I have almost 100 manpower with me at any time

Trigger Warning: this article is racist. It is racist against Hindus, Poles, Spaniards, Romanians, Greeks, Iranians, Frenchmen, Italians, even Germans. On top, this article is also anti-science. Is this really not a sign of a superhuman genius but of a papermilling crookery when some plant science dude in India progressed from being an Ayurvedic quack to being a scientific authority on EVERYTHING? Are his international coauthors universally knowledgable superhuman geniuses and titans of science, or just a bunch of rotten pathetic papermillers? Difficult choices.

The central figure seems to be a certain Abhijit Dey.

You may have read parts of the following in earlier Friday Shorts. I probably should have disguised my plagiarism with tortured phrases.

Abhijit Dey

Reader, prepare to meet the greatest scientific mind which India, nay, the human race, ever produced.

I present you Dr Abhijit Dey, assistant associate professor at the Presidency University of Kolata in India who works “on the therapeutic application of plant natural products on the three most deadly diseases viz. neurological and psychological disorders, cancer and diabetes“, plus “cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, substance abuse, obesity etc“. But not only!

Dr Dey is an expert on all forms and aspects of medicine, pharmacology, plant biology, virology, chemistry, and any other topic known to science. And beyond. The dude is merely 43 years old (born December 1980) but he published over 500 papers already, basically on whatever topic his papermill could churn out. No wonder he was promoted to associate professor sometime in 2023.

Here is Dey’s boastful CV for you to laugh at. Among his achievements:

“Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, 2018 (Formation in the year 1788; ex-fellows: Sir Charles Darwin, William Roxburgh, Arthur William Hill and others.) […]
Ex-In Charge, Boys common room, Presidency College, Kolkata from 2006-2012″

Now, a small selection from Dey’s recent publications, to give you an overview of things he is expert on:

• Cellular landscaping of cisplatin resistance in cervical cancer (2022) Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy
• Nanotechnology-based drug delivery for the treatment of CNS disorders (2022) Translational neuroscience
• Resveratrol as a potential therapeutic molecule against neuropathy: A new narrative (2023)Treatments, Nutraceuticals, Supplements, and Herbal Medicine in Neurological Disorders
• Donkey milk: chemical make-up, biochemical features, nutritional worth, and possible human health benefits – Current state of scientific knowledge (2023) Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences
• CAR T cells: engineered immune cells to treat brain cancers and beyond (2023) Molecular cancer
• Zombie virus revitalized from permafrost: Facts and fiction (2023), New Microbes and New Infections (Didier Raoult’s own journal!)
• Mechanistic inhibition of Monkeypox and Marburg virus infection by O-rhamnosides and Kaempferol-o-rhamnosides derivatives: a new-fangled computational approach (2023), Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
• Mycoviral gene-incorporating phytopathogenic fungi: a biocontrol agent (2023), Trends in Plant Science
• Nanotheranostics to target antibiotic-resistant bacteria: Strategies and applications (2023), OpenNano
• Emergence of taurine as a therapeutic agent for neurological disorders (2023), Neural Regeneration Research
• Insights into the Scenario of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Male Reproductive Toxicity (2023) Vaccines
• Epicardial adipose tissue and cardiac lipotoxicity: A review (2023) Life Sciences
• iNCOVACC COVID-19 vaccine: A Twitter based Social Media Analysis Using Natural Language Processing, Sentiment Analysis, and Topic Modelling (2023), Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences
• Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC): Implications on molecular pathology and advances in early diagnostics and therapeutics (2023) Genes & diseases
• Microplastic pollution in the Himalayas: Occurrence, distribution, accumulation and environmental impacts (2023), The Science of The Total Environment
• SARS-CoV-2 emerging Omicron subvariants with a special focus on BF.7 and XBB.1.5 recently posing fears of rising cases amid ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (2022), Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences

Inquiring minds might wonder what COVID-19 genetics and vaccines have to do with the scope of the Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences, to which I answer: nothing, this is a predatory journal from India.

Speaking of predatory journals. As a good Hindu patriot, of course Dey advises you to eat cow shit. I am not exaggerating, look up what Panchgavya is made of:

Deepak Chandran , Ankitha Indu J , Sivasabari K , Meenakshy S , Sreelakshmi M , Amrithendhu V R , Khanza Ahamed , Gopika Ram , Devika Mohan , Anamika P , Sandip Chakraborty , Hitesh Chopra , Shopnil Akash , Ruhul Amin , Sirwan Khalid Ahmed , Abhijit Dey, Anil K Sharma , Kuldeep Dhama Potential benefits and therapeutic applications of “Panchgavya” therapy (Cowpathy) for human and animal health: Current scientific knowledge Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences (2023) doi: 10.18006/2023.11(3).520.533 

Pearls of Hindutva wisdom in that paper:

“Clinical trials of the therapy have shown promising results in patients with advanced stages of cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), diabetes, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, leukoderma, flu, asthma, allergies, heart disorders, kidney disorders, healing of wounds, nutritional and digestive disorders, chemical poisoning and other bacterial, viral, and fungal illnesses […] Cow urine also contains several digestive and immune-boosting enzymes. Cow urine is an excellent source of vitamins A, B, C, D, and E”

In the same predatory journal, Dey managed to place garbage papers extolling the medicinal virtues of goat milk, donkey milk and camel milk. And on the need to feed chickens with cinnamon. Maybe they will give milk then?

Most of Dey’s papermill excretions are dumped into allegedly respectable peer reviewed journals at Elsevier, Frontiers or MDPI. Here is a nice and rather representative paper, flagged by Elisabeth Bik, and published and never acted upon by MDPI:

Manoj M. Gadewar , Prashanth G K , Prabhu Chandra Mishra , Ghulam Md Ashraf , Majed N. Almashjary , Steve Harakeh , Vijay Upadhye , Abhijit Dey, Pallavi Singh , Niraj Kumar Jha , Saurabh Kumar Jha Evaluation of Antidiabetic, Antioxidant and Anti-Hyperlipidemic Effects of Fruit Extract in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats Current Issues in Molecular Biology (2023)   doi: 10.3390/cimb45020058

Bik also found out that some of the “data” was stolen from Keerthana et al 2013 and relabelled in different context. She also noted:

“Another remarkable feature of this paper is that the animal experiments appear to have been performed at the College of Veterinary & Animal Sciences in India, affiliated with the Maharastra Animal & Fishery Sciences University.
None of the authors, however, works there. The 11 authors of this paper work at a remarkable 15 different affiliations, but none of them is the college where the animal work was performed.”

Narrator: the animal work was never performed anywhere. No animal suffered for this papermill fabrication. Worth noting: Steve Harakeh from King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia is a close associate of a certain cheater named Shaker Mousa who used to be very big in University of Albany in New York until he was kicked out. You can read about Harakeh in September 2023 Shorts.

The above paper was of course not retracted, because MDPI. Dey had less luck elsewhere – RetractionWatch database counts 5 retractions for him, but there may be more. Here is one in PLOS One:

Romaan Nazir , Devendra Kumar Pandey , Babita Pandey , Vijay Kumar , Padmanabh Dwivedi , Aditya Khampariya , Abhijit Dey , Tabarak Malik Optimization of diosgenin extraction from Dioscorea deltoidea tubers using response surface methodology and artificial neural network modelling PLoS ONE (2021) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253617 

In a way, the “authors” were honest: they openly admitted in the contributions section that none of them did any actual experiments. Other figures are just tables and graphs, either completely made-up or stolen. The Retraction appeared on 12 October 2023, and mentioned next to the forged gels:

“Undisclosed conflicts of interest were identified involving the authors, Academic Editor, and reviewers that call into question the integrity and objectivity of the article’s peer review.”

As you will see, Dey and his gang operate a peer review ring, by acting as editors and reviewers of each other’s papers. Also this was peer-reviewed by members of Dey’s gang, and then retracted by Springer, for plagiarism:

Sayanti Mandal , Santosh Kumar Gupta , Mimosa Ghorai , Manoj Tukaram Patil , Protha Biswas , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Abilash Valsala Gopalakrishnan , Vikas Moreshwar Mohture , Md. Habibur Rahman , Dorairaj Arvind Prasanth , Abhijit Bhagwan Mane , Niraj Kumar Jha , Saurabh Kumar Jha , Milan Kumar Lal , Rahul Kumar Tiwari , Abhijit Dey Plant nutrient dynamics: a growing appreciation for the roles of micronutrients Plant Growth Regulation (2023) doi: 10.1007/s10725-023-01006-z 

“The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article because it contains material that substantially overlaps with previously published articles by different authors (Dhaliwal et al. 2022, Assunção et al. 2022, Shahzad et al. 2021). In addition, some of the scientific ideas presented by the authors can be traced back to work by others (Dhaliwal et al. 2022, Assunção et al. 2022, Shahzad et al. 2021) that has not been appropriately acknowledged.”

Retraction 7 December 2023

Also this, in another Springer journal, was reviewed by Dey’s gang members, but retracted for data manipulation:

Shah Nawaz , Prabhjot Kaur , Merinaswari Konjengbam , Vijay Kumar, Romaan Nazir , Padmanabh Dwivedi , Tuyelee Das , Abhijit Dey, Devendra Kumar Pandey A response surface-based approach to optimize elicitation conditions in Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni shoot cultures for the enhancement of steviol glycosides Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC) (2023) doi: 10.1007/s11240-023-02572-w 

Currently 125 PubPeer threads are about Dey’s papermill excretions, most are his own papers, some threads refer to papermilled fabrications which inappropriately cited Dey’s trash, obviously because he paid. Maybe one should rather search for non-papermilled publications in Dey’s output? If there are any?

In any case, the papermilling business pays off well. You can watch this real estate video with Dey, weight-lifting in the luxury housing he bought for himself in Kolkata:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zIdDRVFkxOk

Back in June 2023, Dey wrote several lengthy and inane emails to me extolling his talents and achievements, I will treat you to some choice quotes.

• “Presidency University is known for producing good students for long. In many of my review papers and chapters my past and present students, research scholars and masters’ students are dedicatedly involved for long time (at least 50 of them). They are my students and I assign them 2-3 max 4 review articles/book chapters per year. That comes to 150 automatically.”
• “I get almost 50-60 book chapter invitations per year from world leading scientists to my official email and accordingly in those 50-60 books I published almost 100 chapters per year. And all these chapters are from the world’s best publishing houses like springer, Elsevier, Wiley and crc press or Taylor and Francis.”
• “with my long term accomplishments and nurturing my students and scholars, many even after getting positions are associated with me and with their assistance I have almost 100 manpower with me at any time.”
• “In some cases especially for our urban ethnobotany studies we even consult experts from sociology, linguistics, archeology, history and museology, a transdisciplinary  approach in its true essence.”
• “WE DONT PAY FOR PAPERS. YOU MUST KNOW THAT THESE BEST IN THE PLANET JOURNALS GO THROUGH RIGOROUS PEER REVIEW AND THEY ARE SUBSCRIPTION BASED. AND LASTLY WITH AROUND ONE LAC INR SALARY per month WE DONT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO PAY EVEN FOR THE OPEN ACCESS ONES.” [caps Dey’s]

Signed with:

“Dr. Abhijit Dey
MSc (Gold Medallist), PhD, FLS (London)Associate Professor 
Department of Life Sciences Presidency University 86/1 College Street, Kolkata: 700073, West Bengal, India    
World’s Top 2% Scientist in 2021 and 2022 (by Stanford University, USA in association with Elsevier BV and Plos Biology)”

Here is Dey taking on his critic on Facebook, against boasting of his own papermill run by unpaid students:

Dey’s university leadership refused communicating with me while he insisted to enjoy their full support and admiration. He’s probably right.

Basically, Dey admitted to be operating a private papermill. Worse: he doesn’t even pay his scriveners, he says he forces students to write papers for him and his international friends for free! The quality is indeed abysmal:

Uttpal Anand , Xuan Li , Kumari Sunita , Snehal Lokhandwala , Pratibha Gautam , S. Suresh , Hemen Sarma , Balachandar Vellingiri , Abhijit Dey , Elza Bontempi, Guangming Jiang SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens in municipal wastewater, landfill leachate, and solid waste: A review about virus surveillance, infectivity, and inactivation Environmental Research (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111839 

‘Microorganisms such as pathogenic bacteria, virus, and worm eggs, as well as other physio-chemical pollutants, are commonly found in such a stream (Suresh et al., 2018, 2021).‘

“Neither Suresh et al., 2018 or Suresh et al., 2021 state anything about microorganisms. Coincidently, both papers are from an author of this study (S. Suresh)“

Worth noting that Elza Bontempi is chemistry professor at University of Brescia, Italy, who self-describes as “a researcher with expertise in all the aspects connected with the circular economy“, a “Top Italian Scientist” and one “of the UNSTOPPABLE WOMEN“. To prove all of that, she authored numerous papers with Dey’s gang, but also other questionable characters like the Spanish covidiot antivaxxer Damià Barceló or the Malaysian papermiller Pau Loke Show (now professor in Emirates), read about him here:

Here a paper by Bontempi with Dey and some people you will soon get to know better:

Uttpal Anand , M. Carpena , Monika Kowalska-Góralska, P. Garcia-Perez , Kumari Sunita , Elza Bontempi, Abhijit Dey, Miguel A. Prieto, Jarosław Proćków, Jesus Simal-Gandara Safer plant-based nanoparticles for combating antibiotic resistance in bacteria: A comprehensive review on its potential applications, recent advances, and future perspective The Science of The Total Environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153472 

“”The contribution of medical, biological, and pharmaceutical nanotechnologies is projected to peak in 2025–2035 (Gusev, 1998)”.”

The referenced russian paper never made any projections for 2025-2035. But who cares, Elsevier’s Science of The Total Environment stopped being a serious journal years ago. For example:

Jarek Proćków

Let me introduce you to some of Dey’s key papermilling associates: Uttpal Anand, Jarosław Proćków and José M. Pérez De La Lastra. You will find them all on this study advocating for the use of onions and garlic as a cure for COVID-19:

Tarun Pal , Uttpal Anand , Shreya Sikdar Mitra , Protha Biswas , Vijay Tripathi , Jarosław Proćków , Abhijit Dey, José M. Pérez De La Lastra Harnessing and bioprospecting botanical-based herbal medicines against potential drug targets for COVID-19: a review coupled molecular docking studies Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics (2023) doi: 10.1080/07391102.2023.2187634 

“Although more research is needed, this study clearly exhibits that onion is a viable alternative for the treatment ofCOVID-19 […] Because garlic is a frequent culinary spice ingredient in Asian households, these findings revealed that essential oils in garlic had antiviral properties. Garlic is clearly a valuable natural source for preventing virus invasion in the body.”

First, Jarosław Proćków, Head of the Department of Plant Biology at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Poland. Appreciate this scientific breakthrough of treating crops with metal nanoparticles:

Rahul Bhattacharjee , Lamha Kumar , Nobendu Mukerjee , Uttpal Anand , Archna Dhasmana , Subham Preetam , Samudra Bhaumik , Sanjana Sihi , Sanjana Pal , Tushar Khare , Soham Chattopadhyay , Sally A. El-Zahaby , Athanasios Alexiou , Eapen P. Koshy , Vinay Kumar , Sumira Malik, Abhijit Dey, Jarosław Proćków The emergence of metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) as a phytomedicine: A two-facet role in plant growth, nano-toxicity and anti-phyto-microbial activity Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2022.113658 

It took the combined intellectual might of Indo-Polish academic collaboration to produce a pearl of wisdom like this (highlight mine):

“The comprehensive applications of phyto-nanotechnology involving nanoparticles (NPs) are the only solution to combat the forthcoming hazardous and erratic global issues of sustenance of food production, climatic fluctuation, and instability of ecosystems and agro-systems”

The odd Greek in that paper is the Vienna-based bioinformatician and polymath papermiller Athanasios Alexiou. He also published with Dey a study called “Repurposing food molecules as a potential BACE1 inhibitor for Alzheimer’s disease” in Frontiers, with other internationally renowned Alzheimer’s experts from India, Philippines, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, China and Australia. To be fair, Alexiou doesn’t really need Dey’s appermill services, he has his own fixer: the Egyptian vet Gaber El-Saber Batiha, the two wise men jointly cured Parkinson’s with Vitamin D and COVID-19 with apple peels.

But back to Prockow. You would think this plant science professor is at least an expert in plants. No such luck. He is apparently only expert in papermilling.

Uttpal Anand , Champa Keeya Tudu , Samapika Nandy , Kumari Sunita , Vijay Tripathi , Gary J. Loake , Abhijit Dey, Jarosław Proćków Ethnodermatological use of medicinal plants in India: From ayurvedic formulations to clinical perspectives – A review Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2021.114744 

They pronounced that medicinal plants “typically do not show significant side effects” while actually linking (but not reading) a paper which warned of common cutaneous toxicity of popular medicinal plants.

Now, a set of 4 papers, all by Prockow, all in MDPI:

• Nilofar Mustafa , Naveed Iqbal Raja , Noshin Ilyas, Fozia Abasi , Muhammad Sheeraz Ahmad , Maria Ehsan , Asma Mehak , Imran Badshah , Jarosław Proćków Exogenous Application of Green Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles (TiO NPs) to Improve the Germination, Physiochemical, and Yield Parameters of Wheat Plants under Salinity Stress Molecules (2022) doi: 10.3390/molecules27154884 
• Muhammad Umair Raza , Fozia Abasi , Muhammad Shahbaz , Maria Ehsan , Wajiha Seerat , Abida Akram , Naveed Iqbal Raja, Zia Ur-Rehman Mashwani , Hammad Ul Hassan , Jarosław Proćków Phytomediated Silver Nanoparticles (AgNPs) Embellish Antioxidant Defense System, Ameliorating HLB-Diseased ‘Kinnow’ Mandarin Plants Molecules (2023) doi: 10.3390/molecules28052044 
• Hafsa Zulfiqar , Muhammad Shoaib Amjad, Ansar Mehmood , Ghazala Mustafa , Zakia Binish , Samiullah Khan , Huma Arshad , Jarosław Proćków, José Manuel Pérez De La Lastra Antibacterial, Antioxidant, and Phytotoxic Potential of Phytosynthesized Silver Nanoparticles Using Fruit Extract Molecules (2022) doi: 10.3390/molecules27185847 
• Maria Ehsan , Naveed Iqbal Raja , Zia Ur Rehman Mashwani, Efat Zohra , Fozia Abasi , Muhammad Ikram , Nilofar Mustafa , Feroza Hamid Wattoo , Jarosław Proćków, José Manuel Pérez De La Lastra Effects of Phytogenically Synthesized Bimetallic Ag/ZnO Nanomaterials and Nitrogen-Based Fertilizers on Biochemical and Yield Attributes of Two Wheat Varieties Nanomaterials (2022) doi: 10.3390/nano12172894 

The studies contain “tortured phrases” – silly word creations like “loud bands” which arise when stolen text gets translated back and forth to obscure plagiarism. Also, a PubPeer user asked:

“Can the authors (and in specific Jarosław Proćków , who is on all 4 problematic papers, see below) explain why they used a SEM picture that was taken at the Institute of space technology? None of the authors of this paper work at that institute. Furthermore, there is no mentioning of any acknowledgment regarding taking the picture at the institute of space technology. It is also odd that the system with which the picture was taken was not mentioned in M&M section.”

Prockow wrote me a very long letter when asked about his papermill activities with Dey. Excerpts:

“Nowadays, people often work remotely, and even the individual authors of a given multiauthored publication may not know each other, but they may be connected by, for example, one or few people in common with whom they actually cooperate.

So, the assumption that someone knows someone personally just because they have a joint publication is wrong […]

I also analysed Pubpeer entries and it should be noted that most of them are anonymous! ( https://pubpeer.com/publications/BB8E364E2C4B348262025FB9902EA7# ). Only Elisabeth M. Bik signed her name, and the remaining nicknames are Latin names of various species of organisms, e.g. plants (Momordica runssorica), algae (Characiopsis saccate), fungi (Psathyrella silvestris), or insects (Therophilus boonthami)! For me, this situation is completely unclear because if someone writes some critical comments, why does he not want to sign them by name and surname and remains so brave only when he/she is anonymous? Why does not he/she want to reveal his name if he/she thinks that he/she is right?

Or, maybe, do you support this way a group of fraudsters or blackmailers who demand money from us, the senior authors of the paper, i.e., myself, Prof. Jarosław Proćków and Dr. Abhijit Dey? Please find attached the print-screen of the email confirming that they created a fake account with ‘@gmail.com’ and publisher’s name and this way they were demanding money from us. This is an obvious attempt of fraud! And this is also why we believe that the unknown commentators/readers belong to this fraud system; that is unacceptable for us. Thus, we are thinking about lodging a police complaint and filing a case in this regard, in agreement with the Rector’s authorities of my University.

Also, do not you not think it is very strange that all of debaters (except Elisabeth M. Bik) had the same idea and used the Latin names of various organisms as their nicknames?”

Yes, all PubPeer comments are posted by the same person who likes using Latin species name. Must be Carl von Linné… This evidence of “blackmail” was attached:

I personally find this hilarious, scammers scammed by other scammers. The email is obviously NOT from Frontiers. Mirjam Eckert (formerly Mirjam Curno) is not a chief editor, but Frontiers Chief Publishing Officer. And Frontiers offices do many silly things, but they never use gmail accounts. I wrote about Eckert/Curno several times, once about her own dodgy paper on PubPeer, but mostly about her campaign to defend Frontiers from Jeffrey Beall:

Uttpal Anand

Here is another Dey-Prockow paper about “antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and anti-microbial” qualities of Aloe vera, published in a German journal which desperately fights its papermill infestation:

Shreya Sikdar Mitra , Mimosa Ghorai , Samapika Nandy , Nobendu Mukherjee , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Arabinda Ghosh , Niraj Kumar Jha , Jarosław Proćków, Abhijit Dey Barbaloin: an amazing chemical from the ‘wonder plant’ with multidimensional pharmacological attributes Naunyn-Schmiedeberg s Archives of Pharmacology (2022) doi: 10.1007/s00210-022-02294-4

Alexander Magazinov commented:

“Dimensions recognizes 77 items on the reference list of this paper. Of those, 18 are co-authored by a certain U Anand (Uttpal Anand, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel).
Citations to U Anand either follow generic statements that are not specific to the core topic of this paper, or are plainly out-of-context […]. This aggravates the concern about the apparent citation bias.”

Time to meet Dey’s close associate, the Indian Uttpal Anand. He used to be MSc student with Varda Shoshan-Barmatz at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel (she has her own PubPeer record).

Anand simply continued using the long-outdated Israeli affiliation, at some point the university had to demand corrections from publishers, which took place. Like here, a Frontiers paper by Anand, Prockow and Dey which was peer-reviewed by Dey’s coauthors because obviously nobody checks such things:

Sayanti Mandal , Mimosa Ghorai , Uttpal Anand , Dipu Samanta , Nishi Kant , Tulika Mishra , Md. Habibur Rahman , Niraj Kumar Jha , Saurabh Kumar Jha , Milan Kumar Lal , Rahul Kumar Tiwari , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Dorairaj Arvind Prasanth , Abhijit Bhagwan Mane , Abilash Valsala Gopalakrishnan , Protha Biswas , Jarosław Proćków, Abhijit Dey Cytokinin and abiotic stress tolerance -What has been accomplished and the way forward? Frontiers in Genetics (2022) doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.943025 

Frontiers initially corrected the paper in January 2024:

“Incorrect Affiliation In the published article, there was an error in affiliation [3]. Instead of “[Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel]”, it should be “[CytoGene Research & Development LLP, K-51, Industrial Area, Kursi Road (Lucknow), Dist.– Barabanki, 225001, Uttar Pradesh, India]”. The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.

The author, Uttpal Anand, was employed by the company CytoGene Research & Development LLP.”

As a side-note, if Anand is really employed by the Lucknow-based company, then in some minor function – this superscientist is not listed as team member.

But nothing is permanent with Frontiers who are known to delete entire research papers, doi and all, when need arises. So the above text of the Corrigendum was erased and a Retraction followed:

“Following publication, the publisher found evidence of peer review manipulation. […] Frontiers would like to thank the concerned reader who contacted us regarding the published article and the users on PubPeer for bringing the published article to our attention.”

In much of his never-ending email to me, Prockow (self-described as “an extremely hard-working person“) raged against the injustice of this retraction, which he equalled to “mental harassment and defamation“, and announced to “take appropriate legal action” against Frontiers for “destroying the mental health and scientific careers of our younger Colleagues“. He had this to say about his co-author Anand:

“I wanted to draw your attention to the most shocking aspect of this whole situation. First of all, you must be aware that our youngest and most promising collaborators have become targets just because they are young and want to do something good in science!

Namely, in July 2023 I received an email from an unknown person with the following information [I am quoting it directly]: ‘How can Uttpal Anand, who only recently got his master degree, publish so many papers? He obtained his master degree in 2022 and already has tens of papers published in 2022 alone? He also publishes in several fields: malaria, corona viruses, nanoplastics, algae etc.’

The ‘problem’ arose: How is it possible that such a young person is the coauthor of so many publications in such a short time and in very good journals?

And for my part, I can confirm that he is a very hard-working person and deserves his status, despite his young age, because he is really very talented and we need such people in science!

The problem is that some people cannot stand it and accept the fact that such a young person can already have such good achievements at this age, so they try to destroy him and discredit him in science just because he is talented! Do you belong to this group of people who try to destroy such young scientists?”

And did you know Jarek Prockow is Poland’s greatest champion of anti-racism?

“I would like to emphasise that issues of discrimination against Asian authors are unacceptable and it even never crossed my mind that such an issue could occur, but unfortunately, I believe we have just encountered such a situation (called rasism in science). I fully support all my non-European Colleagues because we cannot accept this type of situation just because they are from outside Europe and/or N America!”

I would like to add even more racism against papermilling Polish professors, and invite you to read April 2024 Shorts about Grzegorz Królczyk, Vice-Rector of Opole University of Technology.

José Pérez De La Lastra

Another recurrent name you may have noticed is that of the Spaniard José M. Pérez De La Lastra, employed by the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology (IPNA) on the Canary Island of Tenerife. He published many papers with Dey, on all possible topics.

A nonsense review about garlic, with Dey and Prockow:

Champa Keeya Tudu , Tusheema Dutta , Mimosa Ghorai , Protha Biswas , Dipu Samanta , Patrik Oleksak , Niraj Kumar Jha , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Jarosław Proćków, José M. Pérez De La Lastra, Abhijit Dey Traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology of garlic (), a storehouse of diverse phytochemicals: A review of research from the last decade focusing on health and nutritional implications Frontiers in Nutrition (2022) doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.929554 

The authors advise to use garlic extract for human therapy of diabetes and other diseases, at concentrations 1000 fold higher that the studies they referenced. I suggest they test injecting 5 g garlic per kg body weight into themselves.

The three plant scientists Dey, Anand and De La Lastra are obviously also qualified oncologists:

Uttpal Anand , Abhijit Dey , Arvind K. Singh Chandel , Rupa Sanyal , Amarnath Mishra, Devendra Kumar Pandey , Valentina De Falco , Arun Upadhyay , Ramesh Kandimalla , Anupama Chaudhary , Jaspreet Kaur Dhanjal , Saikat Dewanjee , Jayalakshmi Vallamkondu , José M. Pérez De La Lastra Cancer chemotherapy and beyond: Current status, drug candidates, associated risks and progress in targeted therapeutics Genes & Diseases (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.gendis.2022.02.007 

This authoritative oncology review was peer-reviewed by Dey’s gang members and contains tortured phrases “bosom cancer” and “cardiovascular breakdown“. Cheap papermills operate by stealing content of published papers, and running the text through translations back and forth to hide plagiarism.

According to my information, Perez-De La Lastra used EU money to pay the publication costs of his questionable “research”, and his boss Brent Emerson instructed him to reply to PubPeer criticism, which the former duly and if not eloquently, then very extensively, did. Often by lashing out against PubPeer critics and accusing them of anti-scientific behaviour and ad hominem attacks. In this case, Perez-De La Lastra explained:

“A simple Google schoolar search is enough to understand that those phrases you call tortured already exist in the scientific literature.
“boson cancer “129 results
“bosom carcinoma”, 33 results
“cardiovascular breakdown”, 582 results.“

Next this Spanish genius will claim that it is legal to steal liquor from shop because he saw someone else do it. Another example of Perez-De La lastra’s intellectually advanced reasoning:

“Where is the ethic of someone who needs to fabricate arguments on this PubPeer platform for his/her own purpose of personal disqualification and blog promotion?“

Perez-De La Lastra then demanded that PubPeer sanctions those who illegitimately comment on his papers. The case was closed for IPNA, who never replied to my emails.

Sometimes Perez-De La lastra publishes without Dey. Here he is with a certain German man named Rainer W. Bussmann, presently head of the botany department at the State Museum for Natural Science in Karlsruhe, about whose peculiar collaborations I wrote in July 2023 Shorts. Back then, Bussmann told me:

“How do I know that my papers don’t come from a papermill? Because I write and revise every single paper myself.“

Then he maybe can take responsibility for this:

Musheerul Hassan , Shiekh Marifatul Haq , Muhammad Shoaib Amjad , Riyaz Ahmad , Rainer W. Bussmann, José Manuel Pérez De La Lastra Invertebrates and herptiles for livelihoods—ethnozoological use among different ethnic communities in Jammu and Kashmir (Indian Himalayas) Frontiers in Pharmacology (2023) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.1043155 

Perez-De La Lastra then claimed on PubPeer that it was the Moroccan beekeeper who stole the photo from him, and then backdated his Facebook post. To be fair, it is quite likely that this Spanish imposter is both a moron and a psychopath. One PubPeer commenter meekly asked about authors’ misiterpretation GMO laws in USA. Perez-De La Lastra first replied more or less normally, and then switched to:

“Do you have personal enmity with some of the co-authors of these papers? Are you being paid to find flaws in the papers of certain authors considered problematic? […] It would also be nice to know what is your areas of expertise or scientific interests to know others that you are an expert dedicated to a particular area of Science, not just to find flaws.”

Thing is, neither he nor his papermilling buddies are experts in any area of science, and that’s why they publish on all of them.

Tapan Behl

Now, meet another associate of Dey – Tapan Behl, professor at University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Uttarakhand, India. I wrote about him in January 2024 Shorts. His Indian university celebrates Behl as:

“Dr. Behl has been listed in the top 2% of scientists worldwide for three consecutive years, as per the list released by Stanford University and Elsevier BV.”

Here is a nonsense citation vehicle by Behl, Dey and Anand:

Shinjini Bandopadhyay , Uttpal Anand , Vijaykumar Shivaji Gadekar , Niraj Kumar Jha , Piyush Kumar Gupta , Tapan Behl , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Mahipal S. Shekhawat , Abhijit Dey Dioscin: A review on pharmacological properties and therapeutic values BioFactors (2022) doi: 10.1002/biof.1815

“Viruses are responsible for a wide range of diseases ^154–157“

“All 4 references go to obscure COVID-19 papers by someone called U. Anand“

Another one by Behl, Dey, Anand and Prockow:

Sicon Mitra , Uttpal Anand , Mimosa Ghorai , Balachandar Vellingiri , Niraj Kumar Jha , Tapan Behl , Manoj Kumar , Radha , Mahipal S. Shekhawat , Jarosław Proćków, Abhijit Dey Unravelling the Therapeutic Potential of Botanicals Against Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): Molecular Insights and Future Perspectives Frontiers in Pharmacology (2022) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.824132 

The rest of references often make no sense either. Frontiers decided to fix this with a Correction, on 7 March 2024. It removed Anand’s fake Israeli affiliation. Obviously there’s nothing else wrong with that papermill fabrication.

Whatever their academic titles may claim – Behl, Dey and Prockow are experts in bullshit only. Ok, and in citation scamming. As Bik noted, “at least 15 of the cited papers are from these authors themselves“:

“In population-based observational samples from 1987 to 1988 and 2005 to 2009, only a small percentage of lifetime smokers were found to have spirometry-defined COPD with up to 30% occurring among people who had never smoked (Bakke et al., 1991)”

Now, let’s meet more associates of Dey – several Romanian professors, all female.

Romanian Ladies

The following Alzheimer’s nonsense was published in a papermill-only journal by Springer – Environmental Science and Pollution Research, edited by Philippe Garrigues, CNRS Research Director in Bordeaux, France. You can read about this journal here:

Dey’s co-author here is the notorious papermiller Simona Bungau, professor at University of Oradea in Romania (where her husband Constantin Bungau is rector):

Dapinder Kaur , Tapan Behl , Sridevi Chigurupati , Aayush Sehgal , Sukhbir Singh , Neelam Sharma , Vishnu Nayak Badavath , Celia Vargas-De-La-Cruz , Saurabh Bhatia , Ahmed Al-Harrasi , Abhijit Dey , Lotfi Aleya , Simona Bungau Deciphering the focal role of endostatin in Alzheimer’s disease Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2021) doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-16567-7 

As you see, the paper is totally out of scope, but it passed peer review from Dey’s gang. You can read about Bungau (and Behl, and their German associates) here:

Now meet another Romanian associate of Dey: Bungau’s university colleague Simona Cavalu. Before Cavalu discovered papermills, she was stealing scholarly work traditionally, i.e. by classic plagiarism. Read about this in July 2023 Shorts.

Behold, a paper in MDPI by world’s leading antibiotics experts Cavalu and Dey with eminent scholars from Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, India, South Korea and Morocco.

Md. Mominur Rahman , Mst. Afroza Alam Tumpa, Mehrukh Zehravi, Md. Taslim Sarker , Md. Yamin, Md. Rezaul Islam , Md. Harun-Or-Rashid , Muniruddin Ahmed, Sarker Ramproshad, Banani Mondal , Abhijit Dey, Fouad Damiri, Mohammed Berrada , Md. Habibur Rahman, Simona Cavalu An Overview of Antimicrobial Stewardship Optimization: The Use of Antibiotics in Humans and Animals to Prevent Resistance Antibiotics (2022) doi: 10.3390/antibiotics11050667

Obviously another example of tortured phrases which arise from attempts to hide plagiarism. Which would have failed were there any actual peer reveiw going on, but there rarely is, certainly not at MDPI.

Alexander Magazinov noticed the tortured phrases because the papermillers plagiarised a British paper by the Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar: Jinks et al. 2016 . Elisabeth Bik noticed inappropriate references as well as Table 4 having been stolen from Yusuf et al 2021, another MDPI paper by a totally different set of authors from the Erasmus University in the Netherlands. Or maybe the papermill just recycled it. Other datasets were stolen from Davies & Davies 2010.

MDPI elegantly resolved the matter with an Expression of Concern from 12 April 2024:

“Follow discussions with the authors, the Editor-in-Chief has decided to provide the authors with the opportunity to address these concerns and prepare a potential update to the publication, which will be considered by the Editor-in-Chief.”

And then there Dey’s two other Romanian associates: Anca Oana Docea and Daniela Calina, professors at University of Medicine and Pharmacy Craiova. They are not only papermill customers but also members of the covidiot antivaxxer gang of the Greek fraudster Aristides Tsatsakis, read here:

This is what Frontiers eagerly accepted from Dey, Docea, Calina and whoever else invested:

Javad Sharifi-Rad , Abhijit Dey , Niranjan Koirala , Shabnum Shaheen , Nasreddine El Omari , Bahare Salehi , Tamar Goloshvili , Nathália Cristina Cirone Silva , Abdelhakim Bouyahya , Sara Vitalini , Elena M. Varoni , Miquel Martorell , Anna Abdolshahi , Anca Oana Docea , Marcello Iriti , Daniela Calina , Francisco Les , Víctor López , Constantin Caruntu Species: Bridging Phytochemistry Knowledge, Pharmacological Properties and Toxicological Safety for Health Benefits Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.600139 

Elisabeth Bik commented:

“This paper was written by authors from an astonishing 21 affiliations, with almost all authors working at different departments or institutions. The affiliations are from Iran, Ecuador, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Morocco, Georgia, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Romania, and Spain. […] One might also wonder how some of the citations made it into the paper. Some general statements are supported by specific papers that did not report on those statements. Rather, those citations are authored by co-authors on this paper.“

Romanian and Spanish coauthors can be very convenient. White European coauthors always look good on a paper, plus they have access to EU funds to pay the hefty publication charges in journals like Frontiers.

Javad Sharifi-Rad

The first author of the above paper is not some random nobody who paid a papermill. Alexander Magazinov thinks that the Iranian crook Javad Sharifi-Rad (currently affiliated with University of Azuay in Ecuador) is the man who provides Dey with papermilled authorships. Either Sharifi-Rad is the papermill owner, or he operates an Indo-Iranian papermill together with Dey (and with Anand).

In any case, Sharifi-Rad and Dey peer-review each other’s papers:

Md. Shahazul Islam , Cristina Quispe , Rajib Hossain , Muhammad Torequl Islam , Ahmed Al-Harrasi, Ahmed Al-Rawahi , Miquel Martorell , Assem Mamurova , Ainur Seilkhan , Nazgul Altybaeva , Bagila Abdullayeva , Anca Oana Docea , Daniela Calina , Javad Sharifi-Rad Neuropharmacological Effects of Quercetin: A Literature-Based Review Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.665031

Bik commented:

“Of even more concern is that one of the peer reviewers of this paper is Abhijit Dey, who has recently published with last authors D Calina and J Sharafi-Rad. “

Of course Dey, Sharafi-Rad and Calina had to write a paper about resveratrol, the magic subtance of red wine, because everyone else did. They were joined by a numerous fellow experts from Portugal, Chile, Italy, Egypt and Ecuador:

Javad Sharifi-Rad , Cristina Quispe , Alessandra Durazzo , Massimo Lucarini , Eliana B. Souto , Antonello Santini, Muhammad Imran , Ashaimaa Y. Moussa , Nada M. Mostafa , Mohamed El-Shazly , Bilge Sener , Mauricio Schoebitz , Miquel Martorell, Abhijit Dey , Daniela Calina , Natália Cruz-Martins Resveratrol’ biotechnological applications: Enlightening its antimicrobial and antioxidant properties Journal of Herbal Medicine (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.hermed.2022.100550 

This paper about the rosemary as cancer medicine, by Sharifi-Rad and Calina, was also very likely peer-reviewed by Dey, because it references his papers out of context:

Shumaila Ijaz , Javed Iqbal , Banzeer Ahsan Abbasi , Zakir Ullah , Tabassum Yaseen , Sobia Kanwal , Tariq Mahmood , Sandugash Sydykbayeva , Alibek Ydyrys , Zainab M. Almarhoon , Javad Sharifi-Rad, Christophe Hano, Daniela Calina, William C. Cho Rosmarinic acid and its derivatives: Current insights on anticancer potential and other biomedical applications Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2023.114687 

“This paper has signs of production by a paper-mill / citation-ring, written with the purpose to sell authorship positions, and to enhance the citations of particular authors.
Senior authors D Calina and J Sharifi-Rad have written ~75 review papers together, with a variable group of other authors. In many cases, each or most of the authors are from different affiliations, and unlikely to have collaborated with each other.
This paper was written by authors from 11 different affiliations in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, France, Romania, and Hong Kong with almost all authors working at different departments or institutions. One might wonder how they have all found each other to write a peer review about Rosmarinic Acid.“

Elisabeth Bik

Et al

Among coauthors on the above study is the Chinese William C Cho, who has currently a dozen of papers on PubPeer, often coauthored by Sharifi-Rad and Calina. Some where already retracted for papermilling, including one with the German plant scientist Michael Wink (read March 2024 Shorts).

Another coauthor above is and the Frenchman Christophe Hano, associate professor of phytochemistry at University of Orléans, with around the same number of PubPeer threads as Cho, some contain clearly forged data. One of Hano’s papers was retracted by PLOS One “because it was identified as one of a series of submissions for which we have concerns about authorship, competing interests, and peer review.” Here is a common paper with Dey:

Manoj Kumar, Baohong Zhang , Jayashree Potkule , Kanika Sharma , Radha , Christophe Hano , Vijay Sheri , Deepak Chandran , Sangram Dhumal , Abhijit Dey , Nadeem Rais , Marisennayya Senapathy , Suman Natta , Sabareeshwari Viswanathan , Pran Mohankumar , José M. Lorenzo Cottonseed Oil: Extraction, Characterization, Health Benefits, Safety Profile, and Application Food Analytical Methods (2023) doi: 10.1007/s12161-022-02410-3

“Can the authors provide more details about their choice of the reference (Al Khawli et al., 2019)? I am afraid, plant seeds and fish / shellfish byproducts are sufficiently different resources, and extraction methods applied to the latter may not work with the former, at least without significant modifications.”

Alexander Magazinov

The reference belongs to a paper by the last author José M. Lorenzo (Head of Research at the Meat Technology Centre of Galicia in Spain) who is also an occasional co-author (or customer?) of Dey’s. Lorenzo was in fact publicly exposed as a massive papermiller who “publishes a study every other day” by El Pais in June 2023.

Lorenzo is paid to pretend to be a meat expert, Dey is at least officially a plant pharmacologist. Which is exactly why they published a paper on dentistry, where they apparently advise to have live bees to fly into your mouth and sting you, to treat paradonthosis. In MDPI:

Manoj Kumar , Suraj Prakash , Radha , José M. Lorenzo, Deepak Chandran , Sangram Dhumal , Abhijit Dey , Marisennayya Senapathy , Nadeem Rais , Surinder Singh , Phillip Kalkreuter , Rahul D. Damale , Suman Natta , Marthandan Vishvanathan , Sangeetha Kizhakkumkara Sathyaseelan , Sureshkumar Rajalingam , Sabareeshwari Viswanathan , Yasodha Murugesan , Muthamilselvan Muthukumar , Aravind Jayaraman , Murugasridevi Kalirajan, Samy Selim, Ryszard Amarowicz, Mohamed Mekhemar Apitherapy and Periodontal Disease: Insights into In Vitro, In Vivo, and Clinical Studies Antioxidants (2022) doi: 10.3390/antiox11050823 

El Pais asked Lorenzo about this paper:

“In a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS, Lorenzo admits that he doesn’t know any of these co-authors in person, nor is he an expert on any of these issues.”

The coauthors are mostly Indian, plus another papermilling Polish professor – Ryszard Amarowicz, and a young German dentist named Phillip Kalkreuter who probably wanted to impress his mum. Lorenzo the Butcher also coauthored papers with Dey about the medicinal effects of acacia, custard apples, Indian bael and Java plum seeds.

A year ago, Hano assured me that his “work is in no way related to the papermill.” He also added:

“I find it strange that you begin in such a way as to pique your interest in my work. COPE had warned me about potential pressures. I just hope that your efforts are motivated solely by a desire to reduce publication errors and not by financial interest.“

In that world, papermills are the good guys, selfless heroes fighting for science.

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