khaneghah , Aziz Habibi-Yangjeh, Davod Seifzadeh , Hushan Chand , Venkata Krishnan G-C3N4 nanosheets adhered with Ag3BiO3 and carbon dots with appreciably promoted photoactivity towards elimination of several contaminants Advanced Powder Technology (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.apt.2021.02.024

This was published in an ACS journal known for its pro-fraud stance, thanks to the editor-in-chief Kirk Schanze. I am sure Schanze and Krishnan would make the best of friends:

Ajay Kumar , Kumbam Lingeshwar Reddy , Suneel Kumar , Ashish Kumar , Vipul Sharma , Venkata Krishnan Rational Design and Development of Lanthanide-Doped NaYF₄@CdS–Au–RGO as Quaternary Plasmonic Photocatalysts for Harnessing Visible–Near-Infrared Broadband Spectrum ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2018) doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b17822 

Thanks to fake science like this, Krishnan’s colleague Vipul Sharma made it to Assistant Professor at Turku University in Finland. I think I know where RSC would like Krishnan to take his journal. Where this Elsevierian fraud factory called International Journal of Hydrogen Energy is:

Suneel Kumar , Nagappagari Lakshmana Reddy , Ashish Kumar , Muthukonda Venkatakrishnan Shankar , Venkata Krishnan Two dimensional N-doped ZnO-graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets heterojunctions with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.09.113

You can read about that journal here:

This fake trash in Springer was already corrected:

Mina Sabri , Aziz Habibi-Yangjeh, Hushan Chand, Venkata Krishnan Heterogeneous photocatalytic activation of persulfate ions with novel ZnO/AgFeO2 nanocomposite for contaminants degradation under visible light Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics (2021) doi: 10.1007/s10854-020-05171-z 

On 18 February 2023, this Correction was issued:

“The authors regret that, in the above paper, Figs. 2b and 2c, Fig. 3e, and Fig. 4b have errors. […] Although the differences between the UV–vis spectra are not easily observed upon a broader look, the small differences can be observed when they are closely examined. […] to clearly illustrate the differences between the spectra of the mentioned materials, the differences between the data (absorbances) have been plotted against wavelength in the range of 400–700 nm, and are also presented.”

Yes, the authors farted in everyone’s face by saying that exactly because they they didn’t just duplicate the spectra but also drew on additional peaks, “all results, discussions, and conclusions are unaffected by this correction.“

Yes, dear RSC, installing a papermill customer as senior editor is a cunning business move which will earn everyone involved lots of cash. Especially for this British non-profit learned society.

Krishnan was congratulated on X by fellow papermilling crooks eager to submit their own fraud. Starting with Rafael Luque, followed by Aloke Das (enjoy his fake Kumar et 2017), and the rest is probably just as dodgy.

Oh, and look who else is one of New Journal of Chemistry‘s Associate Editors: Suman L. Jain, with whooping 36 papers on PubPeer. Here for example is Jain with two cheaters from France I previously wrote about in Friday Shorts:

Amer Al-Nafiey , Anurag Kumar, Malika Kumar, Ahmed Addad , Brigitte Sieber , Sabine Szunerits, Rabah Boukherroub, Suman L. Jain Nickel oxide nanoparticles grafted on reduced graphene oxide (rGO/NiO) as efficient photocatalyst for reduction of nitroaromatics under visible light irradiation Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A Chemistry (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.jphotochem.2016.12.023 

You see what are the selection criteria at RSC, if only they invited to their editorial boards some more traditional elements, like pickpockets, pushers or pimps. Another Associate Editor, Hee-Je Kim, has currently only 4 fake papers on PubPeer (probably for the lack of attention). A representative case of what that clown published:

The Royal Society of Chemistry left my email unanswered.

Correction: in the earlier version of this article, I erroneosly wrote that Krishnan was appointed as new Editor-in-Chief, in reality he is the new Associate Editor. This inadvertent mistake does not affect any of this article’s conclusions.

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Waiting for you to prove

In MDPI, things are much worse. It seems, they deliberately recruit crooks and dimwits as their research integrity managers, so the industrial scale fraud and garbage pseudoscience can continue creating millions for MDPI’s Trump-loving race-baiting owner Shu-Kun Lin.

Previously I wrote about an MDPI journal manager named Jesus who denied an author the permission to correct a paper, and then he and his MDPI deployed legal threats against me (read here and here).

This time, another MDPI journal manager accused a victim of plagiarism of theft while defending some MDPI fraudster authors. Yes, the mind boggles, but this is what happened. This is the MDPI paper, with authors from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which stole data from a study from University of Wolverhampton in UK, Gupta et al 2020:

Fahad M. Aldakheel , Dalia Mohsen , Marwa M. El Sayed , Mohammed H. Fagir , Dalia K. El Dein Employing of Curcumin-Silver Nanoparticle-Incorporated Sodium Alginate-Co-Acacia Gum Film Hydrogels for Wound Dressing Gels (2023) doi: 10.3390/gels9100780 

Simple case: these Egyptian-Saudi authors stole figures from Gupta et al 2020 and faked them additionally to hide the similarity. Or, more likely, the papermill did it for them. Quick retraction should solve it. Sholto David reported this case to MDPI, which ended in their Romanian office. The journal manager and certified crystallography expert, some Iustina B, who graduated 2 years ago with BSc in engineering at Babeș-Bolyai University, contacted the plagiarism victim and the first author of the 2020 paper, Abhishek Gupta:

“I would like to remind you that we are waiting for you to prove that Dr.
Dalia Mohamed Mohsen Mohamed used your research data, and confirm it. I am referring to the article: “Employing of Curcumin–Silver Nanoparticle Incorporated Sodium Alginate-Co-Acacia Gum Film Hydrogels for Wound Dressing”.
Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2310-2861/9/10/780
We look forward to hearing from you soon.”

Yes, she did order Gupta to prove that he didn’t steal his research data from the gang around Dalia Mohsen and published it 3 years before them. This stupid cruelty towards honest researchers is breathtaking, and it is obvious that this utterly ignorant and incompetent “journal manager” was simply typing what her MDPI superiors ordered her to type.

However, from further email exchanges it transpired that what MDPI and their authors really wanted, was for Gupta to accept a citation to his paper somewhere in the references, and in turn basically to surrender the ownership of his data to these Egyptian-Saudi fraudsters. Gupta’s demand for retraction was rejected.

This is how evil MDPI is. No wonder it specialises on fake trash from russia.

However! After I wrote to MDPI, the case was swiftly moved from MDPI’s Romanian office to Wuhan, China. One managing editor informed Gupta that “we will do an internal investigation soon.” And I received this reply, from MDPI Associate Publisher in Wuhan, Yi Zhang:

“We understand that our approach may have caused frustration and confusion, and we sincerely regret any inconvenience it may have caused.

We may confirm that the investigation on the mentioned case is ongoing following the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics https://publicationethics.org/ of which we are a member and our policy https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark29. We have asked the authors to provide us with the raw/unprocessed data and original images
to support their claims and we are waiting for their reply. Once we receive requested documents, the Editorial Board carefully evaluate them with support from the MDPI Ethics Committee.

We assure you that we take this case very seriously and it is a high priority for us, we will update you on the outcome as soon as we possibly can.”

Of course this is all a smoke screen, to make us go away. The thieving fraudsters will simply provide some replacement data stolen somewhere else, which will resolve all concerns at MDPI.

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Expressions of Unconcern

Society-published Journal of Cell Science informs us that two papers by Thomas Rando contain manipulated data, but it doesn’t affect any conclusions because he is a Stanford professor.

Observe:

Marie-Hélène Disatnik , Stéphane C Boutet , Wilfred Pacio , Annie Y. Chan , Lindsey B. Ross , Christine H. Lee , Thomas A. Rando The bi-directional translocation of MARCKS between membrane and cytosol regulates integrin-mediated muscle cell spreading Journal of Cell Science (2004) doi: 10.1242/jcs.01309

The fake gel bands were shared with this paper, which has other issues:

Marie-Hélène Disatnik , Stéphane C Boutet , Christine H. Lee , Daria Mochly-Rosen , Thomas A. Rando Sequential activation of individual PKC isozymes in integrin-mediated muscle cell spreading: a role for MARCKS in an integrin signaling pathway Journal of Cell Science (2002) doi: 10.1242/jcs.115.10.2151 

The two Expressions of Concern were issued on 24 November 2023, here for the first paper:

“Issues initially raised on PubPeer and our subsequent analysis suggest that there is duplication of bands in the western blot in Fig. 1C from the blot in Fig. 8C of an earlier paper published in Journal of Cell Science from the same lab (Disatnik et al., 2002; doi:10.1242/jcs.115.10.2151). The journal contacted Dr Rando, the corresponding author, to request the original full blots, but unfortunately the data are not available.

The authors have no explanation as to how specific bands from the 2002 figure might have been duplicated to be included in the 2004 paper. The conclusions of the study are unaffected by this error and the authors apologise to readers for any confusion.”

The Expression of Unconcern the second paper:

“Issues initially raised on PubPeer and our subsequent analysis show that the ‘15 min’ image in Fig. 1A shows the same cell field as the ‘↑αPKC’ image in Fig. 5A. The journal contacted Dr Rando, the corresponding author, to request the original images but unfortunately, the data are no longer available. The authors have no explanation for the error other than a mix-up in the preparation of the figures but confirm that the error does not impact the conclusions of the paper.”

This is of course very nasty and arrogant, especially from an allegedly learned society, The Company of Biologists. Also, Rando’s PhD student Marie-Hélène Disatnik continued fudging data as postdoc of one of co-authors above, Rando’s fellow Stanford professor, Daria Mochly-Rosen. Read here:

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Retraction Watchdogging

Opportunity to resubmit

A retraction for the third Kaczyński twin, Mariusz Ratajczak, a Polish stem cell fabulist in USA, whom both his University of Louisville and the Polish far-right of PiS party and Catholic Church adore. Read here:

According to Retraction Watch database, this is Ratajczak’s second retraction after Shirvaikar et al 2010 went plop in May 2022, due to “multiple suspected duplications within the images“. This paper was retracted just now, almost 5 years after Elisabeth Bik reported it to the editor in February 2019:

The retraction appeared on 28 November 2023:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.

The retraction has been issued due to concerns relating to the integrity of the image and data depicted in Figure 1C. The authors, upon presentation with the figure in question, were unable to satisfactorily mitigate the concerns. The authors have been given the opportunity to resubmit, subject to peer review, and if accepted to be published, a link will be included to this retracted version.

The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process.”

Gosh, how what a challange to “resubmit” that trash paper again, which the authors touted as “potential regulatory cell-based therapy for enhancement of engraftment and prevention” of graft-versus-host disease. The last author Suzanne Ildstad has been trying to market this same technology via her own company Regenerex (later renamed Talaris) since 2002, having raised $250 million for clinical trials which all failed. As media reported in February 2023:

“Talaris Therapeutics plans to dial back its research plans and restructure, the latest setback for a biotechnology company that’s been reeling since the death of a patient in a clinical trial last year.
In a Thursday statement, Talaris said it’s halting two of its three ongoing human trials following a strategic review. The two trials being stopped were evaluating a cell therapy meant to build tolerance to a donated kidney following a transplant.”

Maybe this is the reason why Ildstad’s paper with Ratajczak was retracted. Fake preclinical science usually results in deaths of actual patients.

Talaris website doesn’t work now. The company’s head office is in Boston, MA, but its cell processing facility is in Louisville, KY. Also, a Talaris quality control dude named Yiming Huang is adjunct faculty at Ratajczak’s Department of Physiology at University of Louisville.

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Poorly validated

This is the ninths retraction for the former dean of Weill Cornell Medical School Augustine MK Choi, who last year had to resign as Dean and Provost for Medical Affairs after research misconduct investigation.

The peculiar thing about this retraction is that the affected high-profile paper hasn’t been flagged on PubPeer for data manipulation before.

Jong-Seok Moon , Kiichi Nakahira , Kuei-Pin Chung , Gina M DeNicola , Michael Jakun Koo , Maria A Pabón , Kristen T Rooney , Joo-Heon Yoon , Stefan W Ryter , Heather Stout-Delgado , Augustine M K Choi NOX4-dependent fatty acid oxidation promotes NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages Nature Medicine (2016) doi: 10.1038/nm.4153

The paper advocated for the NOX4 inhibitors GKT137831 and VAS-2870 as a therapy against inflammation, the authors declared to have no conflicts of interest. The only PubPeer criticism was posted in 2017 by the German pharmacologist in the Netherlands, Harald H. H. W. Schmidt:

“This paper is poorly validated. The detection of NOX4 relies on a poorly validated antibody, or in fact no one in the field believes that it is specific. Others have shown that siRNAs can be highly unspecific. We and others cannot detect NOX4 in macrophages. This the title and conclusion seem absolutely not valid.”

The retraction notice from 24 November 2023 went:

“The editors are retracting this article at the request of Cornell University, Harvard Medical School and The Brigham and Women’s Hospital. A review of the data in the article, conducted by the referred institutions, determined that the CPT1A panel in Figure 3D and the CPT1A panel in Figure S4A in this article are duplicate images derived from the same source image. Furthermore the institutional review committees were not able to identify reliable source data for any of the experiments reported in the manuscript.

Kiichi Nakahira, Gina M. DeNicola, Kuei-Pin Chung and Maria A. Pabón agree with the retraction.

Jong-Seok Moon, Stefan W. Ryter and Augustine M.K. Choi do not agree with the retraction.

We did not receive a response from authors Michael Jakun Koo, Kristen T. Rooney, Joo-Heon Yoon and Heather Stout-Delgado.”

I made this illustration:

The peculiar thing is that the Cornell-Harvard investigation did not just follow the available PubPeer evidence, but analysed other papers by Choi for presence of data manipulation, and ordered their retractions also. They can do it, when they want to.

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An error during the publication process

A retraction where the publisher Dove Press (part of Taylor & Francis) chose to take part of the blame for image forgeries.

Li-Xia Hu , Hong Wang , Meng Rao, Xiao-Ling Zhao , Jing Yang , Shi-Fu Hu , Jing He , Wei Xia , Hefang Liu , Bo Zhen , Haihong Di , Changsheng Xie , Xianping Xia , Changhong Zhu Alterations in the endometrium of rats, rabbits, and Macaca mulatta that received an implantation of copper/low-density polyethylene nanocomposite International Journal of Nanomedicine (2014) doi: 10.2147/ijn.s56756

The retraction notice from 28 November 2023 stated:

“We, the Editors and Publisher of International Journal of Nanomedicine, have retracted the following article.

Following publication, the authors raised concerns about the duplication of images within the article. Specifically,

• The images for Figure 4C and 4F have been duplicated, as have the images for Figure 4D and 4E.
• The images for Figure 6A and 6B have been duplicated, as have the images for Figure 6C and 6D.

It was noted that some images for Figures 2 and 10 may have duplicated regions, however, this was caused by an error during the publication process.

When approached for an explanation, the authors were cooperative but were unable to provide an adequate explanation for the duplicated images and not all the original data for the study was available. As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, we are therefore retracting the article and the authors agreed with this decision.”

Now, this bit about Figures 2 and 10, where the small areas of duplication were allegedly “caused by an error during the publication process“, i.e., by Dove Press itself:

That Dove Press software created it, is not really credible. Rather, the authors (or their papermill) stole these figures from someone else’s paper and edited out the original labellings. Hence, the tiny duplications.

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Part of the same research network

A very crazy retraction in an Elsevier journal.

Xiaofeng Hu Green economic recovery in Central Asia by utilizing natural resources Resources Policy (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103582

The retraction notice from 24 November 2023 stated:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editors-in-Chief.

The author swapped his accepted article with an entirely new article during the production process. This incorrect article is exactly the same as the published article, “Green economic recovery in central Asia by utilizing natural resources”, Resources Policy, June 2023, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103621 except for highlights and funding details.

The author claimed that he had access to the incorrect paper because he is a part of the same research network and that he accidentally sent the wrong paper. However, it is unclear why the highlights and funding details would be different if the two papers were identical. Since the author’s justification is not acceptable, the Editor decided to retract the article.

The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the publication process.”

What? Maybe, and this is the only explanation I can master: both papers were submitted by the same papermill. By accident, or by malice of an underpaid scrivener, the papermill submitted the same manuscript again. The papermill persons responsible for the cock-up have been sacked.

The papermill persons responsible for the cock-up of the retraction have been sacked as well.

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