The Man Who Fed The World

Our hero is Bernd Müller-Röber, plant science professor at the University of Potsdam, a former Kaiser residence town just east of Berlin. Since 2000, he used to be group leader at the neighbouring Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Molecular Plant Physiology, but this affiliation has been terminated now.

Müller-Röber is also a highly cited researcher and member of the regional and national academies. In 2011, then aged 46, he was appointed as one of 100 most important Germans (and one of four scientists on the list) by the Focus magazine (translated):

“By mid-2011, humanity will number around seven billion people. As a member of the Bioeconomy Council, the molecular biologist works together with colleagues from research and industry to promote plant research. In order to feed the growing world population, agriculture must increase its performance accordingly.”

I cannot say how many people Müller-Röber fed with his science, but he certainly nourished one academic career: that of his PhD student who grew so close to his heart that they became a scientific power couple of their Potsdam lab – Salma Balazadeh. Together they trained countless students and published papers in top journals of their field. Balazadeh is now associate professor at the Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Here is their joint paper, flagged by Aneurus Inconstans:

Mamoona Rauf, Muhammad Arif , Joachim Fisahn , Gang-Ping Xue , Salma Balazadeh, Bernd Mueller-Roeber NAC Transcription Factor SPEEDY HYPONASTIC GROWTH Regulates Flooding-Induced Leaf Movement in Arabidopsis The Plant Cell (2013) doi: 10.1105/tpc.113.117861 

A total mess. Not just duplications, but differently made photographs of the same plant, to fit the experimental expectations. And if the image manipulation does not affect the conclusions for some people, the quantifications were clearly manipulated as well. Nothing in that paper is reliable. It should be retracted.

The first author Mamoona Rauf wrote a long notice on PubPeer where she apologised for “the presentation errors“, announced to “revise the figures 2C, 3A and 5A only” and insisted that all quantifications were correct yet that she will “perform all measurements again for the final corrections of the presentation of results“.

The way we grow as #PhD students, #postdocs, #researchers🙂 https://t.co/PyYcOPtzWI

— Bernd Mueller-Roeber (@BerndMueRoe) April 27, 2023

Now, a source told me that Müller-Röber may have failed to provide proper supervision to his students, by being constantly absent and travelling. There were complaints of his active avoidance, neglect and even ghosting, especially towards students who did not “deliver”. Also the dean of the science faculty of the University of Potsdam, Ralph Gräf, confirmed to me to have been aware of the problems with toxic climate in the Müller-Röber lab.

Müller-Röber remained silent when confronted with these allegations, but he was ready to offload responsibility with his students. He did this on PubPeer and wrote to me, regarding the above paper:

“I had immediately (same day) contacted Dr. Rauf, the first author of the publication (Rauf et al., 2013) who performed most of the experiments reported. Dr. Rauf clearly stated that she did not purposefully manipulate any of the data presented, and so far I have no reason to doubt her response. “

Blake Meyers, the Editor-in-Chief of The Plant Cell, commented to me somewhat cryptically:

“As mentioned in the author response on PubPeer, the authors have promised an explanation to the journal. So let’s just say that it’s an active topic of examination. It is an impressive number of problems for one manuscript.”

The University of Potsdam dean Gräf however was even less convinced, he told me (translated):

“I have now contacted The Plant Cell myself to ensure that the case is handled in accordance with good scientific practice. I assume that it has to be retracted, because the cheating is obvious even to me as a somewhat outsider.“

Also in the next case Müller-Röber announced on PubPeer: “I will ask the person who did the research to check this.”

Hakan Dortay, Usha Madhuri Akula , Christin Westphal , Marie Sittig , Bernd Mueller-Roeber High-throughput protein expression using a combination of ligation-independent cloning (LIC) and infrared fluorescent protein (IFP) detection PLoS ONE (2011) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018900 

If this happens by negligence, how reliable can such science be?

In the next case, one of the most influential Germans admitted on PubPeer to have mislabelled the duplicated images. After a rotation! He didn’t say if a correction was required. Maybe rather a retraction?

Justyna Jadwiga Olas, Federico Apelt , Maria Grazia Annunziata , Sheeba John , Sarah Isabel Richard , Saurabh Gupta , Friedrich Kragler , Salma Balazadeh, Bernd Mueller-Roeber Primary carbohydrate metabolism genes participate in heat-stress memory at the shoot apical meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana Molecular Plant (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2021.05.024

There are other papers by Müller-Röber on PubPeer with image duplications, but he didn’t comment on those, maybe because they were collaborative projects. But this one was done entirely at his MPI Potsdam:

Jonas Krebs, Bernd Mueller-Roeber, Slobodan Ruzicic A novel bipartite nuclear localization signal with an atypically long linker in DOF transcription factors Journal of Plant Physiology (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.jplph.2009.11.016 

Another 100% MPI Potsdam paper:

Ting Wang, Takayuki Tohge , Alexander Ivakov , Bernd Mueller-Roeber , Alisdair R. Fernie, Marek Mutwil , Jos H.M. Schippers , Staffan Persson Salt-Related MYB1 Coordinates Abscisic Acid Biosynthesis and Signaling during Salt Stress in Arabidopsis PLANT PHYSIOLOGY (2015) doi: 10.1104/pp.15.00962

Staffan Persson, then group leader at MPI Potsdam, now professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, immediately explained on PubPeer:

“I have talked to the first author on the paper and we are unsure how this mistake happened, though it appears likely to be a mistake in the submission preparation. I have attached typical seedling plates (one out of many) here that the quantifications were based on. We will of course revise the figure and send the revision to Plant Physiology as soon as possible.“

Aneurus’ reaction was: “I am really impressed how quickly (within hours from my original post) the authors verified the quantifications are perfectly reliable.“

Also in the next case, one of the two corresponding authors (Jos Schippers) was at that time affiliated with MPI Potsdam. Nobody replied on PubPeer here though:

Alvina Grace Lai , Colleen J. Doherty , Bernd Mueller-Roeber , Steve A. Kay , Jos H. M. Schippers, Paul P. Dijkwel CIRCADIAN CLOCK-ASSOCIATED 1 regulates ROS homeostasis and oxidative stress responses Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1209148109 

Now some collaborations with China, with Müller-Röber as the only non-Chinese author. The last author Hongwei Xue used to be Müller-Röber’s postdoc at the MPI in Potsdam and is now President of the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou. They continued to collaborate after Xue’s return home, with Müller-Röber and MPI Potsdam colleagues travelling to China as the photo on the right shows.

Ying Lou , Hui Ma , Wen-Hui Lin , Zhao-Qing Chu , Bernd Mueller-Roeber , Zhi-Hong Xu , Hong-Wei Xue The Highly Charged Region of Plant β-type Phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase is Involved in Membrane Targeting and Phospholipid Binding Plant Molecular Biology (2006) doi: 10.1007/s11103-005-5548-x 

A similarly authored study, again with Xue as last author, and he we know from acknowledgements that the research was done in Potsdam: “Bernd Mueller-Roeber thanks the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm, for providing lab space and access to infrastructure.“

Jun Xu , Charles A. Brearley , Wen-Hui Lin , Yuan Wang , Rui Ye , Bernd Mueller-Roeber , Zhi-Hong Xu , Hong-Wei Xue A role of Arabidopsis inositol polyphosphate kinase, AtIPK2alpha, in pollen germination and root growth PLANT PHYSIOLOGY (2005) doi: 10.1104/pp.104.045427 

Müller-Röber also told me that he “would like to emphasize that none of the experiments performed by Dr. Balazadeh are in question.” That is not exactly true. Here is a paper she published as an independent PI. It was corrected in 2020, before it was discussed on PubPeer:

Mastoureh Sedaghatmehr , Venkatesh P. Thirumalaikumar , Iman Kamranfar , Anne Marmagne , Celine Masclaux-Daubresse , Salma Balazadeh A regulatory role of autophagy for resetting the memory of heat stress in plants Plant Cell & Environment (2019) doi: 10.1111/pce.13426 

The Correction from June 2020 stated:

“It has been noted by the authors that in Figure 2d, the image shown for atg5-1 was a copy of the image shown for atg18a-2, and that Figure 3a (HSP101 band for atg2-1, and the loading control for GAPDH for atg18a-2) did not show the correct bands. Both figures have been corrected. The legends remain the same. These changes do not affect the interpretation of the data and conclusions reported in the paper. […]

This Corrigendum was reviewed and accepted by the Editorial Board based on thorough assessment of the original images.”

This other paper, where Müller-Röber’s scientific soul mate is corresponding author, was originally flagged for a seemingly duplicated image of a leaf:

Xuemin Ma, Youjun Zhang , Veronika Turečková , Gang-Ping Xue , Alisdair R. Fernie, Bernd Mueller-Roeber, Salma Balazadeh The NAC Transcription Factor SlNAP2 Regulates Leaf Senescence and Fruit Yield in Tomato PLANT PHYSIOLOGY (2018) doi: 10.1104/pp.18.00292 

Balazadeh explained to me in an email that it is indeed supposed to be the same leaf, only the images were mislabelled (highlights hers):

“PubPeer published a claim about using an image of the same leaf (Figure 5C-dKD-L4) twice and seemingly editing one of those, as a lobe is missing in one. As seen in my response on PubPeer, the two images represent the same leaf before (0 days) and nine days after the treatment. As fully expected, the structure of the leaf changed throughout the 9-day in vitro treatment (folded leaf lobe, slightly changed color); expecting anything else (i.e., no change) would be entirely surprising.

There is a minor mistake in labeling 0 and 9 days, which does not affect the conclusion of the data or what has been presented in the quantification of the graph. The Journal will decide how to correct that. 

In short, there has been no editing of any image in the manuscript. Here, PubPeer is only focused on image analysis, but they cannot (or are not willing) to consider the underlying biological context. We have full confidence in the integrity of the data and conclusions made.“

However, she admitted on PubPeer:

“However, we realized that the first and last rows of dKD-L4 images were mistakenly swapped during preparation.”

My colleague Aneurus Inconstans and I had a closer look. Here is the figure, the last two rows rearranged as Balazadeh said they should.

We noticed that indeed also other leaves were imaged twice, at day 0 and day 9 (if one accepts the new arrangement). But why was the leaf re-use protocol different for the dKD-L4 group only, which is likely the most important experimental group here? How can a scientist do such sloppy and useless experiments? How can anyone claim “confidence in the integrity of the data and conclusions made” in such a mess?

Balazadeh posted a long reply on PubPeer, yet refused to discuss that utter cock-up of an experimental setup. She announced to publish a correction:

“The correction does not affect the scientific conclusion drawn from the data”

Another case showing how messy the research in Müller-Röber’s lab was. The last author Justyna Olas did PhD under Müller-Röber and stayed on for 8 years as postdoc and project leader in his lab. You saw her problematic paper above, with duplicated and rotated images. She is now group leader at the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, aptly located in the town of Großbeeren, south of Berlin.

Sheeba John , Federico Apelt , Amit Kumar , Ivan F. Acosta , Dominik Bents , Maria Grazia Annunziata , Franziska Fichtner , Caroline Gutjahr, Bernd Mueller-Roeber, Justyna J. Olas The transcription factor HSFA7b controls thermomemory at the shoot apical meristem by regulating ethylene biosynthesis and signaling in Arabidopsis Plant Communications (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.xplc.2023.100743 

Olas explained:

“This overlap, however, is an artifact of the image presentation and not of the experimental data or its interpretation. To ensure maximum compatibility in our experimental design, different genotypes are grown together on the same plate, with each genotype occupying a quarter of the plate (e.g. see Figure 2). This setup can sometimes make cropping the picture for presentation purposes challenging.“

How do they even know for sure where is which genotype? The dishes don’t seem to be marked into sections even. Like, of which genotype are the plants in the overlapping red boxes? Surely it matters to know?

I contacted the research institutions involved, with a request to investigate the past and present goings-on in the Müller-Röber lab.

The Ombudsman of the MPI Potsdam (and of the biosciences area of the Max Planck Society), Mark Stitt, told me this (highlights mine):

“Bernd Müller-Röber is employed as a Professor at the University of Potsdam. He had guest status in the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology but this status has been terminated, and ends at the latest on 29th February 2024. Insofar, it is not clear to me if the MPG or the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology can run a formal investigation. He is not employed by the MPG or the Institute, nor will he be attached in any way to the Institute from the beginning of March on. His employer is the University of Potsdam. It would be incorrect to set up an investigation independently of the University.

[…]

For one of the ten publications, an investigation has been started at the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology. Salma Balazadeh was a group leader at the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology. She left this position in 2022. Salma is senior author on the paper Ma et al. that was published in Plant Physiology in 2018 and contains work done in her group. I cannot anticipate the outcome of the investigation but, if required, corrections will be provided to the journal Plant Physiology and a note added to PubPeer directing readers to any such corrections.“

As reminder, Müller-Röber had a lab at MPI Potsdam since almost quarter a century. And now he is completely out, forever. How will he feed the world now…

I also tried to submit a notification to the Ombudsman of the University of Potsdam, law professor Alexander Windoffer. He replied ordering me to contact the dean instead, because it was not his job to deal with my notification (as proof, he attached his university’s guidelines which actually proved it was exactly his job). The Ombudsman also kindly informed me of my civil and criminal liability for inappropriate allegations.

Never mind, I contacted the dean of the science faculty and professor of cell biology, Ralf Gräf. After some misunderstandings and frustrating email exchanges, Gräf announced to me to open a research misconduct investigation, which will also address the problem of the toxic lab climate in Müller-Röber’s lab. Gräf also suggested I contact the Leiden University in the Netherlands, where Balazadeh is now associate professor.

But the Leiden University replied by announcing to delete all my emails. Well, their own power couple Bernhard Hommel and Lorenza Colzato first buggered of to Dresden, stumbled over my reporting there, and are now in China.

Maybe Müller-Röber will go to China also? Will anyone follow?

---