Schneider Shorts 22.12.2023 – Merry Christmas!

Schneider Shorts of 22 December 2023 – trachea transplanters in London wish to continue, retractions happening when hope was lost, Welsh approach to papermilling, with an Italian researcher harassed, a role model debunked, and finally, with Sholto’s Science Police Christmas special!

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Science Elites

A feasible option for tracheal reconstruction in paediatric patients

Paolo Macchiarini scandal of deadly trachea transplants is back in the news, what with his court sentencing in Sweden (which he tries to convert to a parole in Spain) and the Netflix documentary “Bad Surgeon” (against which he now deployed lawyers). But Macchiarini’s former collaborators, especially those in London: Martin Birchall, Paolo De Coppi, Martin Elliott – they all managed to stay completely out of the limelight, and got officially whitewashed by the UCL investigation and celebrated in Guardian even.

But if you think these fine London doctors eventually dropped their plans to kill, pardon to cure people with bioengineered trachea transplants – nope. They still openly advocate for that in papers and at the conferences, here a poster abstract from just a few months ago:

M. Ramaswamy , C. Butler , D. McIntyre , N. McIntosh , E. Mann , R. Hewitt , P. De Coppi , M. Elliott , N. Muthialu (668) Stem-Cell Based Tissue-Engineered Tracheal Transplant in Pediatric Patients: A Single-Centre Experience The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.healun.2023.02.682 

Purpose

To report our institution’s experience of employing autologous stem-cell based decellularized tissue-engineered graft in reconstructing trachea in paediatric patients when conventional reconstructive surgical interventions have failed.

Methods

Three paediatric patients underwent autologous stem-cell seeded decellularized tracheal graft in the last twelve years. Their pre-operative characteristics including primary diagnosis, previous airway interventions, and post-operative outcomes including survival and quality of life in regard to respiratory status were evaluated.

Results

Out of three transplanted pediatric patients, two have survived till date. The first patient, male, with multiple co-morbidities, was ten years when transplanted (now 23 years, 12.6 years follow-up) having undergone pericardial patch tracheoplasty as a neonate for congenital tracheal stenosis followed by cadaveric tracheal homograft at two years of age for erosion of an implanted metal tracheal stent. This patient now has a metal stent in the trachea to support the graft. The second patient, female, with co-morbidities of absent right lung and cleft palate, was sixteen years at transplantation having undergone two tracheoplasty procedures in infancy and at three years of age for congenital tracheal stenosis. This patient died three weeks post-transplantation due to acute airway obstruction likely from an intrathoracic bleed. This case highlighted consideration of using tracheal stent post-transplantation until the graft can attain strength. The third patient, female, with no co-morbidities, was transplanted at four years of age (now 9 years, 5.4 years follow-up) having undergone two tracheoplasty repairs at two and four years of age for a caustic tracheo-esophageal injury sustained after ingesting a button battery. Surviving two patients have regular airway surveillance including bronchoscopy, ciliary and biopsy assessments. Both have an acceptable quality of life, a good exercise tolerance, and does not require any respiratory support.

Conclusion

Autologous stem-cell seeded, decellularized tissue-engineered graft usage can be considered a feasible option for tracheal reconstruction in paediatric patients when conventional surgical interventions have failed until a suitable alternative is found for which further research is required.

You can read about the Patient 2, Ciaran Lynch, here:

Ciaran’s transplant was actually performed in 2010 by Macchiarini personally, but then the boys fell out over money, Birchall, De Coppi and Elliott kicked Macchiarini off their Lancet paper (Birchall et al 2013) and claim ever since that the operation was a full success. Nobody knows what kind of treatment Ciaran received since, it is known that he is wheelchair-bound (which in the world of Birchall et al translates as “a good exercise tolerance“). Very little is known about the third child patient, except for some clues in the group’s recent papers (Thakkar et al 2018, Elliott et al 2021). The second child patient, Shawna Davison, was literally killed by the trachea transplant intervention, but Birchall. Elliott and De Coppi managed to celebrate their maverick feat on BBC and in research papers even after Shawna died. They still blame everyone but themselves. Read here:

At least we (Patricia Murray, Elizabeth Woeckner and myself) succeeded to prevent Birchall’s clinical trials and further “compassionate” tests on humans. But we failed to convinced journalists that Macchiarini’s murderous technology lives on. In London even.

Years after their clinical trials were terminated, UCL, Birchall and De Coppi still insist:

“Phase I/II clinical trials for tissue engineered laryngeal, tracheal and oesophageal implants are active/in set-up.”

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Same are doing the “no vax”

Lorena Perrone is associate professor of Kore University of Enna in Italy, a feudal research institution founded in 2004 (not a typo) and presided by the governor of that Sicilian province. Perrone posts very interesting replies on PubPeer. Not only on her own papers!

She took issue with criticism of a paper by Bart De Strooper, a fellow neuroscientist from Belgium who has a second lab at UCL in London, UK. De Strooper is not a nice guy. He tolerates no criticism and gets aggressive when his papers are questioned for data integrity. Including producing anonymous “experts” and bullying journals to republish papers he was made to retract.

The story starts with a spliced gel.

De Strooper replied on PubPeer, complaining about being harassed. He also protested against the anonymity of the commenters, demanded that they identify themselves, all while mentioning a “risk of juridical litigation” – which can be interpreted as his threat to sue his critics. What he however never explained was why that gel lane was spliced. Instead:

“Nowadays we would indicate how this figure was assembled, but this is work of more than 19 years ago. In any event it is clear that we did not try to hide anything. For the scientists: this picture shows a non-specific band that we picked up in the procedure. […] In any event I stick to the data and the conclusions of this manuscript that was based on solid data and several lines of evidence, that was peer reviewed, and has stood the test of time.”

Well I don’t know, but other scientists, diligent and honest ones for example, do not have hidden splices in their gels. But then again, they also fail to get at the success, money and power De Strooper achieved academically. So under the circumstances, Bully Bart does things “right”, no?

This is where Perrone arrived to defend De Strooper (typos hers):

“such kind of comment s only personal. The citation of comments of Pr. Bart de Strooper is only a personal comment…nothing scientific…only a personal statement. SEnd once 1 hour comments about the fogures, without read the publication, accusing everybody..is NOT scientific. It is the same are doing the “no vax”, willing to demonstrate that the whole scientific environment is wrong.“

Yes, she equalled image integrity sleuths to antivaxxers and covidiots. But why?

That’s why. In October 2023, this paper coauthored by Perrone was flagged by Cheshire on PubPeer:

Mariarosa Anna. Beatrice Melone , Clemente Dato , Simona Paladino , Cinzia Coppola , Claudia Trebini , Maria Teresa Giordana , Lorena Perrone Verapamil Inhibits Ser202/Thr205 Phosphorylation of Tau by Blocking TXNIP/ROS/p38 MAPK Pathway Pharmaceutical Research (2018) doi: 10.1007/s11095-017-2276-2 

Perrone replied in November 2023 with an image of “the full gel of one of the experiments used to quantify the data“. Problem is, her new gel matched nothing in the figure. Perrone then posted 3 new gels and a new figure made of them. Which again had nothing to do with questioned Figure 5a, as Cheshire visualised:

Perrone got angry:

“I do not understand the last comment. it is quite unusual to receive all these strange comments from only 1 person, with a “fantasy” name..and then anonymous. It may appear a personal question..using pubpeer”

She then added:

“I repeat, since there is only one person really acting against me, and I answered, providing data. However, this person. is still complaining..in an anonymous way. There are tons of complaining by 1 person in pubpeer…but it seems that this person want affect me,..even when I provide the data. Perhaps, there are some “personal”…”

Yes, I am sure that Cheshire, who is not a scientist and in USA, has a personal grudge against some Sicilian neuroscientist none of us ever heard of before.

Perrone then posted yet another set of data, a replacement version for the Figure 5a (see the comparison on the right). She also stated:

“There was a mistake on the data assembly. I requested to the journal to correct and publish an erratum. I provided all the correct figures and the full gel images.”

Cheshire was still concerned:

“Why are none of the bands that appear in the original Figure 5a visible in the replacement figure?
How does this affect the accompanying quantification in Figure 5? The replacement figure signals seem quite different than the original.”

No reply.

No reply here so far also, but admittedly this paper was flagged just days ago:

Lorena Perrone, Gianfranco Peluso , Mariarosa AB Melone RAGE recycles at the plasma membrane in S100B secretory vesicles and promotes Schwann cells morphological changes Journal of Cellular Physiology (2008) doi: 10.1002/jcp.21474

Perrone’s troubles with research integrity, and with being caught with fudged data, are quite old.

The paper received an Editorial Expression of Concern in November 2021:

“The Editors were alerted in 2013 that the blots depicted in several figures show unusual levels of similarity. The journal investigated the matter at the time and did not find conclusive evidence to support the allegations. The same allegations were brought to the Editors’ attention again in 2021.
On both occasions, the Authors have not been able to provide the original data. The matter has been referred to the Author’s institution for further investigation.”

In August 2022, a lenghty Editorial Note appeared, excerpt:

“The authors confirm that the APE/Ref-1 bands in both cytoplasm and nucleus panels as well as the actin bands in Figure 4B lanes 5 and 6 are indeed the same as those reported in Figure 4D (lanes 1 and 2) and in Figure 3A (lanes 9 and 10). These panels were included in multiple figures as a reference and the treatment indicated is the same in all figures where these panels are shown [CHX (15 μg/ml) and ATP (100 μM, 10 min].

Figure 5B

vertical changes in background between lanes 5, 6 and 7.

The authors have provided another contemporary bandshift experiment in which they showed the same effects of BAPTA and DPI on AP1 binding activity as the one reported in the article.

The institutional report concludes:

‘In light of the site visit, the study of the work and of the rules that scientific journals had at the time of the publication of the article, of the repetition of the experiments ‘under investigation’, the commission unanimously believes that there has been no alteration of the figures or the published results, as amply demonstrated by the repetition of the experiments with the same reagents and protocols and by how the scientific community, based on the published data in the NAR paper under investigation in this report, was able to progress in the study of the APE1 protein without detecting any conflicting data.’

In conclusion, in the absence of original data, the Editors cannot conclusively confirm whether or not the results and conclusions presented in the article are affected.”

Yes, a typical Italian investigation. Fake data is always 100% reliable even if it never existed, and the only perpetrators ever found guilty of fraud in Italian universities are probably the whistleblowers.

No wonder Perrone ran to De Strooper’s defence.

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Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry proudly appointed another science genius as editor of the journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels, Tharamani C. Nagaiah:

“Thara is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar, India. […]

She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships such as the Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Germany, and the Ramanujan Fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry admitted through the “Leaders in the field” scheme and an elected Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society. She is a recipient of the CRSI-Bronze Medal 2023 from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Silver Medal of CRS 2023 from the Society Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha, as well as the ECSI National Metrohm Award 2023 from the Electrochemical Society of India and the A.V. Rama Rao prize for Women 2024 from the Chemical Research Society of India.”

A role model indeed, for all Women in Fake Science. A PubPeer sleuth flagged already 6 papers of hers. From Nagaiah’s postdoctoral studies at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany:

Chen Jin , Wei Xia , Tharamani Chikka Nagaiah , Junsong Guo , Xingxing Chen , Michael Bron , Wolfgang Schuhmann, Martin Muhler On the role of the thermal treatment of sulfided Rh/CNT catalysts applied in the oxygen reduction reaction Electrochimica Acta (2009) doi: 10.1016/j.electacta.2009.06.095

Noteworthy, the corresponding author Wolfgang Schuhmann is also an Ombudsman for research integrity of his Bochum university. His colleague announced to me to open an investigation, while Schuhmann will recuse himself.

Some of Nagaiah’s later studies, as professor in India:

Simran Kaur Dhillon , Amit Chaturvedi , Divyani Gupta , Tharamani C. Nagaiah , Patit Paban Kundu Copper nanoparticles embedded in polyaniline derived nitrogen-doped carbon as electrocatalyst for bio-energy generation in microbial fuel cells Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2022) doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-21437-x

More duplicated spectra, and duplicated electron microscopy data:

The most recent one recycles data from an earlier paper. Which was falsified also.

Mukesh Kumar , Tharamani C. Nagaiah A NiCu–MoS₂ electrocatalyst for pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction and Zn–air batteries driven self-power water splitting Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2023) doi: 10.1039/d3ta02668j 

Nagaiah explained on PubPeer that there are also some tiny peak differences between the spectra, and otherwise the results are supposed to be identical.

Update: worth mentioning who the Editor-in-Chief of RSC’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A is – Anders Hagfeldt, rector of the University of Uppsala in Sweden. He was caught with fake data also…

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We cannot find any evidence of wrongdoing

In January 2022, Alexander Magazinov contacted the Aberystwyth University in UK. That being in Wales, where research fraud and trash pseudoscience is not something they really crack down on, quite the opposite.

Now, Magazinov’s issue was with a certain (now former) postdoctoral fellow of this Welsh university: Afshin Davarpanah. This Iranian gentleman is a massive papermiller, who buys both the authorships on papers and the citations to papers he bought authorships on. His own publications are in turn citation vehicles to himself and to other papermilling fraudsters: enormous, massive blocks of nonsense references are inserted. Be invited to visit his massive PubPeer record. And he is also mentioned here:

Some examples. Daverpanah, sporting an affiliation at the University of Cordoba in Spain (thanks to Rafael Luque?), with the russian papermilling fraudster Dmitry Bokov as coauthor, published in MDPI special issue edited by another papermilling fraudster, Awais Ahmad:

Mohammad Rafe Hatshan , Sadia Aslam , Dmitry Bokov , Ahmed Jaber Ibrahim, Yasser Fakri Mustafa, Afshin Davarpanah , Marischa Elveny, Shafaqat Ali Advanced Binder-Free Electrode Based on CuCo2O4 Nanowires Coated with Polypyrrole Layer as a High-Performance Nonenzymatic Glucose Sensing Platform Coatings (2021) doi: 10.3390/coatings11121462 

The rest by Davarpanah is similarly awful. It is not clear how he ended up at Aberystwyth as postdoc of Simon Cox, then-president of the British Society of Rheology. Davarpanah previously sported a FAKE affiliation with Luleå University of Technology in Sweden (see trash citation vehicle Syah et al 2021), for which Lulea scientists announced to sue Davarpanah in court. With his new and real Aberystwyth affiliation, Davarpanah published this, with his Chinese papermilling colleagues and a russian dentist:

Yanqiu Hu , Zeyuan Zhao , Huijie Dong, Maria Vladimirovna Mikhailova , Afshin Davarpanah Hybrid Application of Nanoparticles and Polymer in Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes Polymers (2021) doi: 10.3390/polym13091414

The Welsh university received from Magazinov further examples of Davarpanah’s collaboration with russian papermilling fraudsters. When the sleuth contacted the Aberystwyth University once again in September 2022, this paper was already retracted:

Rahmad Syah , Mohammad Rezaei, Marischa Elveny , Meysam Majidi Nezhad, Dadan Ramdan, Mehdi Nesaht, Afshin Davarpanah Day-ahead electricity price forecasting using WPT, VMI, LSSVM-based self adaptive fuzzy kernel and modified HBMO algorithm Scientific Reports (2021) doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-96501-6 

It was plagiarised and had over 70 nonsense references, inserted block-wise. The “author” Rahman Syah used ChatGPT to reply on PubPeer. The Retraction notice from 10 February 2022 stated:

“Following publication of this Article, a number of overlaps were identified between the data presented in Tables 2, 3 and 8, and the previous literature^1,2,3. In addition, concerns have been raised about the relevance of the references provided, and accuracy of the authorship contributions. The authors were unable to provide a revised version with valid referencing, and unambiguously establish the veracity of the authorship contributions. Given these concerns the Editors no longer have confidence in the study.”

In September 2022, Magazinov wondered why it takes so long for the Aberystwyth University to investigate their employee Davarpanah. Cox already published some papers with Davarpanah. Professor Helen Roberts, whose title is “Nominated Coordinator of the Procedure for the Investigation of Misconduct in Research“, informed Magazinov on 24 September 2022:

“I can confirm that the allegations you raise have progressed in accordance with our Procedure for the Investigation of Misconduct in Research. They have reached Formal Investigation stage, and I am awaiting the findings of the Investigation Panel. […] As outlined in the procedure, we will inform you of the conclusion of the Formal Investigation.“

Well. In February 2023, Cox happily published yet another paper with Davarpanah, no concerns at all obviously. At some point the Iranian papermiller left Aberystwyth, his profile webpage got deleted since. But what about the investigation? Almost TWO YEARS have passed! Roberts sternly told Magazinov on 20 December 2023:

“…the University conducted its own extensive and thorough investigation which formed the basis of allegations of Misconduct in Research that were considered through our formal University processes. As I explained at the time, whilst the University was restricted in terms of the information it could communicate to you regarding the investigation and outcome of the case involving Afshin Davarpanah, we did however inform you that the University is taking steps to correct the research record as appropriate. “

As you can observe, the fraudulent papermilled Hu et al 2021 and other trash by Davarpanah with Aberystwyth affiliation stands safe as houses. So much for correcting the research record.

In between, Magazinov reported another suspicious paper. Aberystwyth professor of psychology, Charles Musselwhite, turned out to be also an expert in car disposal policies. His actual expertise is described to be ageing as well as transportation and health, but apparently anything about cars is his scientific metier. Especially cars in Indonesia:

Charli Sitinjak , Vladimir Simic , Rozmi Ismail , Nebojsa Bacanin , Charles Musselwhite Barriers to effective implementation of end-of-life vehicle management in Indonesia Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2023) doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-28554-1 

The study also has some strange references. Only the first author has a (tertiary) affiliation in Indonesia. There are two Serbian co-authors, one of them, Nebojsa Bacanin is a computer scientist and Vice-rector for Scientific Research at the Singidunum University in Belgrade. He is also a papermiller. Baalamurugan et al 2023 is plagiarised, Strumberger et al 2019 cites papermill fraudster N. Arunkumar, and Ahmed et al 2022 was published in a genetics journal with such an insane papermill scam behind it, Maarten van Kampen wrote a whole article about it:

Enough to raise concern and to at least ask Professor Musselwhite to stop abusing his white Western European privilege by signing his name on whatever Asian papermillers offer him for free. But the Nominated Coordinator Roberts was having none of it:

“we cannot find any evidence of wrongdoing, malpractice or misconduct on the part of Charles Musselwhite or his association with the lead author, Charli Sitinjak, or regarding Charles Musselwhite’s involvement in this research paper or his contribution to the work. The paper itself was considered carefully, but beyond the three references that you yourself note on PubPeer “may be sub-optimal”, we can find no other matters of concern in the paper, and can find no evidence of misconduct“

She also educated Magazinov that Professor Musselwhite was very much expert in car disposal policies:

“Contrary to what is implied in your message, Professor Musselwhite’s research experience and research interests are of direct relevance to the paper that your query highlights. The research paper focuses upon minimizing the environmental and health impacts of Indonesia’s growing automotive industry, and Professor Musselwhite’s research applies social, environmental and health psychology to understand and improve relationships between the built environment and transportation and health. “

Spoiler: the paper does not focus on “minimizing the environmental and health impacts“, but on effective end-of-life vehicle management. But yes, Professor Musselwhite is still an expert. Because he owns a car, right?

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Scholarly Publishing

Therefore and because

A German nobleman valiantly defended a fellow German professor from anonymous harassment.

On 17 December 2023, Aneurus Inconstans reported a paper by Christoph Thiemermann, professor at Queen Mary University London (QMUL), and author of 70 fraudulent papers as recorded on PubPeer. Read here:

Another coauthor is Thiemermann’s QMUL colleague Ken Suzuki, so there were enough red flags. Actually, a sea of red flags as far as an eye can see.

This is the paper, to defend which a German aristocrat had to draw his metaphorical sword in ire at some peasant’s insolence:

Matthew J. Lovell , Mohammed Yasin , Kate L. Lee , King Kenneth Cheung , Yasunori Shintani , Massimo Collino , Ahila Sivarajah , Kit-yi Leung, Kunihiko Takahashi , Amar Kapoor , Mohammed M. Yaqoob, Ken Suzuki, Mark F. Lythgoe, John Martin , Patricia B. Munroe, Chris Thiemermann, Anthony Mathur Bone marrow mononuclear cells reduce myocardial reperfusion injury by activating the PI3K/Akt survival pathway Atherosclerosis (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2010.07.045 

As an additional red flag, the QMUL PhD thesis of the second author and Thiemermann’s mentee Mohammed Yasin contains falsifications:

And now. Bow down, for a Nobleman enters. Freiherr Arnold von Eckardstein, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Arteriosclerosis, Professor of Clinical Chemistry at the University of Zürich in Switzerland, and heir to the Prussian noble family, put the humble Aneurus in his place, just 3 days later:

“We checked your accusation with our software ProofFig and could not verify your accusation. Therefore and because you submitted your accusation as an anonymous pseudonym we will not pursue this case“

I wrote back non-anonymously, but His Highness had no time to spare for us riff-raff. It is impressive though how successful Dror Kolodkin-Gal‘s Proofig business is, which is not really about finding fraud in published papers, but about authoritatively assuring journal editors what they wish to hear: that there is no fraud to be found. This is where the REAL market is, kids, and that market is HUGE.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Anomalies do not affect the conclusions

Another high-profile retraction for the fallen Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. A Nature paper from his time a senior researcher at the company Genentech.

This Nature retraction follows Tessier-Lavigne’s two retractions in Science and one in Cell. The paper was flagged on PubPeer by Matthew Schrag, the first author Anatoly Nikolaev was implicated in research fraud at Genentech, which Tessier-Lavigne covered up, see earlier Friday Shorts.

Anatoly Nikolaev , Todd McLaughlin , Dennis D. M. O’Leary , Marc Tessier-Lavigne APP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspases Nature (2009) doi: 10.1038/nature07767 

The Retraction was published on 18 December 2023:

“The authors have retracted this article¹. Our subsequent work confirmed aspects of the article, notably that DR6 and APP interact and function in a genetic pathway involving caspases to control axon pruning and neuron death^2,3. However, our later research also showed that certain conclusions reached in the article were incorrect, notably the role of caspase-3, the necessity for beta-secretase enzyme activity for APP-DR6 binding, and the model for the APP-DR6 interaction^2,3.

More recently, the following anomalies were identified:

• Figure 1d: the NGF-deprived +IgG panel appears to be identical to the NGF-deprived, 24h + Control IgG panel of Figure 5e.
• Supplementary information Figure 9c: the NGF-deprived + Bax inhibitor control panel appears to be identical to the + anti-NGF control panel of Supplementary information Figure 17c.
• Supplementary information Figure 6d: the fourth beta-Actin blot for Casp-3 siRNA appears to be identical to the first beta-Actin blot for Casp-6 siRNA.
• Certain biostatistical calculations underlying some figures contained errors.

We believe that these additional anomalies do not affect the conclusions presented in the affected figures. However, given the lack of original data for several of these figures due to the age of the paper, and since our subsequent research showed that certain specific claims in the original article were not correct and we reported a correction for those claims elsewhere^2,3, we consider that the appropriate course of action is to retract the article. All the authors agree with this retraction.”

Conclusions both incorrect and unaffected? An anomaly indeed.

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Working with the parties involved

A retraction at Elsevier’s Cell Press, who usually don’t retract papers even when universities ask them to. But in case of an elite US institution, even Cell Press had to eventually comply. Eight years later.

Nathan C. Boles , Sarah E. Hirsch , Sheila Le , Barbara Corneo , Fadi Najm , Andrew P. Minotti , Qingjie Wang , Steven Lotz , Paul J. Tesar , Christopher A. Fasano NPTX1 regulates neural lineage specification from human pluripotent stem cells Cell Reports (2014) doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2014.01.026

The evidence was posted on PubPeer in 2015, and the last author Christopher Fasano, back then research director at the Neural Stem Cell Institute (NSCI) in New York, replied in December 2015 on PubPeer:

“Upon investigation we have concluded the panel in question (Figure 6B) was added by mistake and since then, we have identified the correct panel. In addition, we have repeated the experiment in question (double blind, independently) and have confirmed the result. We now have the correct images. We are working with the parties involved to ensure the mistake is corrected.”

The retraction appeared exactly 8 years later, on 20 December 2023.

“This article has been retracted at the request of the authors, save for Dr. Fasano, who did not respond to the editors’ request to review the retraction, following the results of an investigation by the Regenerative Research Foundation – Neural Stem Cell Institute. The investigation was prompted by potential issues identified by readers about the data and procedures reported in the article and concluded that images in Figure 6B had been manipulated. The presence of image manipulation undermines the authors’ confidence in the work, and they believe that the most responsible course of action is to retract the paper. The authors sincerely apologize to the scientific community for any problems encountered due to the publication and retraction of this manuscript.”

Now, the investigation is in fact also 8 years old, but Cell Press managed to ignore the requests so far. New York Post reported in March 2016 about the PubPeer accusations:

“A research director at an upstate institute receiving millions in taxpayer dough has been suspended after critics questioned some of his work, The Post has learned.

Christopher Fasano, 35, published findings of trials at the Neuro Stem Cell Research Institute, which is backed by tens of millions of dollars from private investors and public grants. […] Fasano was placed on administrative leave last month while a foundation that oversees the Neuro Stem Cell Institute investigates, sources said. […] His lawyer, Kevin McCarthy, said all sides had promised confidentiality because federal laws on research misconduct allegations mandate secrecy.”

Fasano left NSCI and academia in general in December 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile he sequentially worked at 4 different biotech start-ups between then and 2022. He is now “advancing kid’s health by raising awareness on mental health issues“, i.e. selling neurobollocks to concerned parents.

Specifically, the New York Post article mentioned this paper, its last authors are NSCI director Sally Temple and other US neuroscience bigwigs, Lorenz Studer and the late Ihor Lemischka:

Christopher A. Fasano , Timothy N. Phoenix , Erzsebet Kokovay , Natalia Lowry , Yechiel Elkabetz , John T. Dimos , Ihor R. Lemischka , Lorenz Studer , Sally Temple Bmi-1 cooperates with Foxg1 to maintain neural stem cell self-renewal in the forebrain Genes & Development (2009) doi: 10.1101/gad.1743709 

Back in 2015, Fasano left a similar message on PubPeer, which apparently convinced the editors of Genes & Development to do nothing at all. Not really surprising, sometimes society journals can be worse than Elsevier.

Two more Cell Press papers by Fasano were retracted earlier this year, both were flagged in late 2015 already. Here is one, again with Temple and Lemishka as senior authors:

Christopher A. Fasano , John T. Dimos , Natalia B. Ivanova , Natalia Lowry , Ihor R. Lemischka , Sally Temple shRNA knockdown of Bmi-1 reveals a critical role for p21-Rb pathway in NSC self-renewal during development Cell stem cell (2007) doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2007.04.001 

The retraction notice appeared on 1 June 2023:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the authors. This article reported that the p21-Rb pathway is important for neural stem cell self-renewal revealed upon Bmi1 knockdown. The authors were alerted by readers that Figure 1C and Figures 4A and 4B included repeatedly used bands, which called into question the validation of knockdown and overexpression constructs and the interaction between Bmi1, p21, and Ink4a/Arf. The Regenerative Research Foundation conducted an investigation following its policies and the NIH Office of Research Integrity guidelines and determined that there had been image manipulation in these figures. Given these circumstances, the authors believe that the most responsible course of action is to retract the paper. The authors sincerely apologize to the scientific community for any problems encountered due to the publication and retraction of this manuscript. N.B.I., N.L., J.T.D., and S.T. agreed with and signed the retraction notice. I.R.L. is deceased. C.A.F. did not agree with the retraction.”

Lemishka died in 2017. And here is the second retraction for Fasano in the same Cell Press journal:

Christopher A. Fasano, Stuart M. Chambers , Gabsang Lee , Mark J. Tomishima , Lorenz Studer Efficient derivation of functional floor plate tissue from human embryonic stem cells Cell stem cell (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2010.03.001 

The retraction notice from 1 June 2023 was similar to the one above, mentioning the NSCI investigation and Fasano’s refusal, while specifying:

“….Figure 2B and Figure 5M show re-use of the controls, with changes in aspect ratio for different days of treatment and shared image elements; Figure 5F and Figure 6A display re-use of two control images with changes in aspect ratio; and Figure 5I and Figure 5M show re-use of controls with change in aspect ratio and selective color enhancements.”

Took Cell Press 8 years to pull papers by a guy who was kicked out 8 years ago. And some publishers don’t retract even now.

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A whistle-blower complaint

A papermill retraction which is not labelled as such. Among its coauthors are the known papermillers Muhammad Mubashir and Pau Loke Show.

Olakunle Oloruntobi , Lai Fatt Chuah, Kasypi Mokhtar , Adel Gohari , Vincent Onigbara , Jing Xiang Chung , Muhammad Mubashir , Saira Asif , Pau Loke Show , Ning Han Assessing methanol potential as a cleaner marine fuel: An analysis of its implications on emissions and regulation compliance Cleaner Engineering and Technology (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.clet.2023.100639 

There is no separate retraction notice, only this on the article page:

“Following a whistle-blower complaint, an investigation indicated unauthorized use of images in the Graphical Abstract of this paper from LEC GmbH, and it was specifically created for the EU project ‘HyMethShip’. The authors admitted the unauthorized use of images and the Editor-in-Chief would like to retract the article.”

The last and corresponding author Ning Han used to be a PhD student at KU Leuven in Belgium, he had his PhD thesis defencein April 2023, title: “Rational Design of Oxide Catalyst for Oxygen (Electro)Catalysis and Related Applications“. The young man already has 136 publications (39 in 2023 and 28 in 2022) and ~3200 citations to his name. Among his collaborators are known papermillers, including Raphael Luque.

Here a nice fake paper by Ning Han’s regular coauthors:

Mamoona Munir , Mushtaq Ahmad , Muhammad Mubashir , Saira Asif , Amir Waseem , Ahmad Mukhtar , Sidra Saqib , Heli Siti Halimatul Munawaroh , Man Kee Lam , Kuan Shiong Khoo , Awais Bokhari , Pau Loke Show A practical approach for synthesis of biodiesel via non-edible seeds oils using trimetallic based montmorillonite nano-catalyst Bioresource Technology (2021)
doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124859 

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The Editor-in-Chief assessed the case

Elsevier journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy is overrun by papermills, but more recently it started to issue retractions.

I wrote in earlier Friday Shorts from September 2022 about the Editor-in-Chief Danyelle Townsend, and the Ethics Editor Kenneth Tew (both professors at the University of South Carolina in USA) having ignored the requests from the Office of the Academic Committee at Jiangsu Normal University (ACJNU) to retract some fraudulent papers, namely Shen et al 2017, Jin et al 2017 and Cai et al 2017. Townsend and Tew also ignored my emails, and emails from my colleagues.

But now they retracted all these 3 papers (and many more). The retraction notices are similar, so I will show just one of them, dated 31 December 2023 like the others:

Min Shen , Shan Wang , Xin Wen , Xin-Rui Han , Yong-Jian Wang , Xiu-Min Zhou , Man-He Zhang , Dong-Mei Wu , Jun Lu , Yuan-Lin Zheng Dexmedetomidine exerts neuroprotective effect via the activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway in rats with traumatic brain injury Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2017.08.125

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

Concern was raised about the reliability of the Western blot results in Figs 3A, 5C and 7A which appear to have a similar phenotype as many other publications, as detailed here: https://pubpeer.com/publications/7D9475A7397928053FFE9442F8E943; and here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r0MyIYpagBc58BRF9c3luWNlCX8VUvUuPyYYXzxWvgY/edit#gid=262337249. Several additional suspected image duplication issues were also identified in Figs. 3A, 5A, and 7A. The journal requested the corresponding authors comment on these concerns and provide the raw data. The authors were unable to provide a satisfactory explanation or the raw data. The Supervision Committee of the National Natural Science Foundation of China launched an investigation into several papers of Jiangsu Normal University, including this one, and found evidence of “Falsification of pictures or data, fabrication of research process, use of others’ signatures without consent, and false information in project final reports”, as detailed here: https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/table442/info85495.htm. The Academic Committee at Jiangsu Normal University requested retraction of the article. The Editor-in-Chief assessed the case and decided to retract the article.”

The linked Google Sheets file belongs to Smut Clyde and describes the Chinese “Contractor” papermill he uncovered, described here:

So you see, it took these brave editors merely 3 years to act. Turned out, there are many more retractions in this journal, 72 in 2023 alone. Many refer to the Google Sheets file and/or PubPeer posts by Smut Clyde.

Here is another recent arrival:

Rasool Haddadi, Alireza Mohajjel Nayebi, Shahla Eyvari Brooshghalan Silymarin prevents apoptosis through inhibiting the Bax/caspase-3 expression and suppresses toll like receptor-4 pathway in the SNc of 6-OHDA intoxicated rats Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2018.05.020

The evidence was posted by Dysdera arabisenen in February 2023, and the retraction notice appeared on 20 December 2023:

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

The journal was alerted about issues with images within Figure 2, which appear to have multiple duplications, as detailed here: PubPeer – Silymarin prevents apoptosis through inhibiting the Bax/casp…. The journal requested the authors to provide an explanation to these concerns and associated raw data, but this request was not satisfactorily fulfilled. The Editor-in-Chief assessed the case and decided to retract the article.”

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Oyepata Force in Opeyemi Universe

And because it is Christmas, here is your present. Sholto David‘s piping hot Science Police video on YouTube about the retractions he achieved in 2023:

Includes this retraction (no notice available):

Joseph Oyepata Simeon, Joseph Opeyemi Tosin Update report on Virological and mortality distribution and implication of Covid -19 pandemic across the globe from 28th January to 3rd February, 2022 International Journal of Epidemiology and Health Sciences (2023) doi: 10.51757/ijehs.4.2023.696940 

As Sholto noticed, this paper about COVID-19 has “89 references, including 56 to the author’s own previous works“. And: “in-text citations finish at 41“, and reference 77 is to this masterpiece:

Joseph Simeon Oyepata The Earth: A Lost Planet from another Universe International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Analysis (2021) doi: 10.47191/ijmra/v4-i12-04

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