Simone Fulda: Open4Work!

It went very fast. On 10 February 2024, the German paediatric oncologist Simone Fulda resigned as President of the University of Kiel, just 3 days after the reports in Kieler Nachrichten (a local newspaper) and on NDR (public media) referenced my article about her PubPeer record of bad science.

It is of course more complicated. My article from 22 January 2024, summing up the findings of Clare Francis and Cheshire, coincided with Fulda’s spectacular failure as university leader, and Kiel scientists used it to take revenge, not just internally – they contacted the media. Here is the coverage by Kieler Nachrichten (translated):

“The Christian Albrechts University (CAU) in Kiel entered the race for clusters of excellence with three new research projects – and cannot prevail with none of them before the international panel of experts. Schleswig-Holstein participates with no new projects in the competition for fresh funding. It’s about three up to ten million euros each year, flowing for seven years in a cluster of excellence.”

Three newly proposed big multimillion-euro heavy research projects in Kiel – „Evolutionary Rescue“ (ecology), „Networked Matter“ (materials science) and the high prestige Geomar collaboration “Ocean Health“ tanked hopelessly. Two existing multimillion projects ROOTS (archaeology) and “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation“ will see their funding dry up in 2025.

So the For Better Science story arrived just at the right moment. Especially since we were at the same time famous in USA and UK, thanks to a different cancer research investigation by Sholto David:

Here is the statement by the University of Kiel from 10 February 2024:

“The President of Kiel University (CAU), Simone Fulda, is resigning from office with immediate effect. “I am taking this step with a heavy heart and a sense of responsibility for the university since a sufficient foundation of mutual trust no longer remained with some parts of the university to ensure successful cooperation”, says Simone Fulda.

We deeply regret Simone Fulda’s decision,” says Claudia Meyer, Chancellor of Kiel University. “We pay her the greatest respect for this decision and thank her very much for her extraordinary commitment over the past few years. During her time in office, she has worked tirelessly for the entire CAU and has been instrumental in developing our university for the future. With regard to the accusations of alleged data manipulation that are currently being made against Simone Fulda as well as academics from other research institutions, the presumption of innocence continues to apply. “

The pressure grew, Fulda had no choice. Her resignation was swiftly reported by the news agency dpa, with reference to For Better Science, and picked up by most of Germany’s main newspapers and magazines.

Die Kieler Uni-Präsidentin soll Daten manipuliert haben, sie weist den Vorwurf eines Wissenschaftsblogs entschieden zurück. Doch schon jetzt sei ein Schaden entstanden, daher gebe sie ihren Posten »schweren Herzens« ab. https://t.co/iJ58Di5SyH

— DER SPIEGEL (@derspiegel) February 11, 2024

Prior to that, on 8 February 2024, several Kiel professors publicly demanded for Fulda to step down (while not revealing their own names to public):

“In a letter to the CAU President, which is available to the Kieler Nachrichten, it says verbatim: “We, appointed professors of the Medical Faculty of the Christian Albrechts University, have seen with great concern the failure of all new applications from our university in the Excellence Initiative .” Clinicians from Kiel: “We call on you to fulfil your responsibility”

The public allegations about the integrity of “many of your original scientific papers over the last 20 years have also been read and noted in detail”. The signatories, who include numerous renowned doctors from Kiel, conclude their letter with a clear message: “We therefore strongly urge you to fulfil your responsibility to the university as our president and to do everything now to prevent further damage to our Alma Mater.”

The science ministry of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, equally disappointed about the loss of prestige and many millions of research funding, was also urging Fulda to resign. Fulda kept rejecting all allegations of data manipulation, but she never addressed the issue of gel and image duplications in her papers or suggested how one should interpret it. Instead, she simply refused talking about those issues when she addressed the university. Again, Kieler Nachrichten from 9 February 2024:

“And what is the president doing? She remains silent, at least when it comes to the heaviest accusations. At 3:07 p.m., all university employees receive an email in which Prof. Fulda takes a stand – but only on the topic of excellence.
[….]
Only Science Minister Karin Prien makes a public statement, which is once again very clearly formulated: “The allegations in the air have the potential to overshadow the now urgently necessary efforts of the CAU to be successful in the further process of the two existing clusters of excellence.” She expect those responsible to base their actions “on the well-being of the university”.”

Meanwhile, new stuff was found in Fulda’s old papers to further corroborate the presumption of innocence. Here, by Clare Francis:

K Stahnke , S Fulda , C Friesen , G Strauss , K M Debatin Activation of apoptosis pathways in peripheral blood lymphocytes by in vivo chemotherapy Blood (2001) doi: 10.1182/blood.v98.10.3066 

Two empty blots were reused trice each for 6 different sets of experiments. Sometimes same blot showed 4 gel lanes, sometimes five. Totally innocently of course.

The next one is more than a quarter a century old, and note that the actin blot is not just reused EIGHTEEN times, for 6 different cell lines and 3 different sets of experiments. It occasionally flipped on itself and also changed its brightness with each re-use, in a top-down gradient. Inadvertently.

S Fulda , M Los , C Friesen , K M Debatin Chemosensitivity of solid tumor cells in vitro is related to activation of the CD95 system International journal of cancer (1998) doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0215(19980330)76:1<105::aid-ijc17>3.0.co;2-b 

This, found by a reader, is particularly insidious, pardon, innocent: a blot was duplicated, but one gel band in the middle was replaced:

M Kilic , H Kasperczyk , S Fulda, K-M Debatin Role of hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha in modulation of apoptosis resistance Oncogene (2007) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1210008

Some of Kiel leaders, the same people who elected her as rector, took Fulda’s side and tried to keep her in power. They did this in the morning of 10 February 2024, and she resigned in the evening:

“The chairman of the CAU Senate, Wolfgang J. Duschl, supported Fulda in a statement on Friday: He has complete confidence that Simone Fulda will carry out her office with great competence and high commitment. Support also came from the chairwoman of the university council, Ursula Gather.”

Duschl is an astrophysicist specialising in astrobiology, so I suggest he learns some biology. Gather is a statistician, she should know the statistical probability of gel bands being that similar. But here is a life scientist – Kiel’s microbiology professor Christina Hölzel, who explains that the gel band duplications in Fulda’s papers are normal and expected technical artefacts, and it is wrong to ask for raw data of gel figures because those do not exist:

Yet the majority of Kiel’s academics was against Fulda, and pushed for her resignation This round email was sent by the Dean of the science faculty on 12 February 2024:

“Dear members of the faculty,

As you probably know, our President resigned on Saturday. 

Unfortunately, as Deans, we saw no other option than to influence this decision out of a sense of responsibility for our faculties.

We decided to take this step because we feared that if the President had remained in office, this would have caused serious damage to the University and the faculties. At the time of our letter, the President had lost the trust of the Minister and parts of the University, as was evident from the press.

Even before the first press releases on the evening of February 6, we had already urged the President on February 5 to take a public stand on the allegations, which she had been aware of since the end of December, and to develop a communication strategy to avert damage to the University.

Prof. Fulda stuck to an unsuitable communication strategy until the end and did not make a public statement to the university. Until her resignation, the vast majority of our university members were only aware of all the allegations and the President’s position on them from hearsay or from the press. The university was in a serious crisis without the recognizable leadership of the president. In this situation, we as deans could no longer remain inactive. Therefore, in our function as those responsible for the well-being of the University and the faculties and all its members, we took a stand vis-à-vis the President on February 9 and did not address this letter to Prof. Fulda publicly.

I would like to emphasize that the accusation of data manipulation by Prof. Fulda is still only an accusation. I trust that the competent authorities will now investigate whether scientific misconduct has occurred. Until this has been clarified, the presumption of innocence naturally applies. It is particularly important to me to note that the failure of three new cluster outlines in the pre-application phase of the Excellence Strategy was neither the reason nor the cause for the joint action of the deans. 

I very much regret that the matter has taken this course. Prof. Fulda has achieved and initiated a great deal of good for the University with great commitment. I am very grateful to her for this. I have the greatest respect for her difficult decision to resign.  

We must now look to the future with confidence and maintain the University’s ability to act. I therefore also agree with the statement by the Presidential Board. I am planning to hold an information event for the faculty Konvent on Thursday, February 15 at 2:15 p.m. in a closed session. I will be available to answer any questions you may have at any time, except tomorrow due to an eye operation that has been planned for some time. Please share this email with your co-workers. Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Your Dean

Frank Kempken”

So what is next for Fulda? The German Research Council DFG is currently investigating her, and what with the public exposure, and her forced resignation, you can expect the unexpected: a guilty verdict against one of Germany’s top researchers. No earlier than in a year or two, because the investigation will take time, and lawyers will be massively involved.

And job-wise? Fulda doesn’t hold a professorship in Kiel, so she would have to leave that university. In fact, University of Kiel already deleted her profile pages.

But where to? I suggest the University of Magdeburg. They even took up Heike and Thorsten Walles and protected them from retractions, so shame and decency is not something which the Magdeburg academic elites have any concept of.

According to her CV at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Fulda is since 2010 a professor and director of the Institute for Experimental Tumour Research in Paediatrics at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. Someone else is its director now, after Fulda left to rule Kiel in 2021. I asked the Frankfurt University about Fulda’s professorship there and her possible return. Their press speaker told me:

“Prof. Dr. Fulda has left the service at Goethe University. There is no right of return.”

Such a pity. On 12 February 2024 I received a message from Christiane Kamardi, lawyer and head of the Committee for investigation of research misconduct at the Goethe University Frankfurt:

“Your allegations against Prof. Fulda have been forwarded to this commission, which will carry out a corresponding examination within the framework of the procedure specified by the aforementioned statutes.
We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that this commission also examined in detail the allegations you made against Prof. Greten on February 6, 2022 and decided by resolution of December 5, 2022 that there was no evident clues for data manipulation/scientific misconduct, which is why formal proceedings were not opened against Prof. Greten.”

Oho. I wrote about Frankfurt cancer research professor Florian Greten, director of the Georg-Speyer-Haus and founder of the Frankfurt Cancer Institute, in an earlier article. That is because Greten was trained in his dark arts by Count Fakula Michael Karin himself. I discussed some of Greten’s PubPeer record here:

So here is what counts as Good Scientific Practice in Frankfurt:

Serkan I. Göktuna , Ozge Canli , Julia Bollrath , Alexander A. Fingerle , David Horst , Michaela A. Diamanti , Charles Pallangyo , Moritz Bennecke , Tim Nebelsiek , Arun K. Mankan , Roland Lang , David Artis , Yinling Hu , Thomas Patzelt , Jürgen Ruland , Thomas Kirchner, M. Mark Taketo , Alain Chariot , Melek C. Arkan , Florian R. Greten IKKα Promotes Intestinal Tumorigenesis by Limiting Recruitment of M1-like Polarized Myeloid Cells Cell reports (2014) doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2014.05.006 

But surely the PubPeer allegation of a copy-pasted gel band, which normally counts as research fraud, was wrong? Surely those two bands are actually not identical?

On 1 March 2021, a Correction was published:

“In the originally published version of this article, Figure 2C contained an error in the IKKβ immunoblot. The band in the first lane of the IKKβ immunoblot was inadvertently duplicated from the last lane. The corrected Figure 2C appears here. This error and the corrections do not change the validity of the results nor the conclusions of the study.

The authors regret this error.”

Right, the gel band was “inadvertently duplicated“. Also, the whole gel is fake, it was obviously stealthily spliced from bits and pieces, a practice deemed as data manipulation since 2008 the latest.

But not at Cell Press, and certainly not in Frankfurt.

They probably blamed the first authors before closing investigation. Nasty little rascals, those first authors.

Florian R. Greten, Melek C. Arkan , Julia Bollrath , Li-Chung Hsu , Jason Goode , Cornelius Miething , Serkan I. Göktuna , Michael Neuenhahn , Joshua Fierer , Stephan Paxian , Nico Van Rooijen , Yajun Xu , Timothy O’Cain , Bruce B. Jaffee , Dirk H. Busch , Justus Duyster , Roland M. Schmid, Lars Eckmann , Michael Karin NF-kappaB is a negative regulator of IL-1beta secretion as revealed by genetic and pharmacological inhibition of IKKbeta Cell (2007) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2007.07.009 

Because the above is what counts as good honest science in Frankfurt, I withdrew my notification against Fulda. What is the point.

And then there is the Ulm side. Klaus-Michael Debatin, Fulda’s mentor first at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and later at the University of Ulm, key author on almost every paper of hers on PubPeer, plus with some trash of his own, is never mentioned by the media. All German news talk about Fulda’s resignation over charges of data manipulation, but Debatin is diligently kept out of it. Strange, no?

I suspect this media control is what money, influence and lawyers get you. Debatin sure doesn’t lack in money or in influence. Most likely the reason why he never became president of a university or a huge research institute is because he kept saying no. This is what his university told me now (translated):

“Prof. Debatin currently holds neither a vice-presidential position nor any other official position at the University of Ulm.
Prof. Debatin was Vice President for Medicine and Vice President for Cooperations at Ulm University from 2010 to the beginning of 2014 and from 2015 to 2021.
Prof. Debatin is currently heading the Clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at Ulm University Hospital as a substitute professor until his position is filled due to his retirement (probably until the end of March 2024).“

Don’t get overly excited, they are not retiring Debatin over the fake science scandal. He was born December 1952, and age 72 is generally the longest a professor in Germany can stay on after reaching their official retirement age. There will be a huge party next month in Ulm, with a Festschrift and what have you, all those who owe Debatin their careers (and those are multitudes) will fight each other to be allowed to give a laudatory speech.

But Fulda likely won’t. And neither will another problematic Debatin mentee – Irmela Jeremias, currently unit director at the Helmholtz Institute Munich and professor at the LMU Munich. After one Helmholtz Institute ombudsman (Erich Wichmann) tried to tell me off for wasting his time, another Ombudsman (Ralf Holle) read the national news, and wrote to me (translated):

“I would like to confirm receipt of your complaint and inform you that due to the seriousness of the allegations, I have forwarded the case to the Commission for Good Scientific Practice at Helmholtz Munich.
The Commission will continue to investigate the case.”

It is a bit unfortunate. Not that Fulda and Jeremias are innocent scapegoats, they sure are as responsible for all that bad cancer research as Debatin is. But the women will pay, and the man will come out unscathed.

My sources say Debatin’s lawyer already submitted a rebuttal letter over 60 pages long.

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