Schneider Shorts 28.06.2024 – a series of improper, erroneous, and potentially fraudulent manipulations

Schneider Shorts of 28 June 2024 – sex advice from an Italian in Munich, life extension from MD Anderson boss, how to set up a review network, with a spot-the difference game, retractions for Temple Italians, a heroic editor, and finally, a Nigerian scam to cure all diseases!

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Table of Discontent

Science Breakthroughs

• Salad before sex – Raffaele Teperino proves epigenetic inheritance!
• Restoring youthful levels – Ronald DePinho extends life and telomeres!

Science Elites

• Outstanding Geologist – M. Santosh shows how to publish successfully
• Spot the difference! – Columbia elegantly gets rid of embarrassing research fraudster Sam Yoon

Industry Giants

• No conflict of interest – Nigerian supplement cures all diseases

Retraction Watchdogging

• No confidence in Sbarro Pizza – Antonio Giordano loses a paper
• A series of improper, erroneous, and potentially fraudulent manipulations – two new retractions for Domenico Pratico
• The Editor-in-Chief discovered – George Baillie plays ethics hero again
• Published without the consent of all stated authors – Elsevier’s bizarre notice

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Science Breakthroughs

Salad before sex

Neo-Lamarckism or Epigenetic Inheritance will never die because it’s always good for clickbait.

You may recall the disastrous “Holocaust trauma inheritance” epigenetics paper from a Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany (Yehuda et al 2015). Well, now you have a ridiculous “Salad before sex” study, also from Munich, but this time from a Helmholtz Institute. In Nature, and in all the big news worldwide:

A. Tomar, M. Gomez-Velazquez, R. Gerlini, G. Comas-Armangué, L. Makharadze, T. Kolbe, A. Boersma, M. Dahlhoff, J. P. Burgstaller, M. Lassi, J. Darr, J. Toppari, H. Virtanen, A. Kühnapfel, M. Scholz, K. Landgraf, W. Kiess, M. Vogel, V. Gailus-Durner, H. Fuchs, S. Marschall, M. Hrabě de Angelis, N. Kotaja, A. Körner and R. Teperino, “Epigenetic inheritance of diet-induced and sperm-borne mitochondrial RNAs” (2024), Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07472-3

Here is the Helmholtz press release:

“A new study shows how a father’s diet before conception can affect his children’s health, suggesting a focus on paternal health and diet could prevent metabolic diseases in offspring.

Dr. Raffaele Teperino, who leads the “Environmental Epigenetics” research group at Helmholtz Munich, and his team have explored how a father’s diet prior to conception affects the health of their children. The study concentrated on specific small RNA molecules present in sperm, termed mitochondrial tRNA fragments (mt-tsRNAs). These RNAs are crucial in transmitting health traits across generations by controlling gene expression. “

Citation needed for the last sentence, because Teperino’s word of authority may not suffice. Especially since this young shooting star is firm believer into epigenetic inheritance, even having edited a Springer book in 2020. With such a controversial field, you need controversial scientists to support it. Hence, for his book Teperino invited his PhD mentor in Naples – Pietro Formisano (FORTY fake papers on PubPeer, 3 retractions) – to provide support to the idea. Read about Formisano here:

By the way, here is Teperino’s paper with Formisano and the latter’s close associates at University of Naples, Francesco Beguinot and Claudia Miele (who is likely Beguinot’s wife):

More of Teperino’s great science from Napoli, you ask? Visit PubPeer!

But of course you can trust a former PhD student of Formisano’s, especially a PhD student who always made Formisano happy and received his maximal support. Teperino also collaborated with another genius: Josef Penninger (Teperino et al 2012).

And anyway, Teperino’s Nature groundbreaking paper has no western blots for sleuths to scrutinise, just lots of genomics, haha. Also, when did Nature ever publish something totally unreliable or made-up? What? Shut up, you failed scientist.

Returning to the Helmholtz press release. Data from the LIFE Child cohort on over 3,000 families was used, and mouse studies were performed:

“When Teperino’s team used sperm from mice that had been exposed to a high-fat diet, they found mt-tsRNAs from these sperm in early embryos, significantly influencing gene expression. This, in turn, affects the development and health of the offspring.

“Our hypothesis that acquired phenotypes over the course of life, such as diabetes and obesity, are transmitted via epigenetic mechanisms across generations, is reinforced by this study. Here, epigenetics serves as a molecular link between the environment and the genome, even across generational boundaries. This occurs not only through the maternal line but, as our research results indicate, also through the paternal line,” explains Prof. Martin Hrabě de Angelis, co-author of this study and Research Director at Helmholtz Munich.”

As it happens, also Martin Hrabě de Angelis, who is director of the Institute of Experimental Genetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, has a PubPeer record. Here he is, with his Munich colleagues:

Michaela S. Helmbrecht, Heidi Soellner , Anna M.L. Truckenbrodt , Julia Sundermeier , Christian Cohrs , Wolfgang Hans , Martin Hrabě De Angelis , Annette Feuchtinger , Michaela Aichler , Karim Fouad , Andrea B. Huber Loss of Npn1 from motor neurons causes postnatal deficits independent from Sema3A signaling Developmental biology (2015) doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2014.11.024 

How many Germans do you need to convince reviewers to ignore such dodgy gels? Answer: many!

I hope you now became a firm believer into epigenetic inheritance? The young science superstar professor Teperino advises all his fellow men to eat salad before sex:

“Our results suggest that preventive health care for men wishing to become fathers should receive more attention and that programs should be developed for this purpose, especially with regard to diet,” says Teperino. “This can reduce the risk of diseases like obesity and diabetes in children.”

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Restoring youthful levels

In USA, a multimillionaire failed former President of MD Anderson in Texas, Ronald DePinho, returned to limelight. With an old boring story of how extending telomeres will make you young.

DePinho has around 30 problematic papers on PubPeer, some of the featured here:

DePinho is actually a cancer researcher, but he is getting old and probably worries what will happen to all his money when he dies. Hence, he started to do research on life extension! Now, the great discovery as MD Anderson press release, accompanied with an airbrushed youthful photo of DePinho as proof-of-principle:

“Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have demonstrated that therapeutically restoring ‘youthful’ levels of a specific subunit of the telomerase enzyme can significantly reduce the signs and symptoms of aging in preclinical models. If these findings are confirmed in clinical studies, there may be therapeutic implications for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease and cancer.

The study, published today in Cell, identified a small molecule compound that restores physiological levels of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), which normally is repressed with the onset of aging. […]

“Epigenetic repression of TERT plays a major role in the cellular decline seen at the onset of aging by regulating genes involved in learning, memory, muscle performance and inflammation,” said corresponding author Ronald DePinho, M.D., professor of Cancer Biology. “By pharmacologically restoring youthful TERT levels, we reprogrammed expression of those genes, resulting in improved cognition and muscle performance while eliminating hallmarks linked to many age-related diseases.””

This is the paper:

Hong Seok Shim , Jonathan Iaconelli , Xiaoying Shang , Jiexi Li , Zheng D. Lan , Shan Jiang , Kayla Nutsch , Brittney B. Beyer , Luke L. Lairson , Adam T. Boutin , Michael J. Bollong , Peter G. Schultz , Ronald A. DePinho TERT activation targets DNA methylation and multiple aging hallmarks Cell (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.048 

““These preclinical results are encouraging, as TAC is easily absorbed by all tissues, including the central nervous system. Yet further studies are needed to properly assess its safety and activity in long-term treatment strategies,” DePinho said.”

You can safely assume DePinho is already marketing this drug. Here an older paper by DePinho and his wife Lynda Chin, never corrected:

In Nature, but corrected in 2015, where “excisions/mergers” were admitted for Figures 2d and 3a, and that “in the published Fig. 3a, lanes 1 and 2” were reused for an unrelated experiment, but of course “None of these corrections alter the original meaning of the experiments, their results, their interpretation, nor the conclusions of the paper“:

Florian L. Muller, Simona Colla, Elisa Aquilanti , Veronica E. Manzo , Giannicola Genovese , Jaclyn Lee , Daniel Eisenson , Rujuta Narurkar , Pingna Deng , Luigi Nezi , Michelle A. Lee , Baoli Hu , Jian Hu, Ergun Sahin , Derrick Ong , Eliot Fletcher-Sananikone , Dennis Ho , Lawrence Kwong , Cameron Brennan , Y. Alan Wang , Lynda Chin Ronald A. DePinho Passenger deletions generate therapeutic vulnerabilities in cancer Nature (2012) doi: 10.1038/nature11331 

This proved uncorrectable, after DePinho admitted on PubPeer that original data was unavailable but added that “we do not believe this error occurred, if it did it would NOT materially change the manuscripts scientific findings and conclusions in any way“:

Kwok-Kin Wong, Richard S. Maser , Robert M. Bachoo , Jayant Menon , Daniel R. Carrasco , Yansong Gu , Frederick W. Alt, Ronald A. DePinho Telomere dysfunction and Atm deficiency compromises organ homeostasis and accelerates ageing Nature (2003) doi: 10.1038/nature01385 

The next paper DePinho announced to investigate and to correct, also in January 2022. Nothing happened since, because again “we do not believe this error occurred, if it did it would NOT materially change the manuscripts scientific findings and conclusions in any way“:

Finally, for brevity reasons, a corrected Cell paper by DePinho and Chin with a certain MD Anderson colleague named Giulio Draetta, who is definitely not to be trusted.

The 2014 Correction declared that “this error had no impact on the data presented in the graph in Figure 4C or on the conclusions presented in the article” and that “the home institution’s Research Integrity office conducted an independent review of one of the authors’ (A.K.) raw data and notebooks to ensure the validity of the findings.” In 2014, DePinho was President of that home institution, MD Anderson.

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Industry Giants

No conflict of interest

A new Nigerian scam which lacks princes with millions but lots of millet with curative powers.

René Aquarius commented on several peer reviewed papers advertising for a supplement product named Jobelyn®, which is nothing else but extract from the sorghum grain, eaten by millions in Africa daily and this is why nobody ever gets sick there, oh wait. Anyway, buy Jobelyn®, science has spoken!

Nigerian media already celebrates the supplement as a magical cancer cure. From these mouse studies we learn that Jobelyn® allows you to booze yourself unconscious and still retain no brain damage:

Oyinbo A Charles , Igbigbi S Patrick , Avwioro O Godwin Jobelyn® Supplement Lowered Neuronal Degeneration: Significance of Altered p53 and ɤ-Enolase Protein Expressions in Prefrontal Cortex of Rat Exposed to Ethanol Annals of neurosciences (2016) doi: 10.1159/000449179 

“We also acknowledge Health Forever Products, Lagos, Nigeria, for gift sample of Jobelyn supplement capsule. […] The authors declare that they have no competing financial/non-financial interests.”

And here, the sorghum extract allegedly protected mice from eating too much monosodium glutamate-spiced Chinese food:

Adrian Itivere Omogbiya , Benneth Ben-Azu , Anthony Taghogho Eduviere , Aya-Ebi Okubo Eneni , Prisilla O. Nwokoye , Abayomi Mayowa Ajayi , Solomon Umukoro Monosodium glutamate induces memory and hepatic dysfunctions in mice: ameliorative role of Jobelyn® through the augmentation of cellular antioxidant defense machineries Toxicological research (2021) doi: 10.1007/s43188-020-00068-9

There, Health Forever Porducts was not mentioned, because “Authors have no potential conflict of interest to declare.”

Jobelyn® also helped mice suffering from arthritis:

Solomon Umukoro, Oluwafemi Gabriel Oluwole , Anthony T Eduviere , Omogbiya Itievere Adrian , Abayomi M Ajayi Jobelyn® exhibited anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and membrane-stabilizing activities in experimental models Journal of basic and clinical physiology and pharmacology (2015) doi: 10.1515/jbcpp-2014-0113

Conflicts of interests were declared:

“The authors appreciate the generous donation of samples of Jobelyn^® by Mr. Olajuwon Okubena, the Director of Health Forever Products Inc., Lagos, Nigeria.”

Health Forever Products is an Okubena family business, once celebrated as one of “Nigeria’s 50 fastest growing frims”. it even has a branch in UK, called Jobelyn UK Ltd, its director is an Abimbola Okubena. He also runs the company Jobelyn Inc in USA.

And finally, a study by the main boss Olajuwon Okubena himself, proving that his product cures ischaemic stroke while insisting “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest“:

Solomon Umukoro, Ejiroghene E Oghwere , Benneth Ben-Azu , Olatunde Owoeye , Abayomi M Ajayi , Osarume Omorogbe , Olajuwon Okubena Jobelyn® ameliorates neurological deficits in rats with ischemic stroke through inhibition of release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and NF-κB signaling pathway Pathophysiology (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.pathophys.2018.10.002 

In December 2023, O. Okubena explained in Nigeria media how he made started his business:

”In 2013, Acai berry was making waves as the most powerful antioxidant in the world and we decided to investigate Jobelyn for its antioxidant potential.

The research for acai berry was done by NIS Labs (Natural Immune Systems) which was founded in 1999 by Gitte Jensen.

We commissioned them to do the research for us. They got Brunswick Laboratory involved because they also did the lab analysis for Acai berry and this validated our claim that Jobelyn was four times more powerful than acai berry for antioxidant.”

Okubena openly admitted that he sought for US collaborators to bribe and went for the cheapest one:

“This was what led us to Dr. Awika in Texas. He agreed enthusiastically to do the job for about $2000 but requested for more Jobelyn powder from us to complement their ongoing research on 3-deoxyanthocyanidins.
We were surprised to discover that he published two articles in the journal about 3-deoxyanthocyanidins in Jobelyn.”

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Science Elites

Outstanding Geologist

Another network of mutual editing and peer review has been uncovered. At its centre: a certain M Santosh, professor at the Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology of the University of Adelaide in Australia. His institutional profile informs us:

“Professor M. Santosh is Professorial Fellow at the University of Adelaide and also Foreign Expert and Professor at the China University of Geosciences Beijing (China), and Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Science, Kochi University, Japan. […] Recipient of National Mineral Award, Outstanding Geologist Award, Thomson Reuters 2012 Research Front Award, Global Talent Award, Island Arc Award and Island Arc Award and Thomson Reuters High Cited Researcher recognition.”

Santosh publsiehd almost ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED papers. There is now a huge PubPeer record of where rigged peer review is obvious, which explains how he became a Highly Cited Researcher and China’s second-leading geologist.

For example, this by Santosh, was edited by his former PhD student, the 34 year old Li Tang (graduated in 2017, now at China University of Geoscience):

Cheng‐Xue Yang, M. Santosh, E. Shaji, T. Tsunogae Neoproterozoic felsic magmatism in southern Kerala, India: The building blocks of Gondwana Geological Journal (2020) doi: 10.1002/gj.3699 

And of course Santosh and Tang published together just before the paper was submitted: Tang & Santosh 2018, Song et al 2019, Tang et al 2019, Hu et al 2020, Feng et al 2020, Cao et al 2023 etc.

Right after his PhD graduation, Tang started to edit Santosh’s papers liek there’s no tomorrow: Yang et al 2018, Shaji et al 2018, Xu et al 2018, Gao et al 2018. Niu et al 2019, Ji et al 2019, Yang et al 2019, Xue at al 2019, Zhang et al 2019, Dai et al 2019, Liu et al 2020a, Liu et al 2020b, Likhanov & Santosh 2020, etc, all at the same Wiley’s Geological Journal! Its Editors-in-Chief are Ian Somerville of University College Dublin, Ireland, and Yunpeng Dong of Northwest University, China. Both Santiosh and his mentee Li Tang are Associate Editors there, and so is a certain Cheng-Xue Yang who “edited several papers, from a special issue, authored by M. Santosh, however at the same time (and before and after) they co-authored papers together“, as a PubPeer sleuth noted.

Another former PhD student of Santosh’s, Qiong-Yan Yang, used to be editor of Geological Journal and had been editing Santosh’s papers there: Cao et al 2017, Kong et al 2017, while publishing papers together in parallel. Information reached me that QY Yang lodged a complain against her boss Santosh with the university.

Santosh is also Editor-in-Chief of following journals:

• Gondwana Research (Elsevier)
• Geoscience Frontiers (Elsevier with China University of Geosciences and Peking University, Santosh is listed as “Editorial Advisor” to the Editor-in-Chief Xuanxue Mo)

And of course Santosh and his associates very heavily publish there (see PubPeer record and this Spreadsheet, prepared by a reader).

Here is a paper Santosh edited at Geoscience Frontiers: Glorie et al 2020. The first author Stijn Glorie is associate professor at the same faculty in Adelaide as Santosh, the two men published papers together in the same year, for example Yang et al 2020a and Yang et al 2020b.

Once, Santosh even was caught editing his own paper at that journal, as reported on this Chinese website:

The handling editor was then changed in June 2024 from “M. Santosh” to C. Manikyamba, another regular coauthor of Santosh and probably another one of his PhD students (see Harshito et al 2024, Manikyamba et al 2022, Manikyamba et al 2020 etc)

In 2020, the Elsevier journal Energy Geoscience retracted a freshly published Santosh paper with this notice:

“This article has been removed at the request of all the Authors, the Editor-in-Chief and the owner of the journal.

The article has been removed because it inadvertently included unlawful content.”

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Spot the difference!

What does an elite US university do with a professor who was exposed as a massive fraudster in national and international news (see New York Times or Daily Mail from February 2024, and again NYT from March 2024) and had to retract several papers? As it happened to the oncologist Sam Yoon at Columbia University. How does a university and its hospital restore credibility and patient trust after such a scandal?

Well, look at this Columbia Surgery announcement from 2021, on the left a version from just a few days ago, and on the right the current version, and tell me if you spot a difference:

Yes! The naughty old fraudster Sam Yoon you knew from the NYT is gone forever, and please meet Columbia University’s new “chief of the newly-created Division of Surgical Oncology and Vice-Chair of Surgical Oncology Research and Education for the department”, S. Sunghyun Yoon.

Also compare the physician’s profile, above the outdated one from February 2024, below the current version:

Yes, I know, ridiculous, and highly unprofessional. Yoon could have at least grown a beard and put on glasses.

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Retraction Watchdogging

No confidence in Sbarro Pizza

Cancer researcher, litigious quack and research integrity enthusiast Antonio Giordano and his Sbarro Pizza gang at Temple University lose a paper. Read here for background:

I like it that neither Giordano’s propensity to sue his critics, nor the support he receives from Temple University, nor even his own Sbarro Pizza adjunct professor and totally unbiased image integrity entrepreneur Enrico Bucci could prevent this retraction!

S Cascio , V Bartella , A Auriemma , G J Johannes , A Russo , A Giordano , E Surmacz Mechanism of leptin expression in breast cancer cells: role of hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha Oncogene (2008) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1210660 

The Retraction was published on 23 July 2007:

“The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. After publication, concerns were raised regarding some of the data presented in the figures, specifically:

• Fig. 1a HIF-1a lanes 2 and 5 appear highly similar (with contrast adjustment).
• Fig. 1a and b TUB blots appear highly similar.
• Fig. 1b NUC lanes 2 and 6 appear highly similar (flipped horizontally).
• Fig. 3 HIF-1a CoCl₂ appears highly similar to Fig. 7b HIF-1a C.
• Fig. 3 HIF-1a CoCl₂ + Ins appears highly similar to Fig. 7b LEP Ins (without the red channel).
• Fig. 3 LEP C cell on the right appears highly similar to Fig. 7b LEP Ins cell on the left (stretched vertically).
• Fig. 6 ChIP: HIF-1a HRE-A lane 1 appears highly similar to HRE-B lanes 3 and 4 (with contrast adjustment).
• Fig. 6 ChIP: HIF-1a, re-ChIP: p300 HRE-B lanes 2 and 4 appear highly similar.
• Fig. 7a HIF-1a siRNA TUB lanes 1 and 2 appear highly similar.
• Fig. 7b LEP CoCl₂ two left cells appear highly similar to the right side of the LEP CoCl₂ + Ins image, and the top right cell appears highly similar to the right cell in the LEP C image.

The Editors-in-Chief therefore no longer have confidence in the presented data.”

Let’s hope for many more retractions for Giordano!

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A series of improper, erroneous, and potentially fraudulent manipulations

We remain on the topic of male Italian professors at Temple University. Two retractions for the neuroscience professor Domenico Pratico, who, like Giordano, was declared innocent, and it’s still not helping!

In January 2024 Shorts, I reported that Pratico was suing his mentee Phillip Giannopoulos, who now gets the full blame here as well.

Phillip F. Giannopoulos , Jin Chu , Yash B. Joshi , Margaret Sperow , Jin-Guo Li , Lynn G. Kirby , Domenico Praticò 5-lipoxygenase activating protein reduction ameliorates cognitive deficit, synaptic dysfunction, and neuropathology in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease Biological psychiatry (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.009 

For Pratico’s 6th and 7th retractions I show only some examples of fake data, because there’s too much. The Retraction from 24 June 2024 went:

“This article has been retracted at the request of author Domenico Praticò, with approval from Biological Psychiatry editors John H. Krystal, MD, and Eric J. Nestler, MD.

Along with Dr. Praticò, authors YB Joshi, M Sperow, and LG Kirby agree with the decision to retract. Authors J Chu and J-G Li have been notified of the retraction but have not responded to any correspondence related to the retraction. Attempts to reach the remaining author, PF Giannopoulos, have been unsuccessful.

After concerns about possible data manipulations were raised, an extensive and thorough review of the paper was initiated. The review unveiled a series of improper, erroneous, and potentially fraudulent manipulations of some images in the article. Specifically:

• The same Western blotting band for PHF-1 is used for results of two different experiments in panels A and C of Figure 3.
• Figure 3E has two improperly joined Western blot membrane fragments over a single actin control band.
• Figure 5 panels A and D appear to contain fabricated slices, with at least some spliced-in bands that were reused twice.

The authors also identified the improper reuse of several images and image parts in other publications.

Based on the evidence, the above-mentioned authors concluded that an essential part of the article’s data should not be considered valid and that the article should be retracted.”

Here the second retracted paper, in the same Elsevier journal:

Phillip F. Giannopoulos , Jin Chu , Margaret Sperow , Jian-Guo Li , W. Haung Yu , Lynn G. Kirby, Mary Abood , Domenico Praticò Pharmacologic inhibition of 5-lipoxygenase improves memory, rescues synaptic dysfunction, and ameliorates tau pathology in a transgenic model of tauopathy Biological psychiatry (2015) doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.01.015 

The Retraction from 24 June 2024 was similar, requested by Pratico and coauthors, and Giannopoulos again declared unreachable:

“After concerns about possible data manipulations were raised, an extensive and thorough review of the paper was initiated. The review unveiled a series of improper, erroneous, and potentially fraudulent manipulations of some images in the article. These concerns include:

• Figure 1C, 1E, some parts are made of different strips as collage of two fragments, while others are not.
• Figure 3D, the presented Western blot image appears to be a composite of different fragments containing juxtaposed elements, mirrored figures, and inverted images.
• Figure 4D, contains fragments of different sizes with different numbers of lanes incompatible with a single blotting membrane corresponding to the loading control.
• Figure 5A, actin loading control sourced from a previous published paper and used in a thesis (PF Giannopoulos).
• Figure 5C, improper image reuse.
• Figure 5F, improper image reuse.
• Figure 7, made of several fragments that are incompatible with a proper experiment setup (like for figure 1C and 1E).

Based on the evidence, the above-mentioned authors concluded that an essential part of the article’s data should not be considered valid and that the article should be retracted.”

Now, how credible is it that all attempts to reach Giannopoulos “have been unsuccessful“? Since Pratico is SUING him in court?

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The Editor-in-Chief discovered

In April 2024 Shorts, I told you about an Iranian PhD student in Finland, Hanieh Shirvani, who admitted to have bought 2 papers from a papermill, the University of Oulu ordered retractions for both of them.

One of these papers was now retracted, but the retraction note is really something unexpected.

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 retraction notice, highlights mine:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.

Post-publication, the Editor-in-Chief discovered suspicious changes in authorship between the original submission and the revised version of this paper. In summary, two authors (Hanieh Shirvani and Jalaledin Ghanavi) were added to the revised paper without exceptional approval by the journal Editor, which is contrary to the journal policy on changes to authorship.

The authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation to the above point. The corresponding authors Sajad Najafi, Seyyed Mohammad Miryounesi and Seyed Mohsen Aghaei-Zarch disagree with the retraction of the article and dispute the grounds for it.”

Truth of course is, the Editor-in-Chief discovered nothing, he was contacted by University of Oulu with a request for retraction. If anything, he may have discovered the amazing financial benefits of working with papermills. The chief editor is University of Glasgow professor George Baillie, and I wrote about his retracted papers in October 2022 Shorts. There, Baillie managed to place the exclusive blame on his mentor, Miles Houslay, because there are cases when Baillie usurps credit, and other cases when he generously gives it all away.

This for example was NOT retracted or even corrected:

Baillie has 12 papers on PubPeer, most have Houslay as co-author. But there are also Baillie papers without Housley.

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Published without the consent of all stated authors

A stupid retraction notice for some stupid papermillers. This one was no previously flagged on PubPeer:

Minquan Zhang , Yaodeng Chen Design of fiber optic lidar for high temperature and humidity detection based on multiphysical simulation Results in Physics (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.rinp.2023.107219 

Undated retraction, highlight mine:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the editors and the authors.

A concern was received on the paper regarding an authorship dispute and plagiarism. The editor reached out to the authors for an explanation.

The article was published without the consent of all stated authors, specifically Dr. Yaodeng Chen, who is listed as the second author of the paper. The email address provided during submission does not belong to Dr. Yaodeng Chen and he was not involved in writing, preparing or submitting the paper to the journal.

The article has plagiarized part of a paper that had already appeared in Infrared and Laser Engineering, issue 9 vol 50, September 2021, DOI: 10.3788/IRLA20200410. […]

Overall, the editor feels that the findings of the manuscript cannot be relied upon, and the article needs to be retracted.”

You might wonder why the Elsevier journal Results in Physics issued such a stupid retraction notice which nobody, including the stupidest of editors could’ve sincerely believed. Simple: Results in Physics: is a papermill-only journal, even if Elsevier orders them to issue a retraction, they can’t afford scaring away papermill agents bringing bribes, so there.

The responsible Editor-in-Chief is some Cong-Feng Qiao from University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the editorial board has many professors form Europe and North America.

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