Schneider Shorts 7.06.2024 – A giant reservoir of energy for knowledge and curiosity

Schneider Shorts of 7 June 2024 – Papermillers never die, New Declaration of Helsinki, a failed crusade for scientific truth, with two “doing the right thing” retractions, sole culprit found 11 years later, a publisher cleanup, and finally, with a Nobelist’s grandson who wants to sell you pomegranate supplements.

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Science Elites

Declaration of Helsinki

The Mohammad Taheri circus is now playing in yet another venue – University of Helsinki in Finland. As reminder, this Iranian conman (currently a PhD student in Jena, Germany) and his colleague Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard (Iranian professor connected to the top echelons of Iran’s terror regime) run a private papermill, churning out masses of nonsense reviewers referencing retracted papermill trash or brain-dead clinical studies which lack a proper ethics approval. Read here:

This time, it is about their collaborator Reyhane Eghtedarian, currently a humble little PhD student in the Doctoral Programme Brain & Mind at the University of Helsinki. To qualify for this highly completive PhD position, Eghtedarian presented a CV of (currently) 18 publications, published since June 2020, all about non-coding RNA and gene expression in all possible diseases, many of those original clinical studies. Which Finnish applicant can compete with a such a CV?

The university prides itself of Eghtedarian’s performance, here they proudly list her most recent paper with Taheri and Ghafouri-Fard (you can read about its last author from Switzerland, Serge Brand, in May 2024 Shorts). The study bears Eghtedarian’s Helsinki affiliation:

Soudeh Ghafouri-fard , Reyhane Eghtedarian , Elham Badrlou , Solat Eslami , Mohammad Taheri, Serge Brand Association between ACE gene polymorphisms and risk of suicide Biomarkers in Neuropsychiatry (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.bionps.2024.100087 

The suicide victims study is most likely fabricated anyway, Magazinov and Dorothy Bishop swiftly debunked it as nonsense. But let’s assume the University of Helsinki believes this clinical study with suicide victims to be real. Shouldn’t there be a signed consent by the survivors or the victims’ families?

Allow me to remind the University of Helsinki of the famous Declaration of Helsinki (1964) about clinical experimentation on humans, especially the section about “Informed Consent”. Is it valid in Helsinki also?

13 of Eghtedarian’s papers with Taheri and Ghafouri-Fard are now flagged on PubPeer for issues like this, or for nonsense references, many of them papermilled, some already retracted, or, to remain on the topic of Declaration of Helsinki, for absent ethics approval like this one:

Mohammad Taheri , Reyhaneh Eghtedarian , Solat Eslami , Bashdar Mahmud Hussen , Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard, Seyed Abdulmajid Ayatollahi Alteration in the expression of long non-coding RNAs in the circulation of migraineurs Acta Neurologica Belgica (2024) doi: 10.1007/s13760-024-02513-0 

Also this was discovered:

• “Table 1 reports 50 + 46 + 58 subjects (with aura + without aura + control). Supplementary information has 50 + 50 + 58 entries.
• Supplementary information reports only 16 expression levels for SPRY4, Fig. 1 shows much more data points.
• Cases and controls are formatted very differently. A lot of decimal digits in CT columns for cases, only 3 digits for controls.”

Basically, the clinical study on how non-coding RNAs cause headaches was also made up, just like the rest by Taheri, Ghafouri-Fard and Eghtedarian. But OK, maybe the University of Helsinki knows and this is why they are not concerned about ethics breach against fictional patients. But shouldn’t the university then be concerned about their elite PhD student Eghtedarian publishing made-up studies? At another Finnish university, a PhD student was recently found guilty for buying authorships from Iranian papermills (read April 2024 Shorts).

Alexander Magazinov reported Eghtedarian and her supervisor, the assistant professor Helena Kilpinen to the authorities of the University of Helsinki, accusing the latter of failing to respond to the allegations against the PhD student whom she recruited based on a very dodgy CV. Magazinov listed 8 problematic papers by Ehgtedarian with Taheri and Ghafouri-Fard (click on PubPeer links for details):

1. Upregulation of VDR-associated lncRNAs in Schizophrenia (Ghafouri-Fard et al., 2021; doi: 10.1007/s12031-021-01901-y.
2. A Review on the Expression Pattern of Non-coding RNAs in Patients With
   Schizophrenia: With a Special Focus on Peripheral Blood as a Source of Expression Analysis (Ghafouri-Fard et al., 2021; doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.640463)
3. Expression Analysis of VDR-Related LncRNAs in Autism Spectrum Disorder
   (Ghafouri-Fard et al., 2021; doi: 10.1007/s12031-021-01858-y)
4. Angiotensin I converting enzyme gene polymorphisms and risk of psychiatric
   disorders (Akbari et al., 2022; doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-04007-w).
5. Abnormal pattern of vitamin D receptor-associated genes and lncRNAs in patients with bipolar disorder (Eghtedarian et al., 2021; doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-03811-8)
6. Assessment of Expression of Regulatory T Cell Differentiation Genes in Autism Spectrum Disorder (Akbari et al., 2022; doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2022.939224).
7. Assessment of expression of oxytocin-related lncRNAs in schizophrenia
   (Eghtedarian et al., 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2022.175205).
8. Assessment of Treg-related lncRNAs in epilepsy (Sharifi et al., 2023; doi:
   10.3389/fnmol.2022.1031314)

I personally expected the University of Helsinki to crack down on Eghtedarian but to defend Kilpinen as a victim of the former’s insidious scheming.

I was wrong. Both were acquitted in full, Magazinov’s notification was rejected by the Chancellor Kaarle Hämeri.

Here is the official letter from 3 June 2024:

Quote:

“The notification primarily accuses Eghtedarian of overstating her research accomplishments.
It is stated in the notification that Eghtedarian’s CV contains several publications that are either of low quality or may be produced by entities generating falsified research to sell authorship positions (papermills). According to the notification, Eghtedarian has listed such publications in her CV, which manifests misleading the research community and research funders and the general public over her research achievements. The notification also raises doubts on the quality and reliability of these publications. It is stated that, for instance, some of the publications contain references to somewhat dubious articles, the ethical permits of the research are to some extent inadequate, or the reviewers of the publications have been collaborators of the authors. In addition, it is claimed that Eghtedarian has served as a peer reviewer of her previous collaborators in three instances.
Eghtedarian has in her response in detail described her actual role in each publication mentioned in the notification. It is evident that Eghtedarian has not had the role of principal investigator in the research behind the publications. Nor had she been the main author of the publications. According to her response, she has, for example, conducted experimental research, conducted laboratory experiments and prepared summarizing tables. Eghtedarian has, thus, not been responsible on the design of the publications or on the ethical permits of the research projects. […]

There is therefore no evidence on exaggeration of research achievements and misleading the research community. The notification is, thus, in this respect unfounded.”

Translation: yes, those papers are possibly papermilled. But Eghtedarian contributed nothing and is thus not responsible. We applaud her academic ingenuity and wish her success in further papermilling.

What about the rigged peer review? Since only Frontiers always names reviewers, Magazinov found 3 Frontiers papers by Taheri and Ghafouri-Fard where Eghtedarian was named as peer reviewer, from November 2021, November 2022 and February 2023. Rector’s verdict:

“In addition, the notification concerns allegedly problematic peer review activity of Eghtedarian. It is stated in the notification that Eghtedarian has served as a reviewer of the articles of her frequent collaborators. Three such articles are listed in the notification. Eghtedarian states in her response that her action as a peer reviewer took place only after the collaboration has ended.”

Lies, lies, lies. See for example Egtedarian’s 2024 paper above which University of Helsinki now boasts as their own achievement. The final decision by the Chancellor:

“Based on the grounds discussed above, I find that there is no reason to suspect violation of responsible conduct of research in the actions of doctoral researcher Reyhane Eghtedarian and assistant professor Helena Kilpinen. There is no need for further action in this process”

The University of Helsinki did not reply to me to deny that they don’t believe in papermills. Or in ethics approvals and patient consent.

To be fair, papermilling is also legal in Germany when it serves a good cause, i.e. extracting money from public coffers.

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A giant reservoir of energy for knowledge and curiosity

We are here to lament the untimely death of the great Greek-American scholar Dionysios Dionysiou, professor of engineering at the University of Cincinnati. Dionysiou died on November 20, 2023, at the age of 57. His university issued this obituary:

“Dionysiou was a true leader in his field. In 2022, he was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate for the fifth consecutive year. Dionysiou had more than 600 publications, which have been cited 68,000 times in other papers. His research has been supported by more than $8 million in grant funding. “

In memoriam of Dionysios D. Dionysiou 🌹https://t.co/tNHTEjj9Rq pic.twitter.com/gyaIn7LBil

— Nireas-IWRC (@NireasIWRC) November 29, 2023

A faculty colleague was quoted with “Dion possessed a giant reservoir of energy for knowledge and curiosity that could never be filled”. A PhD mentee said: “At every conference, when people learned Dr. Dion was my adviser, they would launch into a story about how they knew him – which would usually end in laughter”.

The obituary doesn’t say what Dionysiou died from, but the Chinese papermilling industry will sorely miss him. Dion used to publish more papers than some other scientists read: 72 in 2019, 83 in 2020, 63 in 2021… Most of his coauthors are in China. Like here:

Fang Deng , Fei Zhong , Decai Lin , Lina Zhao , Yuejing Liu , Jinhong Huang , Xubiao Luo , Shenglian Luo , Dionysios D. Dionysiou One-step hydrothermal fabrication of visible-light-responsive AgInS2/SnIn4S8 heterojunction for highly-efficient photocatalytic treatment of organic pollutants and real pharmaceutical industry wastewater Applied Catalysis B: Environment and Energy (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.apcatb.2017.07.051 

Another one, same first author Fang Deng:

Fang Deng , Xiaoying Lu , Yingbo Luo , Jie Wang , Wenjie Che , Ruijie Yang , Xubiao Luo , Shenglian Luo , Dionysios D. Dionysiou Novel visible-light-driven direct Z-scheme CdS/CuInS2 nanoplates for excellent photocatalytic degradation performance and highly-efficient Cr(VI) reduction Chemical Engineering Journal (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2018.10.176 

There is a similar fabrication by Fang Deng, Dionysiou and others in the same journal: Deng et al 2018. Here is Dionysiou with more Chinese and the King of Papermillers, Rafael Luque:

Wei Wang , Binhai Cheng , Ming Zhao , Edward Anthony , Rafael Luque, Dionysios D. Dionysiou Boosting H2 yield from photoreforming of lignocellulose by thermo-alkaline hydrolysis with selective generation of a key intermediate product: Tartaric acid Energy Conversion and Management (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115444 

And here is Dio with the papermiller Virender Sharma (read October 2023 Shorts):

Virender K Sharma , Radek Zboril , Rajender S Varma Ferrates: greener oxidants with multimodal action in water treatment technologies Accounts of Chemical Research (2015) doi: 10.1021/ar5004219

Here another one, with Sharma and Rafi Luque!

Virender K. Sharma , Xin Yang , Leslie Cizmas , Thomas J. McDonald , Rafael Luque , Christie M. Sayes , Baoling Yuan , Dionysios D. Dionysiou Impact of metal ions, metal oxides, and nanoparticles on the formation of disinfection byproducts during chlorination Chemical Engineering Journal (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2017.02.071

Also, Dionysiou’s papers were referenced by the worst of papermillers. Ali Fahkri for example, in Wang et al 2021, Yang et al 2021, Chen et al 2021 and Bahodorari et al 2022. Papermillers never cite other papermillers for no reason – such citations are usually paid for or extorted.

It is very fitting that one obituary to Dion was written by the Spanish papermiller, likely antivaxxer and disastrous Elsevier editor Damia Barcelo:

“Dion’s impactful life transcended his role as a university professor; it was a global scientist dedicated to advancing water science and engineering. […] According to Google Scholar he had over 80,000 citations with an h-index of 146. Dion was a Highly Cited Researcher, Web of Science, Clarivate Analytics.”

It ends in laughter indeed: Dionysiou continues publishing from beyond the grave, 13 papers appeared in 2024 already. This one was submitted in February 2024, of course the paper carries no notice of the death. And this one, a China-Pakistan-France-USA collaboration, online since 24 March 2024, has our dead man as corresponding author. Who was corresponding with Elsevier in reality? Dion’s ghost? Or the papermill?

Dion actually fares just like another “customer” of Magazinov’s, the Czech professor Jiří Jaromír Klemeš who died in January 2023 but also continued papermilling afterwards (see this Retraction Watch reporting). Immortality through papermilling?

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The security agency wants to interview you

I had a lenghty email exchange with one former co-author of Dion Dionysiou, a certain Samrand Saeidi from Iran. He recently graduated with his second PhD in Hungary and now works as a research professor at the Silesian University of Technology in Poland. His joint papers with Dionysiou are Mohammadian et al 2018 and Najari et al 2021. As it happens, Saiedi also coauthored two papers with Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Saeidi et al 2016 and Shahhosseini et al 2018, their other coauthors are also from Iran.

In this regard, Saiedi told me:

“I met them both in UTM (Malaysia) during my first PhD. […] these two people helped me to find my way like a father. “

Saiedi insisted to be not a Kurdish Muslim at all as his name suggests, but a victim of an Islamist persecution. He said he successfully graduate in Malaysia, but claimed to have torn up his diploma due to persecution from the Islamists and his Malaysian university. Hence, his recently completed second PhD in Szeged, Hungary.

We got in touch because Saiedi initially complained that his and his wife’s identity were usurped by someone who commented on my website. He sent me this message:

“Delete my name (Samrand Saeidi) and my wife’s name from your website ASAP..
https://forbetterscience.com/2024/02/19/look-what-the-cat-dragged-in/
Otherwise, I will take serious action against you..”

In another message, he announced:

“I will report you. I have enough solid proof to block your webpage easily.”

His wife is Sara Najari, they often publish together. Saiedi published papers with other known papermillers, not just Dionysiou and Klemes. His other coauthors are these total crooks:

• Yasin Orooji (PubPeer record), an associate of Rafael Luque, Mika Sillanpää, Rajender Varma and Pau Loke Show
• Somchai Wongwises (PubPeer record), an associate of Arash Karimpour, Masoud Afrand, Nader Karimi and Tasawar Hayat
• Yong Sik Ok (PubPeer record), an associate of Jörg Rinklebe

Saiedi explained:

“I want to clarify that I am solely responsible for my own publications. Yasin Orooji, on the other hand, has taken a different path, becoming a businessman in citation and publication. He is active in various scientific fields, including drug delivery, polymer, petrochemical, material science, etc.
I will never collaborate with any of these individuals again. Additionally, there is evidence that I had a very significant role in writing, final draft editing, and interpreting the discussion and results in all articles with them. “

Thing is, several of Saiedi’s publications are on topics which have little to do with his PhD expertise. No problem, they can be made to fit his expertise with self-citations:

Samrand Saeidi , András Sápi , Asif Hussain Khoja , Sara Najari , Mariam Ayesha , Zoltán Kónya , Bernard Baffour Asare-Bediako , Adam Tatarczuk , Volker Hessel , Frerich J. Keil , Alírio E. Rodrigues Evolution paths from gray to turquoise hydrogen via catalytic steam methane reforming: Current challenges and future developments Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113392 

In all emails to me, Saiedi painted himself as a polymath scientist and a victim of an Islamist conspiracy. His last messages to me were:

“please leave your address. It is very urgent. The security agency wants to interview you. It is a serious case. “
“Remember, I am a researcher at risk, of course, under security protection. It IS PLAYING WITH FIRE.“

It is all a bit sad.

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Scholarly Publishing

References number 1 to 118 have been removed

MDPI did what MDPI does. This was corrected, but how!

Abdulaziz S. Alkabaa , Osman Taylan , Mustafa Tahsin Yilmaz , Ehsan Nazemi , El Mostafa Kalmoun An Investigation on Spiking Neural Networks Based on the Izhikevich Neuronal Model: Spiking Processing and Hardware Approach Mathematics (2022) doi: 10.3390/math10040612 

The top recipient of the citations is the author Ehsan Nazemi, other recipients are Nazemi’s fellow papermillers including the infamous Changhe Li. Alexander Magazinov reported Nazemi in July 2023 to the authorities of the University of Antwerp because that crook used in this and in another papermilled MDPI paper (Alanazi et al 2022) the affiliation “Imec-Vision Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, 2610 Antwerp, Belgium”. Jan Sijbers, head of that lab informed Magazinov:

“Ehsan left our lab about a year ago. We are not aware of those (indeed suspicious) publications, and obviously this does not represent our lab’s common practice. I will try to contact Ehsan for an explanation.”

Marianne De Voecht, Research Integrity Expert at the Research Affairs Unit of the University of Antwerp, announced to “look further into the matter”.

The matter has been now resolved on 23 May 2024 with this Correction:

“Affiliation Correction

In the original paper [1], there was an error regarding the affiliation (2) for Ehsan Nazemi. When this paper was published, the author had left the mentioned affiliation. The updated affiliation (2) should include the following: Institute of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Duy Tan University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam.

Text Correction

There was an error in the original paper [1]. A paragraph including unexplained references was copied by mistake from one of the author’s theses to the Introduction section.

A correction has been made to the Introduction, First paragraph:

The first paragraph was removed.

References

References number 1 to 118 have been removed in the first paragraph.

With this correction, the order of all references has been adjusted accordingly. The authors state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. This correction was approved by the Academic Editor. The original publication has also been updated.”

Nazemi continues papermilling of course. His most recent paper, published in May 2024 in PLOS One, declares this affiliation: “Faculty of Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom“. Indeed, he now works as “specialist technician” at the lab of engineering professor Ian Sinclair there. Because other applicants didn’t have such excellent publication records, you know.

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Hindawi Sunset

The Open Access publisher Hindawi never existed. Don’t believe your own lying eyes and ears.

You are wrong in your head if you believe that there was a Hindawi just days ago and you are in fact criminally guilty of sabotage and high treason if you believe Hindawi ever ran special issues.

The publisher Wiley bought Hindawi in early 2021 from its founder Ahmed Hindawi for $300 million, transformed it into as papermill outlet, got caught out by Smut Clyde and others, retracted way over 10,000 papers, and announced at the end of 2023 to “sunset” the Hindawi brand. Now Wiley not just sunset Hindawi but erased it completely.

All HIndawi papers and journals are now reformatted as Wiley. All Hindawi doi links resolve as Wiley now. However: All Hindawi special issues, where you could see what fraudulent crook of an editor was responsible for papermilling, were ERASED, the special issue content became standard issue content in the rebranded Wiley journals, and the old Hindawi links to Special Issue announcements and tables of content now lead nowhere. There never were any Special Issues in Hindawi, everyone who claims otherwise is a lying traitor.

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Retraction Watchdogging

The most sensible course of action

For Better Science is where you rarely meet scientists who do the right thing.

But here is one such case which hopefully will inspire others. Sholto David flagged this paper on PubPeer in April 2023:

Jia Z Shen, Zhixin Qiu , Qiulian Wu , Guoxin Zhang , Rebecca Harris , Dahui Sun , Juha Rantala , William D Barshop , Linjie Zhao , Deguan Lv , Kwang-Ai Won , James Wohlschlegel , Olle Sangfelt , Heike Laman , Jeremy N Rich, Charles Spruck A FBXO7/EYA2-SCF axis promotes AXL-mediated maintenance of mesenchymal and immune evasion phenotypes of cancer cells Molecular Cell (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2022.01.022 

The penultimate author Jeremy N Rich, neurology professor at the University of Pittsburgh in USA replied right away:

“Thank you for this comment. I have asked the first author to address. Best wishes, Jeremy”

In May 2023, the first author Jia Z Shen posted: “We’re addressing this duplication error and will reach out to the editor soon.” Then Elisabeth BIk found more:

And then, on 31 May 2024, the paper was simply retracted:

“After publication, the authors were alerted to two inadvertent duplications of western blot panels involving Figures 4J and 4K and Figures 3H and S3B. In addition, the authors performed a thorough analysis of all the figures in the publication and discovered an additional issue in which an incorrect source file was used for a western blot panel in Figure 2C. The authors were able to locate most of the original data files, but not all data corresponding to the affected figures. The authors worked with the Responsible Conduct of Research official at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute to resolve these issues. Due to the number of errors affecting multiple figures, the authors have decided that the most sensible course of action is to retract the article.”

Thing is, the authors didn’t have to retract the paper if they didn’t want to. The publisher Cell Press doesn’t care, in fact they seem to have a policy to never retract anything unless the authors beg for it. This same journal Molecular Cell previously refused to allow retractions requested by a Dutch university (but eventually agreed to retract two out of four, almost 6 years later, read November 2021 Shorts):

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We have extensively repeated several experiments

A similar case of doing the right thing. The retraction hasn’t happened yet, but the authors from the Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, already announced it. The paper was flagged on PubPeer in December 2022:

Petra Matulova , Victoria Marini , Rebecca C. Burgess , Alexandra Sisakova , Youngho Kwon , Rodney Rothstein , Patrick Sung , Lumir Krejci Cooperativity of Mus81.Mms4 with Rad54 in the resolution of recombination and replication intermediates The Journal of biological chemistry (2009) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m806192200 

A year before that, this University and other Brno research institutions experienced a huge research fraud scandal, which ended with a resignation and fraud findings against newly elected Mendel University rector Vojtech Adam (read January 2023 Shorts) and the sacking of the Masaryk University professor Rene Kisek.

In February 2023, last author and associate professor Lumir Krejci replied on PubPeer:

“Unfortunately, all raw image files for this paper are no longer stored on the university server and cannot be inspected. Even though the suggested “cropping” might result from the transfer between electronic formats of the figure, since we cannot check and provide raw files, we will repeat the experiment and communicate with the journal to replace the questionable image.”

Now, in June 2024, Krejci returned to PubPeer with this:

“We have extensively repeated several experiments within this paper. While we were able to consistently replicate the stimulation of Mus81-Mms4 nuclease activity by Rad54 protein, we were unable to reproduce the ability of Rad54 to target the Mus81-Mms4 complex to the DNA substrate presented in Figure 7. In light of this, I have asked the editor to retract our paper and apologise to the research community for this unrealibility.”

Again, the authors didn’t have to do this. The Journal of biological chemistry (JBC) used to have zero tolerance for fake science, up until those in charge of ethics retired, resigned or were pushed out and the society journal was handed out to Elsevier. Now, nobody cares there about anything.

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Concerns were raised by third parties

The learned society FASEB and its FASEB Journal retracted a paper! Usually they only correct them, no matter how bad the fraud (read for example October 2023 Shorts). But this time, they investigated and acted decisively…

ELEVEN YEARS LATER. The evidence was posted on Pubpeer in December 2013 (see how old PubPeer already is?). In 2015, the evidence was illustrated.

Alfonso Catalano, Paola Caprari , Silvia Soddu , Antonio Procopio, Mario Romano 5-lipoxygenase antagonizes genotoxic stress-induced apoptosis by altering p53 nuclear trafficking The FASEB Journal (2004) doi: 10.1096/fj.04-2258fje

The retraction arrived on 31 May 2024. 11 years after the journal received the evidence.

“Following publication, concerns were raised by third parties regarding several figures, which were then investigated further. The authors were unable to provide a satisfactory explanation and could not provide the original data due to the time passed since publication. This retraction was therefore agreed because of the presence of duplicated and manipulated data elements in Figures 1A, F; 2E; 3A–C; 5B; and 6A, B, affecting the interpretation of the data and the results presented.
A.C. has been informed of the decision to retract. P.C., A.P., S.S., and M.R. collaborated during the investigation, agreed to the retraction, and stated that they were not involved in processing the raw data into figures. M.R. and A.P. also stated that none of the experiments reported in the figures listed above were done in their laboratories.”

See, everyone is innocent, “they were not involved” into anything, and Procopio’s faculty colleague Alfonso Catalano got the full blame.

Yet it seems the other main culprit was Antonio Procopio, department head at the at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, who has 15 papers on PubPeer, mostly with Catalano. By the way, in 2014, both Procopio and Catalano were on trial for defrauding their university for lectureship fees. In 2016, Catalano was acquitted.

The last author Mario Romano, professor at University of Chieti-Pescara, also has some papers on PubPeer, mostly with Procopio, but also with Charles Serhan. The co-author Silvia Soddu, group leader at Regina Elena National Cancer Institute in Rome and a “Top Italian Scientist in Biomedical Sciences“, has by now 5 retractions, the other four are with the grand titan of Italian fraud: Alfredo Fusco.

Yo, FASEB, you messy fat cats, come back. What about this:

Alfonso Catalano, Paola Caprari , Sabrina Rodilossi , Piergiacomo Betta , Mario Castellucci , Andrea Casazza , Luca Tamagnone , Antonio Procopio Cross-talk between vascular endothelial growth factor and semaphorin-3A pathway in the regulation of normal and malignant mesothelial cell proliferation The FASEB Journal (2004) doi: 10.1096/fj.03-0513fje 

And this:

Mario Romano , ALFONSO Catalano , MICHELE Nutini , ETRUSCA D’Urbano , CARLO Crescenzi , JOAN Claria , ROBERTA Libner , GIOVANNI Davi , ANTONIO Procopio 5-lipoxygenase regulates malignant mesothelial cell survival: involvement of vascular endothelial growth factor The FASEB Journal (2001) doi: 10.1096/fj.01-0150com 

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Oncotarget has decided

The first retraction for Ghanem E Ghanem, of the Institut Jules Border at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. You can read about his case in January 2024 Shorts. Right after, I was informed by Damien Scalia, professor for criminal law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles:

“The Integrity Council, which I chair, has been informed of the case referred to in a blog you have just published. The Council is currently investigating the case in order to make the assessment of the facts you have raised.”

Ghanem is the former director of the Laboratory of Oncology and Experimental Surgery (LOCE) at Institut Jules Border, and he presently leads it together with its current director Ahmad Awada and associate director Fabrice Journe. The first author Mohamad Krayem did his PhD at Institut Bordet under Ghanem and is since 2018 Head of Radiotherapy Research Unit at Ghanem’s LOCE lab, supported by Awada:

Mohammad Krayem, Ahmad Najem, Fabrice Journe, Renato Morandini, François Sales, Ahmad Awada, Ghanem E. Ghanem Acquired resistance to BRAFi reverses senescence-like phenotype in mutant BRAF melanoma Oncotarget (2018) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.25879 

And here is the retraction, which appeared on 3 June 2024 with this short notice:

“This article has been retracted: Multiple internal duplications of western blot images illustrating the data of different experiments have been discovered throughout Figure 3C. In addition, Figure 3C also contains blots images from Figure 2A in an earlier published paper [1]. Therefore, with the agreement of all authors, the Scientific Integrity office at Oncotarget has decided to retract this paper.”

I don’t believe that the initiative to retract came from that trash journal. Rather, I think the Brussels investigators placed a request.

And I was right, Oncotarget never investigated anything. Ghanem’s investigator Scalia told me:

“The retraction was requested by the author himself, following the referral to the Integrity Council and its initial findings. The Council’s investigation is still ongoing.“

Expect more retractions.

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Denial of scientific truth

Science informs in an article from 4 June 2024 about an upcoming retraction in Nature for the Alzheimer’s fraudster Sylvain Lesné. Apparently, his senior author, patron and protector of many years Karen Ashe, finally agreed to divest from their fraudulent paper.

The fraud was originally exposed by Matthew Schrag, who also notified Nature in February 2022. Elisabeth Bik then joined and found more. An editorial note was issued in July 2022. I show just some examples:

Sylvain Lesné, Ming Teng Koh , Linda Kotilinek , Rakez Kayed , Charles G. Glabe, Austin Yang, Michela Gallagher , Karen H. Ashe A specific amyloid-beta protein assembly in the brain impairs memory Nature (2006) doi: 10.1038/nature04533 

In May 2024, Ashe posted a lenghty comment on PubPeer where she thanked Schrag, Bik and others, admitted that “it is clear that several of the figures in Lesné et al. (2006) have been manipulated” yet also maintained:

“over the past 20 months, my colleagues and I have been engaged in a series of experiments that successfully reproduce all the principal findings in the 2006 Nature paper as documented in our recent iScience paper and in unpublished results presented in the Appendix (http://drive.google.com/file/d/1MtjbMDO4JA5nycGMgTIGT7ub2KPZ-9ay/view?usp=drive_link) that accompanies this posting. […]

Dr. Schrag closed his critique by strongly urging the editors at Nature to retract Lesné et al (2006) in light of what he believes to be irrefutable evidence of non-reproducibility. The truth of the matter, as I have discussed in detail above, is that the information in our iScience paper and the subsequent results presented in the Appendix both replicate and confirm the main findings in the 2006 paper. Retraction is a serious step that should not be undertaken merely to silence persistent voices.

[…] I also believe that it is unethical to retract a paper in which “the main findings of the work are reliable,” as we have summarized above, because to do so would literally be a denial of scientific truth. […]

In my opinion, the best solution for all ‒ me, my colleagues, Nature, the scientific community, and the public ‒ is to correct the record. This matter could be effectively addressed by publishing an author correction.“

The Cell Press paper which Ashe says both replicates and confirms the Lesne et al 2006 results, is this one:

Peng Liu , Ian P. Lapcinski , Chris J.W. Hlynialuk , Elizabeth L. Steuer , Thomas J. Loude , Samantha L. Shapiro , Lisa J. Kemper , Karen H. Ashe Aβ∗56 is a stable oligomer that impairs memory function in mice iScience (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109239 

Schrag and others debunked Ashe’s claims in the 2024 iScience study, by holding Ashe’s own data up to her. But here is why Ashe thought she can save her fake paper with Lesne, quote from Science:

“Lesné, who did not reply to requests for comment, remains a UMN professor and receives National Institutes of Health funding. The university has been investigating his work since June 2022. A spokesperson says UMN recently told Nature it had reviewed two images in question, and “has closed this review with no findings of research misconduct pertaining to these figures.” The statement did not reference several other questioned figures in the same paper.”

A few days after digging herself in and refusing retraction, Karen the Truth Warrior changed her mind and wrote on PubPeer:

“I am writing to update this community that I and the other authors of Lesné et al, Nature, 2006 (with the exception of Dr. Sylvain Lesné) have decided to retract the paper. As the corresponding author I take ultimate responsibility for this decision. […]

Though I think that the best and most scientifically honest solution would have been to correct the record, because retracting the paper could mislead some people into erroneously believing that Aβ*56 does not exist (see PubPeer post #16), the editors at Nature did not concur. Therefore, at this juncture retracting the paper is the most appropriate thing to do.

I continue to believe that Aβ*56 could play an important role in Alzheimer’s disease and targeting its removal could lead to significant clinical benefits in patients.”

Apparently, science is all about faith! Ashe then doubled down and accused Schrag of fabricating evidence:

“...this post is primarily to address a claim of image manipulation or duplication made by Dr. Schrag which on closer examination, and the information we provide here, to be without merit.”

Shut up, Karen.

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Science Breakthroughs

More than a pomegranate a day

There is yet another anti-aging supplement to buy to prevent you from dying.

Science Alert The University of Copenhagen in Denmark announced on 24 May 2024 that “Naturally occurring substance in pomegranates can improve treatment of Alzheimer’s disease“:

““Our study on mouse models with AD shows that urolithin A, which is a naturally occurring substance in i.a. pomegranates, can alleviate memory problems and other consequences of dementia,” says Vilhelm Bohr, who is Affiliate Professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen and prevoiusly Department Chair at the US National Institute on Aging. “

Vilhelm Bohr is the grandson of the famous Danish Nobelist Niels Bohr and anti-aging researcher. He runs two labs transatlantically: at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, USA, and at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. This is the new paper:

Yujun Hou , Xixia Chu , Jae‐Hyeon Park , Qing Zhu , Mansoor Hussain , Zhiquan Li , Helena Borland Madsen , Beimeng Yang , Yong Wei , Yue Wang , Evandro F. Fang , Deborah L. Croteau , Vilhelm A. Bohr Urolithin A improves Alzheimer’s disease cognition and restores mitophagy and lysosomal functions Alzheimer s & Dementia (2024) doi: 10.1002/alz.13847 

“E.F.F. has a CRADA arrangement with ChromaDex (USA) […] V.A.B. has a relationship with and previously had a CRADA arrangement with ChromaDex (USA).”

In September 2021 Shorts I wrote about his earlier study by Bohr (Hou et al 2021) where he was promoting NAD+ supplements against Alzheimer’s. But Bohr has moved on since, as the Copenhagen press release explains:

“The results of the new study show that a substance found in pomegranates, urolithin A, removes weak mitochondria from the brain just as effectively as NAD supplement.”

However, Bohr hasn’t yet won a Nobel Prize of his own, so he isn’t selling you pomegranates like the Nobelist Louis Ignarro does. Bohr Jr is quoted:

““We still cannot say anything conclusive about the dosage. But I imagine
that it is more than a pomegranate a day. However, the substance is
already available in pill form, and we are currently trying to find the
right dosage,” Vilhelm Bohr says.”

And where is Urolithin A available from? From the US supplement company ChromaDex on whose scientific advisory board Bohr conveniently sits. ChromaDex’s main product are those NAD+ supplements (TRU Niagen) which Bohr previously pushed for Alzheimer’s prevention and rejuvenation.

Now, you may wonder, why did he drop NAD+ now and is pushing for Urolithin A? Maybe the reason is that ChromaDex lost a lawsuit against another NAD+ supplement company, Elysium Health, which is run by two toxic anti-aging scammers from MIT and Harvard, Leonard Guarente and David Sinclair.

ChromaDex sued Elysium over the rights on those same NAD+ supplements, and did not win. Maybe this is why Bohr abandoned NAD+ and focusses of easy natural compounds where ChromaDex wouldn’t have any patent troubles.

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