Kalipada Pahan – Cinnamon Boy in Rush

Meet Kalipada Pahan, professor of neurology at Rush University Medical College in Chicago, USA. He cured many diseases: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, cancer, even COVID-19. Not all of it with cinnamon, some with patented saltwater! But all with massive dishonesty, where countless mice, and even monkeys, suffered for bad science.

I wrote about Pahan briefly in earlier Friday Shorts. In July 2023, he was celebrated by Rush University Medical Center in a press release:

“RUSH researchers recently discovered that a muscle-building supplement called beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, also called HMB, may help protect memory, reduce plaques and ultimately help prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. […]
“This may be one of the safest and the easiest approaches to halt disease progression and protect memory in Alzheimer’s disease patients,” said Kalipada Pahan”

The study Paidi et al 2023 declared, like all of Pahan’s papers:

“The authors declare no competing interests.”

Like much else about Pahan’s science, that was not honest. He is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hong Kong-based company Forest Hills Lab, which “is engaged in therapeutic drug development for highly unmet medical conditions in the neurodegenerative disease areas, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.” Until recently, Pahan used to be advisor for Revalesio Corp, a US biotech specialising in anti-inflammatory drugs. Pahan also owns a startup named Pahan Therapeutics (currently , its motto: “Finding the cure to cancer and autoimmune disorders“. Officially, Pahan’s wife Swarupa Pahan is president, her husband is the only board member. The company’s website is defunct, but there are backups, here from 2018.

I wrote to Pahan, and he explained his hidden Conflicts of Interests. In his version, Forest Hills Lab and Revalesio gave research grants to Rush, but listed him without his knowledge as their board member. Pahan also said:

“Rush can find out whether I got a penny for being in their Scientific Advisory Board. Since I do not have financial interest, I did not disclose it in the papers. […]

Pahan Therapeutics was formed for licensing couple of technologies from Rush. However, Pahan Therapeutics could not raise any fund and therefore, we have closed it and informed this to Rush. Since it does not exist, we do not have any conflict of interests.

Due to these reasons, we will not submit any correction/erratum for this issue.“

But Pahan main interest is cinnamon. In this 2015 peer-reviewed garbage he authored with his daughter Priyanka Pahan (a student at Northwestern University), he claimed that cinnamon cured Parkinson’s disease (“we have seen that Ceylon cinnamon is much more pure than Chinese cinnamon, as the latter contains coumarin“). The next year, the Rush University professor claimed that cinnamon also improved learning (Modi et al 2016): “This would be one of the safest and the easiest approaches to convert poor learners to good learners”.

Here are two relevant studies – one postulated cinnamon buns as a cure for Parkinson’s and Lewy bodies dementia, another, in Bentham, pronounced cinnamon as the cure for Alzheimer’s.

As you see, cinnamon’s medicinal effect only works with image duplication. In this study, mice had their skulls drilled and their brains damaged so that Pahan could use fudged images to claim that cinnamon has healing powers:

In the same MDPI journal, again mice subjected to same brain damage, but to push a different food additive as therapy:

Suresh B. Rangasamy , Jit Poddar , Kalipada Pahan Protection of Mice from Controlled Cortical Impact Injury by Food Additive Glyceryl Tribenzoate International Journal of Molecular Sciences (2023) doi: 10.3390/ijms24032083 

But back to cinnamon. This Parkinson’s cure, like many other Pahan papers on PubPeer (currently almost 30), was flagged by the pseudonymous member of our team, Dysdera arabisenen:

Suresh B. Rangasamy, Sridevi Dasarathi , Aparna Nutakki , Shreya Mukherjee , Rohith Nellivalasa , Kalipada Pahan Stimulation of Dopamine Production by Sodium Benzoate, a Metabolite of Cinnamon and a Food Additive Journal of Alzheimer s Disease Reports (2021) doi: 10.3233/adr-210001 

Pahan explained to me:

“Such a mistake does not affect the research results and conclusion of the article. For example, we have published that cinnamon is exhibiting neuroprotection in animal models of Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. This finding is not affected by such a mistake.”

On PubPeer, Pahan commented in February 2024:

“We have submitted correction/erratum for this to the journal. Thank you.“

He made a similar announcement of several other PubPeer threads, often also sending his first authors to reassure readers about unintended mistakes which will be corrected soon. In fact, already in 2017 Pahan issued a Correction for a groundbreaking study where he claimed to cure Alzheimer’s in mice by injecting them with “0.9% saline solution containing oxygenated nanobubbles“, i.e. saltwater, into their bellies:

This nanostructured saltwater or “Oxygen nanobubbles” or RNS60 is marketed by Revalesio, a biotech which funded the study yet with which Pahan, as reminder, has less than zero conflict of interests. His coauthors Richard Watson and Supurna Ghosh are Revalesio’s employees, the latter is Vice-President. According to Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation:

“Putative neuroprotective properties of RNS60 have been published by only one lab – K Pahan at Rush University, although unpublished confidential reports from a second lab at Harvard appear to confirm some details.”

Derek Lowe debunked Revalesio’s nano-saltwater in a 2014 blogpost, where he also quoted from a now-deleted press release:

““The impact of RNS60 on Alzheimer’s disease as outlined in our studies presents new opportunities for hope and deeper research in treating a disease that currently cannot be prevented, cured or even successfully managed,” said Dr. Kalipada Pahan, professor of neurological sciences, biochemistry and pharmacology and the Floyd A. Davis, M.D., endowed chair of neurology at the Rush University Medical Center. “Our findings sparked tremendous excitement for RNS60, identifying an opportunity for advanced research to develop a novel treatment to help the rapidly increasing number of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia patients.”

Pahan also cured Parkinson’s with aspirin. For example this, again with his clever daughter Priyanka:

Suresh B. Rangasamy , Sridevi Dasarathi , Priyanka Pahan , Malabendu Jana , Kalipada Pahan Low-Dose Aspirin Upregulates Tyrosine Hydroxylase and Increases Dopamine Production in Dopaminergic Neurons: Implications for Parkinson’s Disease Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology (2019) doi: 10.1007/s11481-018-9808-3 

In some studies, Pahan injected mice with the neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) to turn them into “Parkinson’s model”. The mouse suffering was real, the published results were not:

In the next study, mice were lucky, they only had to run the treadmill before being killed, the results then adjusted to Pahan’s expectations:

Suresh B. Rangasamy , Malabendu Jana , Sridevi Dasarathi , Madhuchhanda Kundu , Kalipada Pahan Treadmill workout activates PPARα in the hippocampus to upregulate ADAM10, decrease plaques and improve cognitive functions in 5XFAD mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease Brain Behavior and Immunity (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2023.01.009

Soon, Elisabeth Bik joined Dysdera arabisenen‘s treasure hunt, here is one example, a cure for Alzheimer’s with retinoic acid and gemfibrozil:

Sumita Raha , Arunava Ghosh , Debashis Dutta , Dhruv R. Patel , Kalipada Pahan Activation of PPARα enhances astroglial uptake and degradation of β-amyloid Science Signaling (2021) doi: 10.1126/scisignal.abg4747

At some point Pahan understood that spices like cinnamon are not patentable, so he started to push stuff on behalf of Big Pharma (while never receiving a penny, of course!). Here again is the same blood lipid reduction drug gemfibrozil, this time deployed as cure for Parkinson’s:

Carl G. Gottschalk , Malabendu Jana , Avik Roy , Dhruv R. Patel , Kalipada Pahan Gemfibrozil Protects Dopaminergic Neurons in a Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease via PPARα-Dependent Astrocytic GDNF Pathway Journal of Neuroscience (2021) doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.3018-19.2021 

Another case of Bik helping Dysdera, where Pahan, totally free of any commercial conflict of interests, pushes another blood fat reduction drug, fenofibrate, as the cure for Parkinson’s and Lewy bodies dementia:

Debashis Dutta, Ramesh Kumar Paidi , Sumita Raha , Avik Roy , Sujyoti Chandra , Kalipada Pahan Treadmill exercise reduces α-synuclein spreading via PPARα Cell Reports (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111058 

This mouse duplication, according to Pahan’s coauthor was never fraud, but “an honest mistake and it happened while processing images in the powerpoint“:

Swapna Bera , Rajiv K. Kar , Susanta Mondal , Kalipada Pahan, Anirban Bhunia Structural Elucidation of the Cell-Penetrating Penetratin Peptide in Model Membranes at the Atomic Level: Probing Hydrophobic Interactions in the Blood–Brain Barrier Biochemistry (2016) doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.6b00518

And here Bik found out that Pahan not only published trash Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s cures, but also trash cancer cures:

Madhuchhanda Kundu , Sumita Raha , Avik Roy , Kalipada Pahan Regression of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in a Patient-Derived Xenograft Mouse Model by Monoclonal Antibodies against IL-12 p40 Monomer Cells (2022) doi: 10.3390/cells11020259

Particularly disgusting: Pahan used macaques to produce likely falsified science. 15 female rhesus monkeys were tortured by injections of the neurotoxin MPTP into their carotid artery, later on with injections of whatever crap Pahan planned to establish as Parkinson’s cure, then bled to death, their brains removed and studied. This is the result, where an image was duplicated and shifted:

Pahan is ready to act on the evidence of data manipulation on PubPeer, as he wrote to me:

“I was also shocked to see all these, which came mainly in the last two weeks. Then I started looking at the erratums/corrections in the PubMed submitted by different scientists and found that all our PubPeer citations can be taken care of by submitting erratums and corrections. In most of the citations, you will find that same image has been given in two places. Although I am not defending our mistakes at all, these are part of human errors. This is because in some papers, when there are more than 100 individual images, such a mistake may happen.“

This genius even cured COVID-19. In October 2021, Rush University issued this press release:

“Scientists at the Rush University Medical Center (Chicago) have successfully used a small molecule called SPIDAR to reverse cytokine storm, reduce fever, protect lungs, and improve heart function in a mouse model of COVID-19. […]

“This could be a new approach to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and protect COVID-19 patients from breathing problems and cardiac issues,” said Kalipada Pahan, PhD, the Floyd A. Davis Professor of Neurology at Rush and a Research Career Scientist at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. […]

“Since SARS-CoV-2 binds to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) for entering into the cells, we have designed a small peptide corresponding to the Spike S1-Interacting Domain of ACE2 Receptor (SPIDAR) to inhibit the binding of virus with ACE-2”, Dr. Pahan said. […]

“Interestingly, after intranasal treatment, SPIDAR reduces fever, protects lungs, normalizes heart function, and enhances locomotor activities in a mouse model of COVID-19,” Dr. Pahan said.”

Of course that was all bullshit and based of fudged data:

Just don’t waste your time complaining to the society-published Journal of Immunology. They hate whistleblowers and love fraudsters there.

Which makes this all even more demented, is that in December 2022, Pahan announced in MDPI (Sheinin et al 2022) a cure for cancer, which is… a COVID-19 infection!

“Intranasal spike S1 protein could be used for late-stage lung cancer when there’s no other therapy to stop the progression.”

Rush University wet themselves with excitement and headlined their press release: “Could COVID-19 Hold a Cancer Cure?“

“The discovery raises the possibility that the pandemic that has afflicted the globe for three years might also yield a treatment for lung cancer, and perhaps other cancers as well. […]

“It is always important to find mechanisms to stimulate cancer cell death and stop the progression of cancer,” said Kalipada Pahan, PhD […] He adds that anecdotal cases of people with lung cancer that improved after they developed and recovered from COVID-19 also suggest the coronavirus’ potential as an unlikely ally against cancer. […] “Intranasal spike S1 protein could be used for late-stage lung cancer when there’s no other therapy to stop the progression.” Pahan and his team currently are seeking partners to study the use of the spike protein in clinical trials of human patients with lung cancer.”

Luckily, the pandemic fizzled out before that clown was allowed to experiment on cancer patients with that nonsense.

But elsewhere, Pahan experimented on people. This study used many mice, but also the blood from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients:

Susanta Mondal , Madhuchhanda Kundu , Malabendu Jana , Avik Roy , Suresh B Rangasamy , Khushbu K Modi , Jennillee Wallace , Yasmeen A Albalawi , Roumen Balabanov , Kalipada Pahan IL-12 p40 monomer is different from other IL-12 family members to selectively inhibit IL-12Rβ1 internalization and suppress EAE Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020) doi: 10.1073/pnas.2000653117 

The mouse data appears to be falsified:

I obtained Dysdera arabisenen‘s original dossier on Pahan’s pseudoscience, and that dossier also reports irregularities in the clinical data from MS patients in that and in another paper. Certain numbers keep repeating, inside this study and across another, which is rather unlikely if that was real unadulterated data:

Here is this other paper from 2017, it used the blood from patients with prostate cancer and also contains forged mouse data:

Madhuchhanda Kundu , Avik Roy , Kalipada Pahan Selective neutralization of IL-12 p40 monomer induces death in prostate cancer cells via IL-12-IFN-γ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1705536114

A similar problem in another paper, where Pahan used blood from Parkinson’s patients:

Debashis Dutta , Madhuchhanda Kundu , Susanta Mondal , Avik Roy , Samantha Ruehl , Deborah A. Hall , Kalipada Pahan RANTES-induced invasion of Th17 cells into substantia nigra potentiates dopaminergic cell loss in MPTP mouse model of Parkinson’s disease Neurobiology of Disease (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2019.104575 

Some of the oldest PubPeer evidence, from October 2022, stems from the whistleblower Paul S Brookes. Rememberer the nanofabricated saltwater? This Revalesio study with RNS60 was already corrected in 2018 because “The Figure 3, 4, 5 legends have been misplaced“:

Susanta Mondal , Suresh B. Rangasamy , Supurna Ghosh , Richard L. Watson , Kalipada Pahan Nebulization of RNS60, a Physically-Modified Saline, Attenuates the Adoptive Transfer of Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis in Mice: Implications for Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Neurochemical Research (2017) doi: 10.1007/s11064-017-2214-z 

And another one with Revalesio’s magic saltwater against MS, also flagged by Brookes:

Susanta Mondal , Jeffrey A. Martinson , Supurna Ghosh , Richard Watson , Kalipada Pahan Protection of Tregs, suppression of Th1 and Th17 cells, and amelioration of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis by a physically-modified saline PLoS ONE (2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051869

For this project, Revalesio Corp even issued a press release:

“These results highlight a novel immunomodulatory role of sa and suggest that this unique therapeutic may yield new treatment options for MS.  Revalesio is preparing to test RNS60 in a Phase II MS clinical trial at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York.”

Ten years ago, RNS60 cured Parkinson’s – there was a paper by Pahan (Khasnavis et al 2014) and a press release by Revalesio. In 2020, Pahan and his Revalesio colleague Ghosh jointly proved that nano-saltwater protects from brain injury (Rangasamy et al 2020). Revalesio eventually proved that RNS60 cures all neurological disorders, and there were even phase 2 clinical trials, here is a recent one on ischemic stroke. Remidns me somewhat of Cassava.

As for Pahan, the man who never took a penny from pharma biotechs: there is more of his trash on PubPeer. All this phony nonsense has been sponsored for years by NIH, Veterans Affairs and various charities. And YOUR grant application was just rejected.

Pahan informed me of his plans for the future:

“…we have already started submitting corrections/erratums to the journals and you will see that from our response in the PubPeer. Within the next 3-4 weeks, we will be able to take care of all the citations.

Again, I must thank you and the PubPeer for opening my eyes because at this stage of my career, I do not directly work in the lab. In the naked eyes, it is also difficult to find such a problem in images. Therefore, to avoid such embarrassing events in our lab in the future, a few days back, I have purchased the AI-powered Proofig software to check image duplication before submitting a manuscript. I am glad to mention that it is working successfully.“

Rush University’s research integrity offers refused communication. I guess they accept Pahan’s explanations. That’s what eating too much cinnamon does to your brain.

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