Schneider Shorts 5.04.2024 – Before the current atmosphere of prosecution

Schneider Shorts of 5 April 2024 – angry old Nobelist hounded again, one German professor whitewashed, another told to find new friends, Iranian student in Finland admits buying authorships, Polish vice-rector brings papermilling home, more retractions for Italian ex-rector, and finally, with an obituary to anti-aging researcher.

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Science Elites

A not insignificant number

In October 2021, I published an article about Ralph Schermuly, professor of pulmonology at the University of Giessen in Germany. He has several very problematic papers on PubPeer, some co-authored by his fellow professor in Giessen, Soni Pullamsetti, whose main affiliation is at the Max-Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt.

Back in 2021, the university Ombudsman invited Schermuly to investigate himself. Eventually, the DFG took over, and now made the final decision, which they sent to me. It is a typical DFG verdict: data was forged but the last author is innocent.

Here is the DFG decision letter which they ordered me to keep confidential or else there may be a lawsuit for infringement of somebody’s privacy. My view is that if you wish your privacy, don’t publish research papers.

We learn that according to DFG guidelines it is never the job of the senior and corresponding author to make sure their papers don’t contain fake data. I will never be told what the Max Planck Society determined for Soni Pullamsetti, but I presume she was found innocent also. Translated excerpts from the DFG letter:

“According to the relevant procedural regulations, the DFG opened already in winter 2021 a preliminary examination due to suspicion of manipulation of representations or illustrations, and heard Mr. Schermuly as well co-authors of the affected publications in writing about the allegations, without disclosing the origin of the information.
The DFG’s preliminary review was temporarily suspended in spring 2022 in accordance with the DFG Rules of Procedure for Dealing with Scientific Misconduct […] when it became known that the same allegations had also been comprehensively investigated by the Max Planck Society and by an investigative commission at the University of Giessen. After these procedures were completed only in spring 2023, the DFG’s preliminary review resumed immediately and continued. […]

Taking into account further statements from those affected, the committee came to the conclusion that the criticisms deposited on “Pubpeer” indeed represent objective errors in figures of the publications in a not insignificant number. However, there is an absense of negligence on the part of Mr Schermuly as he did not create the figures in question himself, the errors were difficult for him as the supervising researcher to recognize, and there were no indications that a particularly intensive screen of these images was required. Mr Schermuly therefore did not neglected the diligence that was obvious and almost enforced.

The proceedings were discontinued due to a lack of gross negligence. Based on the information available to us, significant additional measures for quality assurance were implemented In the affected research groups since the allegations became known. In addition, many of the criticisms were meanwhile addressed by Corrigenda.”

Not only Corrigenda! This Schermuly paper was retracted, from a set of 3 where he was last and corresponding author:

Mario Boehm , Tatyana Novoyatleva , Baktybek Kojonazarov , Florian Veit , Norbert Weissmann , Hossein A. Ghofrani , Werner Seeger , Ralph T. Schermuly Nitric Oxide Synthase 2 Induction Promotes Right Ventricular Fibrosis American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (2019) doi: 10.1165/rcmb.2018-0069oc

The September 2022 Retraction mentioned:

“Collectively, these instances of misrepresentation undermine the Journal’s confidence in the integrity of the data reported in the paper. By mutual agreement between the authors and the Journal, the article is retracted.”

Other Schermuly papers were indeed corrected, even the disastrously fake Kolosionek et al 2009. Not all were in need of corrections of course. Not this, for example:

Zahara Ali , Djuro Kosanovic , Ewa Kolosionek , Ralph T. Schermuly, Brian B. Graham , Alistair Mathie , Ghazwan Butrous Enhanced inflammatory cell profiles in schistosomiasis-induced pulmonary vascular remodeling Pulmonary circulation (2017) doi: 10.1086/690687 

Obviously, Schermuly got bored with corrections, since he was declared innocent anyway. He is the corresponding author here:

Michaela Lang , Baktybek Kojonazarov , Xia Tian , Anuar Kalymbetov , Norbert Weissmann , Friedrich Grimminger , Axel Kretschmer , Johannes-Peter Stasch , Werner Seeger, Hossein Ardeschir Ghofrani , Ralph Theo Schermuly The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat ameliorates pulmonary hypertension induced by hypoxia and SU5416 in rats PLoS ONE (2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043433 

Also here, the corresponding pulmonologist Schermuly, his University of Giessen, and the DFG decided that a Corrigendum would be for sad losers who ignorantly believe that lung tissue and blood vessels are not exactly the same thing:

I invited Schermuly to comment on DFG’s decision to whitewash him, but he didn’t reply. Probably busy quality-assuring.

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700 euro per article

An Iranian MSc student in Finland admitted to have purchased authorships from a papermill, costs: €700 for first authorship. Hanieh Shirvani (see her personal website here) used to work as research assistant at the University of Oulu and is presently MSc student of nanotechnology at the University of Jyväskylä. As Shirvani told me, she worked in Oulu under the promise of a PhD student employment. She blames her Turkish professor and his Iranian postdocs for her sacking – there was a university meeting where Shirvani was “ultimately expelled” from the university, her “contract was unexpectedly terminated”.

She claims to have been then contacted by “a research group from Iran” who she believes conspired with a “second plan to destroy my reputation“, on offer was “to write an article to improve my resume so I could return to university.” Her utter lack of relevant scientific knowledge or qualifications was no impediment to Shirvani, so she agreed and paid.

The result are two papers which Alexander Magazinov reported to the University of Oulu for investigation. Shirvani used Oulu affiliation on this paper:

Hanieh Shirvani , Hanieh Jafari , Sayyed Sajjad Moravveji , Fatemeh Abbasi Faranghizadeh , Mehrdad Talebi , Jalaledin Ghanavi , Farbod Esfandi , Sajad Najafi , Masomeh Nasiri Moghadam , Poopak Farnia, Seyed Mohsen Aghaei Zarch Non-coding RNA in SARS-CoV-2: Progress toward therapeutic significance International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.09.105 

The author Seyed Mohsen Aghaei Zarch is obviously a papermilling fraudster: as PhD student in Iran he already has “at least 33 publications on a broad range of topics” as the investigative report acknowledges. Also Sajad Najafi is also a PhD student in Iran and another papermiller with “at least 69 publications, including 55 publications in PubMed in 2022/2023 on a very broad range of topics“.

The second paper, where Shirvani used University of Jyväskylä affiliation, contains at least 6 retracted references, out of the first 11 citations 10 go to Aghaei Zarch himself, who explained on PubPeer “our discussions and conclusions were supported by a comprehensive array of over 110 research articles.”

Hanieh Shirvani , Jalaledin Ghanavi , Amin Aliabadi , Fatemehsadat Mousavinasab , Mehrdad Talebi , Jamal Majidpoor , Sajad Najafi , Seyyed Mohammad Miryounesi, Seyed Mohsen Aghaei Zarch MiR-211 plays a dual role in cancer development: From tumor suppressor to tumor enhancer Cellular Signalling (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.cellsig.2022.110504 

This is the report’s summary (I removed personal email addresses):

From the report:

“In the preliminary investigation (Attachment 4) it is noted that a full investigation is not required. The respondent admitted in her response to the preliminary investigator that a RI violation has taken place as she has bought purchased authorship for both of these scientific publications (Paper A and Paper B) with 700 euro per article, so 1400 euro in total. The respondent has also provided the information to the publishers as part of the cancellation request.
The preliminary investigator also concludes that all the other alleged violations of RI have occurred, but that the respondent is not responsible for i) expanding the biography of a study to artificially increase the number of citations or ii) reporting research results and methods in a careless manner, resulting in misleading claims, as she did not write either manuscript. […]

It is essential to note that the RI violation took place after the respondent had terminated her employment with the University of Oulu. As described above both manuscripts were listed by the journals after the employment was ended at the University of Oulu.”

The appointed investigator was Lloyd Ruddock, biochemistry professor at the University of Oulu. Here is his summary report:

From Ruddock’s report:

“During the preliminary investigation the complainant provided additional information (mainly in Chinese) of an alleged “pay to publish” scheme being operated by one of the editors (Prof Ziaoxiong Zeng) at the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules and the Journal of Functional Foods. […]

White the purchase of authorship is a serious Rl violation, the preliminary investigator notes that the respondent-initiated retraction of both publications by contacting the publishers, admitting the paid authorship and providing details of whom the payment was made to. This was done at some personaI risk.
This self-retraction and their clear contrition should be taken into account when considering any possible sanctions.”

And:

“Regarding the provenance concerns of the respondent, the field of expertise from her personal website, the research work she undertook at the University of Oulu and her CV submitted as part of her application the University of Oulu give no indication of any experience in research related to the topic of the paper.

During the preliminary inquiry the respondent admitted that this was a paid authorship, with payment (700 euro) being made to one of the coauthors (Mehrdad Talebi). The respondent has provided information to the journaI on this as part of a retraction request.”

Mehrdad Talebi‘s PubPeer record so far overlaps with that of Najafi and Aghaei Zarch. But he is now established as the owner of an Iranian papermill.

Shirvani wrote to me in an email:

“I will definitely take legal action against this business and this Iranian team. 🙂 I want to make you sure that I will do everything in my power to stop them. I am responsible!“

As reminder, she honestly paid an Iranian fraudster €1400 for authorship on two papers she had no qualificatiosn to understand, but is disappointed to find out those were papermilled.

All this is a bit sad regarding the MSc student Shirvani whose career is likely to be over (in Finland at least). Because it seems many Iranian researchers of all career stages buy authorships from Asian papermills, as you see from Shirvani’s emails the practice is not even seen as wrong or unethical. What makes it worse, western academics tend to support this fraud by wilfully mistaking unusually large “international” publication records for signs of talent, skills and intelligence. Some western academic elites even actively participate as co-authors. You can see a similar case, also from Finland in the comments here (part of Mika Sillanpää misconduct scandal).

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Participation not advisible

Some love affairs are just not healthy, especially if the object of desire is a parasitic lying scamference fraudster like Ashutosh Tiwari. In such cases, sane adults need to step in to separate the ill-adviced bond. Which the University of Bochum in Germany now did, regarding their coal industry-sponsored professor Thomas Müller.

Müller, an expert on making dirty brown coal green, was so infatuated by Tiwari and his new scam – called International Institute of Water, registered in a hotel in India, and so upset about my disparaging reporting about his valued associate, that he sent lawyers with a cease-and-desist letter demanding €2000 from me in “personal injury compensation”, plus legal fees. Read here:

Now, I presume Müller must have forgotten to send such a lawyer’s letter to his University of Bochum. Who now decided, and sent me this letter (translated):

“Dear Mr. Schneider,
Based on your report, the Ombuds Committee of the Ruhr University Bochum has dealt with the scientific integrity of the International Institute of Water (IWW). The Ombuds Committee has come to the conclusion that a participation in the IWW is currently not advisable in order to comply with good scientific practice. The Rectorate agreed with this assessment without reservations at its meeting on March 26, 2024.”

Little Thomas will now have to find new friends to play with.

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Before the current atmosphere of prosecution

Just when everyone assumed that the hounding and harassment of the Nobel Prize laureate and Stanford professor Thomas Südhof ended with a retraction of his PNAS paper – Elisabeth Bik arrived to the hounding party.

Previously, Maarten van Kampen looked into the numbers in Südhof’s papers, now Elisabeth Bik looked into the images. Predictable result: Südhof is extremely angry.

Erica Seigneur , Thomas C. Südhof Genetic Ablation of All Cerebellins Reveals Synapse Organizer Functions in Multiple Regions Throughout the Brain Journal of Neuroscience (2018) doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.0360-18.2018 

The first author Erica Seigneur admitted to duplicated gels, but didn’t comment on the rest. Südhof himself replied on other PubPeer threads. Here a Cell paper which Südhof had to correct previously to admit that his discovery was not original at all:

Jie Wang , Yi Miao , Rebecca Wicklein , Zijun Sun , Jinzhao Wang , Kevin M. Jude , Ricardo A. Fernandes , Sean A. Merrill , Marius Wernig , K. Christopher Garcia, Thomas C. Südhof RTN4/NoGo-receptor binding to BAI adhesion-GPCRs regulates neuronal development Cell (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.10.016 

Südhof reacted on PubPeer with:

“Dr. Bik’s passionate pursuit of our lab using new artificial intelligence tools may have uncovered yet another copy-paste error in a representative figure panel that we will look into and that would obviously have escaped our attention without her artificial intelligence tools.“

Without any “artificial intelligence tools” I can see that Südhof is wrong – this is not a “copy-paste error” because the duplicated image changed its signal intensity during copy-pasting.

The gel bands below are clearly identical, but Südhof disagrees:

Samantha R. Golf, Justin H. Trotter , George Nakahara , Thomas C. Südhof Astrocytic Neuroligins Are Not Required for Synapse Formation or a Normal Astrocyte Cytoarchitecture bioRxiv (2023) doi: 10.1101/2023.04.10.536254 

In the last decade, Bik found duplications in many thousands of papers and achieved hundreds or maybe thousands of corrections and retractions. But even Bik met her master now – an angry old German man in California. The Nobelist berated Bik’s amateurism:

“A common mistake in the search for blot duplications is to assume that if blots have similar artifacts and features (as shown here) they must be duplicated. However, if similar samples are run on the same gel apparatuses at the same relative positions in the gel, they will have the same artifacts and features because these are introduced by the gel combs and the gel apparatuses. Similar concerns apply to blotting backgrounds.”

Rest assured Südhof will silently replace this gel between the preprint and the peer reviewed version. Here, it started with irregularly spliced gels and ended with worse findings once Bik had a look:

Jacqueline Burré, Manu Sharma , Thomas C. Südhof Systematic mutagenesis of α-synuclein reveals distinct sequence requirements for physiological and pathological activities Journal of Neuroscience (2012) doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.3545-12.2012

Südhof explained on PubPeer that he is a victim of prosecution. For partially duplicated images he promised a correction, warning: “again this will have no consequences for the scientific content“. On western blots he complained totally beside the point of irregularity of splicing:

“A decade ago, before the current atmosphere of prosecution, it was assumed and accepted that composite blots like the one cited by the accusers would be assembled from multiple individual blots, each of which includes its own control and is clearly recognizable as a separate blot. Nowadays this is considered deception even though there is no attempt to hide it”

Is this, rather recently published in Science, deception or Nobel trolling:

Richard Sando , Xian Jiang , Thomas C. Südhof Latrophilin GPCRs direct synapse specificity by coincident binding of FLRTs and teneurins Science (2019) doi: 10.1126/science.aav7969 

The next paper, also in Science, was flagged already in May 2023. Some allegations of duplicated images proved unsupported, others were verified, and new problems found. Still, Südhof decided to play victim.

Jacqueline Burré , Manu Sharma , Theodoros Tsetsenis , Vladimir Buchman , Mark R. Etherton , Thomas C. Südhof Alpha-synuclein promotes SNARE-complex assembly in vivo and in vitro Science (2010) doi: 10.1126/science.1195227 

Südhof’s last position was:

“We apologize but feel that the original blots presented above are of sufficient resolution to rule out the allegation by the accusers that the blots were duplicated, and hope the accusers will agree.”

In another journal of Science family, cells were digitally re-arranged for reasons unknown. Worth noting it has the same author Pei-Yi Lin who admitted data manipulation in the retracted PNAS paper Lin et al 2023 (read above):

Pei-Yi Lin , Lulu Y. Chen , Man Jiang , Justin H. Trotter , Erica Seigneur , Thomas C. Südhof Neurexin-2: An inhibitory neurexin that restricts excitatory synapse formation in the hippocampus Science Advances (2023) doi: 10.1126/sciadv.add8856 

Südhof was furious about “Dr. Bik’s relentless accusations on PubPeer and ‘X’ (Twitter)“:

“Dr. Bik’s passionate eagerness to find fault with our work leads her to accusations that are simply incorrect. The paper clearly states that the right images are representative enlargements of two synaptic junctions and never stipulates that the two synapse images are adjacent to each other in a lower magnification image or even that they are found in the left images – they are just beautiful examples of synapses that we like. Stitching implies the accusation that we are trying to hide something which we don’t,”

There are more resumed and newly established PubPeer threads for Südhof. This was already corrected, and will need another correction:

Justin H Trotter, Junjie Hao , Stephan Maxeiner , Theodoros Tsetsenis , Zhihui Liu , Xiaowei Zhuang, Thomas C Südhof Synaptic neurexin-1 assembles into dynamically regulated active zone nanoclusters The Journal of Cell Biology (2019) doi: 10.1083/jcb.201812076 

The Correction from 4 September 2023 mentioned “The error applies only to the illustrative blots and not to the quantifications and conclusions.” Then Bik found another duplication, but Südhof closed that case already:

In one thread, the Nobel Prize Laureate explained:

“Dr. Bik & Co are trying to create the impression of a systemic problem when there is only simple human error by many different young scientists assembling figures containing tens and sometimes hundreds of images. The mention of a paper that we retracted because an analysis wasn’t done properly is inappropriate. I think it is time to consider the actual science. The systemic problem is with PubPeer commentators who chase minor human errors but neglect what is truly important, namely the overall science that is not dependent on a single pasted image but on a large number of data.”

Is it a “systemic problem” when “a large number of data” in Südhof’s papers is fabricated? Our angry old man set up a website to rebut the PubPeer allegations, where he complains:

“PubPeer is non-transparent, censors responses, and uses anonymous commentators with continuously changing aliases. Moreover, PubPeer posts are communicated to journals and university administrators to widely disseminate the views of PubPeer without feedback by the accused.”

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One funeral at a time

In February 2024, Judith Campisi, professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California and anti-aging entrepreneur, died aged 75. There were many obituaries, here is one in Nature:

“Judy inspired a generation of scientists by creating an open-minded, creative and cutting-edge atmosphere of scientific discovery.”

Another obituary mentioned:

“As well as a member of the SENS Research Foundation Advisory Board and an adviser at the Lifeboat Foundation, Judy Campisi was co-editor in chief of the Aging Journal with Mikhail Blagosklonny and David Sinclair.”

What a company! SENS founder, the sexual harasser and pimp Aubrey De Grey, probably under drugs miscalculated: “one of my foremost role models in the field, Judy Campisi, died yesterday, not even making it to 70 years old“. Campisi was 75 when she died.

In her life which failed to be extended by her own senolytics, Campisi surrounded herself with finest of men: bullies, fraudsters and sexual harassers, but such is the anti-aging community, what can you do. I previously briefly wrote about Campisi’s struggling senolytics startup Unity Biotechnology, this article is still extant:

Let’s now celebrate Dr Campisi’s research on cancer and ageing.

Marco Demaria, Monique N. O’Leary , Jianhui Chang , Lijian Shao , Su Liu , Fatouma Alimirah , Kristin Koenig , Catherine Le , Natalia Mitin , Allison M. Deal , Shani Alston , Emmeline C. Academia , Sumner Kilmarx , Alexis Valdovinos , Boshi Wang , Alain De Bruin , Brian K. Kennedy , Simon Melov , Daohong Zhou , Norman E. Sharpless , Hyman Muss, Judith Campisi Cellular Senescence Promotes Adverse Effects of Chemotherapy and Cancer Relapse Cancer Discovery (2017) doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-16-0241 

The first author Marco Demaria, now associate professor in The Netherlands, explained that “Something must have gone wrong during saving/data storage“. Sholto David previously wrote about Campisi’s collaborator and former Director of National Cancer Institute, Norman Sharpless:

Here is another collaboration partner of Campisi’s – a certain Eric WF Lam. In May 2021, he was sacked by the Imperial College London for fraud (read here).

Lam’s fraud was uncovered and reported for misconduct by Clare Francis. A spokesperson for Imperial College was quoted by Retraction Watch in May 2021:

“We commissioned a thorough independent investigation following allegations of research misconduct against Dr Eric Lam. We found a clear case of research misconduct, and Dr Lam has been dismissed from Imperial College London. “

Now here is a set of papers by Lam and Campisi, with fake and reused data:

• Boyi Zhang , Da Fu , Qixia Xu , Xianling Cong , Chunyan Wu , Xiaoming Zhong , Yushui Ma , Zhongwei Lv , Fei Chen , Liu Han , Min Qian , Y. Eugene Chin , Eric W. -F. Lam , Paul Chiao , Yu Sun The senescence-associated secretory phenotype is potentiated by feedforward regulatory mechanisms involving Zscan4 and TAK1 Nature Communications (2018) doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04010-4
• Qixia Xu , Qilai Long , Dexiang Zhu , Da Fu , Boyi Zhang , Liu Han , Min Qian , Jianming Guo , Jianmin Xu , Liu Cao , Y. Eugene Chin , Jean‐Philippe Coppé , Eric W.‐F. Lam , Judith Campisi , Yu Sun Targeting amphiregulin (AREG) derived from senescent stromal cells diminishes cancer resistance and averts programmed cell death 1 ligand (PD‐L1)‐mediated immunosuppression Aging Cell (2019) doi: 10.1111/acel.13027 
• Boyi Zhang , Qilai Long , Shanshan Wu , Qixia Xu , Shuling Song , Liu Han , Min Qian , Xiaohui Ren , Hanxin Liu , Jing Jiang , Jianming Guo , Xiaoling Zhang , Xing Chang , Qiang Fu , Eric W-F Lam , Judith Campisi , James L. Kirkland, Yu Sun KDM4 Orchestrates Epigenomic Remodeling of Senescent Cells and Potentiates the Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype Nature Aging (2021) doi: 10.1038/s43587-021-00063-1 

Maybe Lam shouldn’t be even blamed here, but Campisi’s choice of collaborator in China, Yu Sun of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai:

Hanxin Liu , Qixia Xu , Halidan Wufuer , Zi Li , Rong Sun , Zhirui Jiang , Xuefeng Dou , Qiang Fu , Judith Campisi , Yu Sun Rutin is a potent senomorphic agent to target senescent cells and can improve chemotherapeutic efficacy Aging Cell (2024) doi: 10.1111/acel.13921 

To be fair, that was flagged after Campisi’s death. There are some older threads on PubPeer. One paper was corrected (Laberge et al 2015), another one, with Campisi’s former postdoc Oliver Bischof (Bischof et al 2001), was retracted for fraud, Bischof himself was sacked in France.

Max Planck was right that science advances one funeral at a time. It looks like Campisi’s papers need a post-mortem analysis.

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Scholarly Publishing

Dr. Shaker Qaidi invites you

On 22 February 2024, I received an unexpected email from the journal PLOS One. Subject: “Dr. Shaker Qaidi invites you to review PLOS ONE manuscript [PONE-D-24-03435] – [EMID:868020b96c3a1fc0]“

“Dear Dr. Schneider,

I am inviting you to peer review the following manuscript for PLOS ONE. In view of your expertise, I would greatly value your input on this manuscript’s suitability for publication. […]

With kind regards,

Dr. Shaker Qaidi

Academic Editor”

The manuscript was by a lab at Ohio State University and titled “Nitrile Glove Composition and Performance – Substandard Properties and Inaccurate Packaging Information“. Now, I left science almost 10 years ago and haven’t reviewed anything since. And my only expertise in nitrile gloves is to have actually worn them. I pointed out the improper peer review invitation to PLOS One, and received 3 days later this reply:

“Dear Dr. Schneider,
Thank you for considering the invitation to review the manuscript referenced above. In an effort to provide the authors with a timely decision, we are working to progress this manuscript to the next stage of the editorial process. As this is the case, your comments will no longer be required. “

A month later, on 30 March 2024, I received another email from PLOS One, subject: “Dr. Shaker Qaidi invites you to review PLOS ONE manuscript [PONE-D-24-03435] – [EMID:ca623f4641a4df34]“. Yes, it was exactly that same manuscript from Ohio about nitrile glove packaging. But this time I decided to look up who this clown editor Shaker Qaidi is.

A papermilling fraudster from University of Duhok in Iraq with a PubPeer record and 3 retractions. One of them:

Jawad Ahmad, Fahid Aslam , Rebeca Martinez-Garcia, Jesús De-Prado-Gil, Shaker M. A. Qaidi , Ameni Brahmia Effects of waste glass and waste marble on mechanical and durability performance of concrete Scientific Reports (2021) doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-00994-0 

The Retraction from 1 August 2023 mentioned:

“After publication concerns were raised that the XRD spectra in Figure 8 are identical and that the data points in Figure 16 and Figure 18 are the same although they report the results of different experiments. The authors are unable to provide the original data for examination. In addition, an investigation by the Editors has shown inappropriate changes in authorship during the review process.”

Now, Qaidi’s colleagues, the fraudster Jawad Ahmad plus the Spanish papermilling duo at University of Leon, Rebeca Martínez-García and Jesús De-Prado-Gil, were mentioned in the following article, seen papermilling together with two rascist orks named Roman Fediuk and Nikolai Vatin:

Below, Qaidi papermilling again with his Spanish buddies. Not retracted because MDPI:

Ahmed M. Maglad, Osama Zaid, Mohamed M. Arbili, Guilherme Ascensão, Adrian A. Șerbănoiu, Cătălina M. Grădinaru, Rebeca M. García, Shaker M. A. Qaidi, Fadi Althoey, Jesús De Prado-Gil A Study on the Properties of Geopolymer Concrete Modified with Nano Graphene Oxide Buildings (2022) doi: 10.3390/buildings12081066

Two more retractions for Qaidi at an Elsevier journal:

• Shaker M.A. Qaidi , Bassam A. Tayeh , Hemn Unis Ahmed , Wael Emad A review of the sustainable utilisation of red mud and fly ash for the production of geopolymer composites Construction and Building Materials (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2022.128892 
• Shaker M.A. Qaidi , Bassam A. Tayeh , Haytham F. Isleem , Afonso R.G. De Azevedo , Hemn Unis Ahmed , Wael Emad Sustainable utilization of red mud waste (bauxite residue) and slag for the production of geopolymer composites: A review Case Studies in Construction Materials (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.cscm.2022.e00994 

They received the same retraction note, mentioning:

“Upon post-publication investigation, it was found that this paper and another published in Case Studies of Construction Materials […] contain mostly the same data. The papers contain 6 common tables and 15 common figures. The text in each paper appears to have been edited to avoid plagiarism checking software. Both papers were initially submitted on the same day.”

Retraction 30 September 2023.

And of course Qaidi and his papermill buddy Jawad Ahmad fell prey to The Vickers Curse (read the article above):

Xiang He, Zuhua Yuhua , Shaker Qaidi , Haytham F. Isleem , Osama Zaid , Fadi Althoey , Jawad Ahmad Mine tailings-based geopolymers: A comprehensive review Ceramics International (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.ceramint.2022.05.345 

I asked PLOS One why they think Qaidi is a good choice of editor. They replied with exactly same message: “Thank you for considering the invitation to review the manuscript […] your comments will no longer be required“.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Authorship of the paper cannot be relied upon

Paolo Gardoni, director of the NSF-funded centre for Multi-hazard Approach to Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in USA (I wrote about Gardoni before in Friday Shorts), and his Polish associate Grzegorz Królczyk, Vice Rector for Research and Development of Opole University of Technology, suffered two retractions due to their excessive papermilling.

The retractions took place in Elsevier’s Journal of Energy Storage, they were part of 100%-papermill special issue by Masoud Afrand, Nader Karimi, Mohammad Arjmand and Cong Qi:

This paper was a citation vehicle to fellow papermillers including the Special issue’s editor Nader Karimi:

Bo Wang , Fangyuan Gao , Munish Kumar Gupta , Grzegorz Królczyk , Paolo Gardoni , Zhixiong Li Risk analysis of a flywheel battery gearbox based on optimized stochastic resonance model Journal of Energy Storage (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.est.2022.104926 

This is how Gardoni’s and Krolczyk’s papermilling associate Zhixiong Li replied on PubPeer:

“Dear Prof. Alexander Magazinov, Thank you again for your kind comment. It is very kind of you to point out this. Because these mentioned authors are very active in this research field, we have cited some of their publications. Now we know this and we are sorry for this inconvenience to you. We will pay all our attentions to avoid this in the future. We are grateful of you to let us know this problem. Please kindly forgive us this time.
Thank you again.“

An Expression of Concern was issued in December 2023, and now finally the retraction arrived:

“In investigating concerns brought up regarding the article, the editor reached out to the authors for an explanation.

The authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation to the above points. Post-publication, the Editor-in-Chief discovered that the email addresses used by the authors during the submission process were associated with multiple researcher accounts. The Editor has determined that the authorship of the paper cannot be relied upon.

Furthermore, the acceptance of this article was partly based upon the positive advice of reviewer reports from reviewers who were closely linked to the Guest Editor, Masoud Afrand.

The Editor also noticed a significant increase of citations of papers authored by one of the Guest Editors between the original submission and the revised version. In summary, 0 papers by Nader Karimi were cited in the original version of the paper. This increased to 6 papers in the revised version.

The Editor has determined that the paper should be retracted.”

Second retraction, same Special Issue, same team of papermilling crooks, and another citation vehicle to the editors Karimi and Afrand, plus several other papermilling fraudsters:

Xinrui Qi , Jianmei Wang , Grzegorz Królczyk, Paolo Gardoni , Zhixiong Li Sustainability analysis of a hybrid renewable power system with battery storage for islands application Journal of Energy Storage (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.est.2022.104682 

Even more stupid comments by Zhixiong Li on PubPeer, quoted in Friday Shorts, and an Expression of Concern in December 2023. The retraction notice was also almost identical:

“Post-publication, the Editor-in-Chief discovered that the email addresses used by the authors during the submission process were associated with multiple researcher accounts. The Editor has determined that the authorship of the paper cannot be relied upon.

Furthermore, the acceptance of this article was based upon the positive advice of reviewer reports from reviewers who were closely linked to the Guest Editor, Masoud Afrand.

The Editor also noticed a significant increase of citations of papers authored by two of the Guest Editors between the original submission and the revised version. In summary, 0 papers by Nader Karimi were cited in the original version of the paper. This increased to 6 papers in the revised version. Likewise, 0 papers by Masoud Afrand were cited in the original version of the paper. This also increased to 6 papers in the revised version.”

Zhixiong Li received a similarly-worded third retraction in the same special issue now, without Gradoni but with a fellow papermill fraudster Iskander Tlili (it is possible that Tlili is actually the papermill). There is also a fourth recent retraction for ZX Li, again at the same special issue edited by Afrand, due to “suspicious changes in authorship between the original submission and the revised version of this paper“.

Magazinov reported Gardoni to his university for papermilling in February 2023, as I wrote in Friday Shorts. Christopher Lehmann, Research Integrity Officer of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, announced an investigation and promised to Magazinov to “keep you informed through the University’s evaluation“. Over a year has passed with no news. Magazinov wrote to Lehmann again – no reply.

Gardoni is in principle unsackable. He is “Alfredo H. Ang Family Endowed Professor”, meaning his chair is sponsored by his academic “grandfather”. But maybe these retractions will prove a bit embarrassing.

Now, the Polish Vice-Rector for Research Grzegorz Królczyk will be obviously investigating himself. This Papermilling Rabbit with a hagiographic Wikipedia page was seen papermilling not just with ZX Li and Gardoni, but also with another great fraudster: Changhe Li!

Not just that: Krolczyk’s own private website shows a carefully curated publication list (which unfortunately stops in 2021) – it lists many papers by Krolczyk with ZX Li and other papermilling crooks like Seeram Ramakrishna. It also lists other papers with Munish Kumar Gupta, another associate of Changhe Li and also co-author of one of the retracted papers above. Gupta also recently retracted a paper in another Elsevier journal because “similar images have been used in various articles in multiple journals claiming varying conditions“.

Krolczyk did not reply to my emails, but he explained to another person that he has no information about these retracted papers and that he also doesn’t know the coauthors on them. Which is of course a shameless lie.

Funny, not only Krolczyk proudly lists all his other papers with ZX Li and MK Gupta on his CV, he even recruited them to his university. Gupta was brought in in 2020, with the rector Marcin Lorenc celebrating this “foreign scientist with such achievements” as “primarily a value for our students“, ZX Li was apparently smuggled in through the backdoor at the same time.

Two years later, in November 2023, Krolczyk asked these two “people with such high scientific achievements” to remain at his university (permanently, maybe?):

Indeed, ZX Li declares to be affiliated with the Opole University of Technology, while Gupta is even officially listed as professor there. In December 2023, the university celebrated Krolczyk and Gupta as “Best Rising Stars of Science in the World 2023”. If you still had doubts where this Polish university stands on papermilling:

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An explanation of these concerns

Two more retractions for the Italian ex-rector of University of Messina, Salvatore Cuzzocrea.

Rosanna Di Paola, Roberto Di Marco, Emanuela Mazzon, Tiziana Genovese, Klaus Bendtzen, Battesimo Macrì, Ferdinando Nicoletti, Salvatore Cuzzocrea Prevention of carrageenan-induced pleurisy in mice by anti-CD30 ligand monoclonal antibody Clinical Immunology (2004) doi: 10.1016/j.clim.2004.05.008

The Retraction from 29 March 2024 stated:

“This article is being retracted at the request of the Editors-in-Chief.

The journal was notified of two image duplication issues within the published article, namely in Figs. 7C and 7D, as well as in Figs. 8A and 8D (PubPeer link: https://pubpeer.com/publications/8999AB0BA97D8A4078F51018863304). The journal asked the authors to provide an explanation of these concerns, however the corresponding author’s explanation did not satisfactorily address the editors’ concerns. The Editors-in-Chief assessed the case and decided to retract the article as they were no longer confident that the experimental data supported the conclusions.”

The second retraction, in the same Elsevier journal, was with Cuzzo’s former mentor at Queen Mary University of London, Christoph Thiemermann.

It is also not his first retraction, and not all of Thiemermann’s fake science was co-authored by Cuzzo.

Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Emanuela Mazzon, Rosanna Di Paola, Carmelo Muià , Concetta Crisafulli , Laura Dugo, Marika Collin , Domenico Britti, Achille P. Caputi, Christoph Thiemermann Glycogen synthase kinase-3β inhibition attenuates the degree of arthritis caused by type II collagen in the mouse Clinical Immunology (2006) doi: 10.1016/j.clim.2006.03.005 

The Retraction from 29 March 2024 mentions additional fraud findings:

“The journal was notified of two image duplication issues within the published article, namely in Figs. 3 A and 3C, as well as Figures 3A1 and 3C1 (PubPeer link: https://pubpeer.com/publications/56FEC52B7FD7617B14D7E13D2AD492). An internal investigation found a further potential image duplication issue concerning Figs. 5B, 5D and 5F. The journal asked the authors to provide an explanation of these concerns, however the corresponding author’s explanation did not satisfactorily address the editors’ concerns.”

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