Schneider Shorts 26.07.2024 – A catharsis for science in Porto

Schneider Shorts of 26 July 2024 – a sleuth conference in Porto, one cat’s week of fame, retractions for various famous luminaries in UK, USA and Switzerland, and finally, a Jesus miracle of turning old mice into supermodels.

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Table of Discontent

In eigener Sache

• A catharsis for science in Porto – Fraudsters, be afraid, be very afraid!

Scholarly Publishing

• World’s most influential feline intellectual – Reese Richardson and Nick Wise measured a cat

Retraction Watchdogging

• Authors’ institution did not respond to our request to begin an investigation – Stefano Fiorucci and Sir Salvador Moncada lose a paper
• Not only useless, but dangerous publications – MD Anderson’s Michael Andreeff and Marina Konopleva lose a paper
• The Haybäck paper is one of those that I am proudest of – “famous luminary” Adriano Aguzzi loses his “scientific legacy”

Science Breakthroughs

• There’s lots of snake oil out there – hot sexy mice from Stuart Cook and Jesus Gil

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In eigener Sache

A catharsis for science in Porto

I was in the lovely Portuguese city of Porto just recently – meeting many of my colleagues, the best data integrity sleuths there are. It was our second in-person meeting, after the 2023 event in Prague. Not everyone from our growing sleuthing team could make it to Portugal, but most did, plus some significant others. And: our meeting isn’t secret anymore, because Portuguese journalists were invited and they now published an article in Publico, on 21 July 2024, headlined “Scientific fraud hunters gathered in Porto in a catharsis for science“.

Translated:

“No one gets paid for hunting down suspicious images and graphs from published studies, Least of all the volunteer “detectives” who have helped uncover cases of plagiarism, image manipulation or even accidental mistakes that were published to escape the scrutiny of scientific journals. It’s not a new problem, but the detective community has grown. And the number of fraudulent articles has also increased, argue seven detectives gathered on the long sofa (one of those in “L”-shaped) of a small guest house in Porto. “It’s easy to do and no one is really punished. You can get away with a lot of things”, says Rene Aquarius, a researcher at the Radboud University Medical Center (Netherlands).

“Where to start?”, one wonders in the basement of this accommodation. Over the course of two weeks, two dozen of these scientific fraud hunters visited a discreet house in downtown Porto, to get to know each other, discuss trends, techniques and, of course, tell stories that provoke laughter, but also dismay – there are personal attacks, recurring insults and even lawsuits.”

Some of the sleuths present agreed to be named and even photographed:

“David Sanders, a researcher at Purdue University (United States), had a long legal dispute with a famous cancer researcher, Carlo Croce, from Ohio University (United States) […]

Kevin Patrick doesn’t mind giving his name, because his work has nothing to do with science – he himself has no background in the field. Those who visit these forums will know this American by another name: Cheshire, like the cat in Alice in Wonderland. He is responsible for this second meeting of detectives, after the trip to Prague last year. This time Porto is hosting this meeting, with long conversations on the huge sofa. The background noise is noticeable: vegetables are cut at the beginning of the conversation, which only ends when lunch is practically on the table”.

Little did the journalists know: the weirdo cooking that vegan lunch was the by far most hated individual in science today. He whose name can’t be spoken, as everyone perusing For Better Science knows.

There were more sleuths present at the Porto meeting, including David Bimler aka Smut Clyde, Maarten van Kampen, Patricia Murray, Adam Day, Reese Richardson (the latter also photographed by Publico) and the pseudonymous Tiger BB8,  Aneurus Inconstans and even Claire Francis!

And not just them of course:

“Fraud in science is by no means prevalent. But it has been gaining ground in other formats besides classic plagiarism or image manipulation. Nick Wise, from the University of Cambridge (UK), turns to his computer to give an example: buying places as an author in a scientific article. He searches on Facebook and finds an advert: more than 1000 dollars to be the first author of the article, 100 dollars if you want to be the fifth author.

Academics want to publish scientific papers, they want their names on the papers. The more papers you have, the more productive you seem and the more likely you are to get a job or promotion. It’s a huge incentive for people to buy
authorship,” explains Nick Wise.

Another growing problem is called “paper mills.” As the name suggests, these are small companies responsible for mass-producing scientific articles. Rene Aquarius got his start in this fraud-hunting world thanks to one such case. While working on a systematic review of animal studies on a particular disease, he found more than 600 scientific articles~an unusually surprising number. “We thought it was suspicious,” he recalls. “We’re still analyzing it, but so far 30 percent of the literature published in our field has problems.”

No one does this full time except Elisabeth Bik, one of the best-known scientific detectives and one who has been repeatedly cited as an encouragement to others
to venture down this path. “

Indeed, there is a separate interview with Elisabeth Bik, also in Publico.

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Scholarly Publishing

World’s most influential feline intellectual

Papermill sleuths Reese Richardson and Nick Wise (who were both present at the Porto meeting and even photographed for the Publico article) learned from the best and created world’s most cited cat. Richardson blogged about it on 18 July 2024. It started with a social media advertisement which Wise found:

“The advertisement links to several success stories consisting of unredacted “before” and “after” screenshots of clients’ Google Scholar profiles. These clients had apparently bought anywhere between 50 and 500 citations each. […]

How was this company so effective at manipulating citation counts? […]

Inspecting citations to these clients revealed dozens of papers authored by such celebrated names as Pythagoras, Galileo, Taylor and Kolmogorov. The papers were not published in any journal or pre-print server, only uploaded as PDF files to ResearchGate, the academic social networking site. They had since been deleted from ResearchGate, but Google Scholar kept them indexed.”

Those papers were Mathgen-produced nonsense, their sole purpose was to carry citations to papers from paying customers. So Richardson and Wise went to ResearchGate to make a cat famous. Not just some cat, but a cat named Larry, belonging to Richardson’s grandparents.

“First, we generated 12 papers (using Mathgen) with Larry Richardson as the sole author. We then generated an additional 12 papers not authored by Larry, editing the LaTeX document of each paper so that each cited every one of Larry’s 12 papers (12 papers with 12 citations each = 144 citations with an h-index of 12). Next, we uploaded the papers to ResearchGate, all under the same profile.”

They created a fake yet “verified” .edu email account to make it easier. Then, Larry the Cat (not that one) was added as author manually to satisfy ResearchGate‘s requirement that only authors can upload papers.

They waited for Google Scholar to scrape the ResearchGate data, and, success: 132 citations and h-index of 11 for Larry Richardson, the cat!

And this how even you can inflate your Google Scholar profile easily! Well, not for long, a week later the fun was over. Reese added this update on 24 July 2024:

“Google Scholar has removed all of Larry’s original papers and citing papers and with them, his citations! […] Larry held the title of world’s highest cited cat for exactly one week. His papers (and citations) remain intact on his ResearchGate profile. […]

Curiously, Google Scholar has not removed any of the fake papers citing the paper mill’s clientele. Google Scholar could still fix their part of the citation manipulation problem, but as of right now, they have instead taken targeted action against a cat.”

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Retraction Watchdogging

Authors’ institution did not respond to our request to begin an investigation

A retraction for a certain Italian medicine professor named Stefano Fiorucci, about whom I wrote here (since he is suing that bad surgeon Gabrio Bassotti who is suing me):

The paper was flagged on PubPeer in 2017 by the pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis:

Stefano Fiorucci, Andrea Mencarelli , Roberta Mannucci , Eleonora Distrutti , Antonio Morelli , Piero Del Soldato , Salvador Moncada NCX-4016, a nitric oxide-releasing aspirin, protects endothelial cells against apoptosis by modulating mitochondrial function The FASEB Journal (2002)   doi: 10.1096/fj.02-0297fje 

The retraction appeared on 18 July 2024:

“The retraction has been agreed due to concerns raised by a third party regarding the similarity of blots in Figure 7. The authors did not respond to inquiries by either the society or the publisher. In addition, the authors’ institution did not respond to our request to begin an investigation. An investigation by the society and the publisher determined that there is overwhelming evidence that images in Figure 7 were manipulated. Because the images in question were imperative to the conclusions presented in the article, all parties agreed the article must be retracted.”

The referenced and unresponsive institution of the corresponding author Fiorucci is the University of Perugia in Italy. Why should they investigate indeed. This university promoted Bassotti instead of investigating him, and he still sued them. Italy is a crazy place for science, I suspect they only investigate and sanction whistleblowers there.

Fiorucci trained under two superstars. One was the Italo-American cheater and Nobel Prize laureate Louis Ignarro, I wrote about their common papers here:

The other famous mentor of Fiorucci’s was Sir Salvador Moncada, FRS, FRCP, FMedSci, former director of the UCL Wolfson Institute, trained by dodgy Nobel Prize laureate Sir John Vane. Moncada himself almost got the 1998 Nobel Prize, which then Ignarro got instead. And you may recall: Moncada is the last author of the now retracted paper.

This is already the fifth retraction for Moncada, as I briefly wrote in February 2024 Shorts. In 2012, Retraction Watch wrote about three retractions from his UCL lab:

“Assegid Garedew, formerly a senior research investigator in Salvador Moncada‘s group, stepped down earlier this summer in the midst of an investigation that should be completed soon, Moncada tells Retraction Watch. […] Moncada tells us:

There has been an investigation at UCL which is about to be completed. It indicates that the person solely responsible for the fraud leading to the retraction of the three papers is Dr Garedew. He has admitted this and resigned as a senior research investigator in my group on the 19th June. We do not expect to retract any other paper from this laboratory since Dr Garedew was not involved in any of the other research projects.“

In the Retraction Watch universe, the world is simple, fair and justice is always served. The junior fraudster is always fired and the highly decorated white male senior PI is usually the victim. But as it happens, not only was Moncada’s expectation to limit it to 3 retractions wrong, also: two out of five of his present retractions are without that naughty Garedew. And there is even more on PubPeer, waiting for editorial action.

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Not only useless, but dangerous publications

A retraction for some bigwigs in USA. Another co-author is a certain US professor named James A. McCubrey, an associate of the Ferrarese cheaters Giorgio Zauli and Luca M. Neri:

The evidence on PubPeer was posted TEN years ago:

M Konopleva, M Milella , P Ruvolo , J C Watts , M R Ricciardi , B Korchin , T McQueen , W Bornmann , T Tsao , P Bergamo , D H Mak , W Chen , J McCubrey, A Tafuri , M Andreeff MEK inhibition enhances ABT-737-induced leukemia cell apoptosis via prevention of ERK-activated MCL-1 induction and modulation of MCL-1/BIM complex Leukemia (2012) doi: 10.1038/leu.2011.287

A PubPeer user shared a message from the Nature-family journal Leukemia, which they received in November 2014:

“Thank you for your email and apologies for the delay in getting back to you. The authors of this article have provided the Editors with a higher resolution version of the figure in question, which clearly shows that there is no duplication. We appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention.”

Ten years on, no new things came to light, yet something happened. A retraction was published on 18 July 2024:

“The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article after concerns were raised about the data. In Figure 6a, several images of mice appear to have been duplicated, while the bioluminescence signals of these images differ. As a result of these issues, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the reliability of these data or the conclusions presented in the article.

D H Mak and J McCubrey stated that they neither agree nor disagree with this retraction. M Konopleva and M Andreeff disagree with this retraction. The remaining authors did not respond to correspondence from the Publisher about this retraction.”

The 81 year old Michael Andreeff of MD Anderson in Houston, Texas and his former postdoc Marina Konopleva (now at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) have many common papers on PubPeer. I wrote about some of their problematic papers here:

And in January 2024 Shorts, I wrote about Elisabeth Bik’s findings of massive image fraud in a paper Konopleva coauthored with her MD Anderson colleague, Mario Marques-Piubelli.

Andreeff has a russian name, but he is a German. MD Anderson celebrates him as “a pioneer in flow cytometry since 1971, when he established the first flow cytometry laboratory at the University of Heidelberg“. Konopleva is russian and trained in St Petersburg. She came to USA as Andreeff’s postdoc, then became a faculty member at MD Anderson. I will let you speculate about the exact nature of their relationship to each other.

Tell me who are your friends and I will tell you who you are. Andreeff published together with Carlo Croce and George Calin, their common utterly fake paper Garzon et al 2007 has been corrected in 2022.

When you claim to have invented flow cytometry, you get to decide what is real:

Twee Tsao , Steven Kornblau , Stephen Safe , Julie C. Watt , Vivian Ruvolo , Wenjing Chen , Yihua Qiu , Kevin R. Coombes , Zhenlin Ju , Maen Abdelrahim , Wendy Schober , Xiaoyang Ling , Dimitris Kardassis , Colin Meyer , Aaron Schimmer , Hagop Kantarjian , Michael Andreeff , Marina Konopleva Role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma and its coactivator DRIP205 in cellular responses to CDDO (RTA-401) in acute myelogenous leukemia Cancer Research (2010) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-09-1962 

Another one for the MD Anderson superstars:

Pradip K. Saha , Vasumathi T. Reddy , Marina Konopleva, Michael Andreeff , Lawrence Chan The triterpenoid 2-cyano-3,12-dioxooleana-1,9-dien-28-oic-acid methyl ester has potent anti-diabetic effects in diet-induced diabetic mice and Lepr(db/db) mice Journal of Biological Chemistry (2010) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m110.176545 

Andreeff’s and Konopleva’s PubPeer record is old, but when you suffer no consequences, you continue as before. Study from 2023:

Gautam Borthakur is another professor at MD Anderson. This is how they chose their people, I’m afraid. This is fresh and dodgy also, will anyone ask for raw data?

Weiguo Zhang , Guopan Yu , Hongying Zhang , Mahesh Basyal , Charlie Ly , Bin Yuan , Vivian Ruvolo , Sujan Piya , Seemana Bhattacharya , Qi Zhang , Gautam Borthakur , Venkata Battula , Marina Konopleva, William G Rice , Michael Andreeff Concomitant targeting of FLT3 and BTK overcomes FLT3 inhibitor resistance in acute myeloid leukemia through the inhibition of autophagy Haematologica (2023) doi: 10.3324/haematol.2022.280884 

Maybe Leukemia journal needs to retract this also?

And here is Andreef celebrating in 2017 the papermill-infested garbage journal Oncotarget, just before it was delisted by Clarivate. Just because the owner Mikhail Blagosklonny published Andreev’s and Konopleva paper without any proper peer review:

“Oncotarget is a remarkable publication.

Dr. Blagosklonny has done an outstanding job swimming against the stream because most journals that have very fast turnaround times lack good peer review, and therefore the quality of papers is not good. This is different for Oncotarget due to its editor who has previously done this for cell cycle. And, consequently, he’s publishing excellent papers that people are eager to get out for a variety of reasons.

So, I think it’s an excellent model, but it completely depends on the quality of the editor and chief. There are so many junk journals and hundreds and hundreds of new journals that have no peer review. Therefore, the publications in these journals are not only useless, but dangerous, because most of the statements are probably flawed and will never be reproduced.

I personally like this particular journal, Oncotarget, and I will certainly continue to publish there, especially data that we need to get out. For instance, for filing patents or for particular grant purposes, where we don’t want to go through peer reviews that may easily last six to 12 months.”

This dude, eh?

Kazumasa Sekihara , Kaori Saitoh , Lina Han , Stefan Ciurea , Shinichi Yamamoto , Mika Kikkawa , Saiko Kazuno , Hikari Taka , Naoko Kaga , Hajime Arai , Takashi Miida , Michael Andreeff , Marina Konopleva , Yoko Tabe Targeting mantle cell lymphoma metabolism and survival through simultaneous blockade of mTOR and nuclear transporter exportin-1 Oncotarget (2017) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.16602 

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The Haybäck paper is one of those that I am proudest of

Congratulations to Adriano Aguzzi on his first retraction!

What do you say to that. His University of Zürich and the university hospital took great care that poor professor Aguzzi suffers no consequences despite his fudged figures or his made-up PhD degree. But at one journal, the editors apparently refused to do as they were told. And the paper was already corrected!

The paper was criticised on PubPeer for gel splicing and image duplication already in July 2013:

Johannes Haybaeck, Mathias Heikenwalder , Britta Klevenz , Petra Schwarz , Ilan Margalith , Claire Bridel, Kirsten Mertz , Elizabeta Zirdum, Benjamin Petsch , Thomas J. Fuchs , Lothar Stitz , Adriano Aguzzi Aerosols transmit prions to immunocompetent and immunodeficient mice PLoS Pathogens (2011) doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1001257 

This was Aguzzi’s reaction on PubPeer back in 2013:

” it became clear that some of the self-appointed “peers” are more interested in mud-slinging than in post-publication review and quality control of science. I see no need to defend my work against a group of anonymous detractors who negate a priori my integrity, yet are not even prepared to identify themselves. Suffice it to say that Mathias Heikenwälder and I have gone carefully through all original data and we confirm that none of the alleged “manipulations” were performed. We stand fully by the findings which we have reported. […] What we are NOT going to do is to engage in shouting match with anonymous individuals who make libelous and unfounded accusations. Please note that I will NOT make any further comments or communications on this forum.“

I also have written about the first author of that paper, Johannes Haybaeck, now professor at Medical University of Graz in Austria, in February 2024 Shorts. In brief: at around 2020, Haybaeck was sacked by a university in Germany because of “hundreds of false findings at the pathology department at Magdeburg University Hospital”, specifically, because of Haybaeck’s “39 cases […] had serious physical consequences for patients. In nine cases there was suspicion of negligent homicide.“:

“Under the responsibility of the former head of the institute, Johannes H., between 2016 and November 2019, 694 tissue samples were incorrectly diagnosed in the pathology department at the university hospital between 2016 and November 2019 – in 52 with clinical consequences for those affected. After the incidents became known, the University Hospital dismissed Johannes H. and reported particularly serious cases. The house also arranged for a total of 5,855 tissue samples to be re-examined by external institutes.”

Back to the retracted paper. In 2015, Haybaeck agreed “that a mistake may have occurred” and announced that “a correction will be published in the PLoS Pathogens paper.” Indeed, a Correction was published in February 2016, and mentioned:

“The authors would like to correct Figs 3, 5 and 6. In Fig 3, an error was introduced during the preparation of the figure for publication. […] The authors also wish to clarify that the original blots for Figs 5E and 6D contained redundant lanes which they had removed from the images while preparing the figures. […] The authors confirm that these changes do not alter their findings.”

Also in February 2016, Aguzzi returned to PubPeer to insult his critics some more:

“It is, however, also true that the anonymity of PubPeer is occasionally being used for libel and defamation – sometimes by fellow scientists with an axe to grind, and sometimes because some people gloat in bringing down “famous” luminaries. […]
Now, I have been active in research since 1982. Over the past 34 years, I have published >450 paper. Notwithstanding the error in Fig. 3A, the Haybäck paper is one of those that I am proudest of. Our discovery of aerosols as prion vectors has led to a significant reassessment of the safety procedures for lab work with prions. […]
In summary, if my scientific legacy will turn out to be a better protection from occupational hazards for students, postdocs, and lab technicians, well, that is a legacy that was worth working for, and one that I am proud of.”

This retraction must really hurt this famous luminary. Issued on 18 July 2024:

“After this article [1] was published and subsequently corrected in [2], the corresponding authors informed the journal editors of additional concerns in the published results. Editorial assessment identified issues in Figures 1, 3 and 4. Specifically:

• The top right region of the Fig 1H C57BL/6 HE panel appears similar to the bottom left region of the far left panel in Fig 3C in [1] and [2].
• The top right region of the Fig 1H C57BL/6 GFAP panel appears similar to the bottom left region of the second from right panel in Fig 3C in [1] and [2].
• The right side of the Fig 1H C57BL/6 Iba-1 panel appears similar to the left side of the far right panel in Fig 3C in [1] and [2].
• The Fig 3A JH^-/- HE panel in [1] appears similar to the Fig 4A C3C4^-/- HE panel when rotated 45°.
• The Fig 3A JH^-/- SAF84 panel in [1] appears similar to the Fig 4A C3C4^-/- SAF84 panel.
• The Fig 3A JH^-/- GFAP panel in [1] appears similar to the Fig 4A C3C4^-/- GFAP panel.
• The Fig 3A JH^-/- Iba-1 panel in [1] appears similar to the Fig 4A C3C4^-/- Iba-1 panel.
• The bottom right region of the Fig 3B LTβR-Ig SAF84 panel in [1] and [2] appears similar to the bottom left regions of the JH^-/- SAF84 panel in Fig 3A in [1] and the C3C4^-/- SAF84 panel in Fig 4A when rotated 150°.
• The top right region of the Fig 3B muIgG Iba-1 panel in [1] and [2] appears similar to the bottom left region of the Fig 4B Newborn tga20 Iba-1 panel.

The corresponding author, AA, stated that several images were acquired of each tissue specimen and pictures were incorrectly assigned to genotypes. They also noted that, in addition to the concerns above, the following panels are incorrect:

• The Tga20 GFAP and C57BL/6 SAF84 panels in Fig 1H.
• The LTβR-Ig HE, GFAP and Iba-1 panels, and the muIgG HE, SAF84 and GFAP panels in Fig 3B.
• The second from left panel in Fig 3C.
• The Newborn tga20 HE, SAF84 and GFAP panels in Fig 4B.
• The Newborn tga20 Kaplan Meyer curve in Fig 4B.

The corresponding author, AA, stated that they identified the original paraffin blocks and the original archive description of the individual genotypes for many of the mouse groups and they provided images generated from new cuts from these blocks re-stained for HE, SAF54, Iba-1 and GFAP.

The corresponding authors requested retraction of the article. In light of the extent of concerns and errors listed above that question the reliability of the reported results and conclusions, and in accordance with the request of the corresponding authors, the PLOS Pathogens Editors retract this article.

All authors agreed with the retraction. AA and LS stand by the article’s findings. AA and LS apologize for the issues with the published article.”

Knowing how this diva’s bloated ego works, it is unlikely Aguzzi requested the retraction entirely on his own accord. Thank you, PLOS Pathogens.

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Science Breakthroughs

There’s lots of snake oil out there

Old age has been cured, the miracle drug will soon hit the market. It’s in Nature and all over the news since last week.

Here is BBC from 17 July 2024:

“A drug has increased the lifespans of laboratory animals by nearly 25%, in a discovery scientists hope can slow human ageing too.

The treated mice were known as “supermodel grannies” in the lab because of their youthful appearance.

They were healthier, stronger and developed fewer cancers than their unmedicated peers.

The drug is already being tested in people, but whether it would have the same anti-ageing effect is unknown.”

The miracle drug is an antibody against interleukin-11 (IL-11), because a genetic IL-11 knock-out turned old shabby mice into sexy young cat-walking supermodels who already angled several famous football players and Formula 1 drivers as boyfriends. The life extension was “20-25% depending on the experiment and sex of the mice.“

The last author Stuart Cook, professor at Duke-NUS (National University of Singapore), who patented the stuff and owns a company called Enleofen, which develops anti-Il-11 drugs. In 2020, Cook’s company licenced its anti-IL-11 antibody for fibro-inflammatory diseases to the German pharma giant Boehringer Ingelheim. Fittingly, Cook’s institutional profile says he “discovered a critical role for the IL-11 cytokine in fibrosis and inflammation.” What was evolution, that stupid old bag, thinking when inventing IL-11, such an evil molecule… Good thing Prof Cook is there to fix things.

A BBC journalist spoke to Cook:

“He told me: “I try not to get too excited, for the reasons you say, is it too good to be true? “There’s lots of snake oil out there, so I try to stick to the data and they are the strongest out there.”
He said he “definitely” thought it was worth trialling in human ageing, arguing that the impact “would be transformative” if it worked and was prepared to take it himself. “

Please, Dr Cook, take as much as you can swallow. This is the Nature paper:

Anissa A. Widjaja , Wei-Wen Lim , Sivakumar Viswanathan , Sonia Chothani , Ben Corden , Cibi Mary Dasan , Joyce Wei Ting Goh , Radiance Lim , Brijesh K. Singh , Jessie Tan , Chee Jian Pua , Sze Yun Lim , Eleonora Adami , Sebastian Schafer , Benjamin L. George , Mark Sweeney , Chen Xie , Madhulika Tripathi , Natalie A. Sims , Norbert Hübner , Enrico Petretto, Dominic J. Withers, Lena Ho, Jesus Gil, David Carling, Stuart A. Cook Inhibition of IL-11 signalling extends mammalian healthspan and lifespan Nature (2024) doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07701-9 

“A.A.W., B.C., B.K.S., S.S. and S.A.C. are co-inventors of a patent family that includes: WO2022090509A (methods to extend healthspan and treat age-related diseases) and WO2018109174 (IL-11 antibodies). S.S. and S.A.C. are co-founders and shareholders of Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd and VVB Bio Pte Ltd. A.A.W. had consulted for VVB Bio on work unrelated to the study presented here. J.G. has acted as a consultant for Unity Biotechnology, Geras Bio, Myricx Pharma and Merck KGaA. Pfizer and Unity Biotechnology have funded research in the J.G. laboratory unrelated to the work presented here. J.G. owns equity in Geras Bio. J.G. is a named inventor in MRC and Imperial College patents related to senolytic therapies (the patents are not related to the work presented here).”

I wrote about Unity Biotechnology and their failed senolytics drugs before, at the end of this article:

In that article, I also mentioned a problematic paper by Cook’s coauthor Jesus Gil, professor at the Imperial College London in UK. Incidentally, Cook is visiting professor at Imperial. And BBC says that research was done at both Duke-NUS and MRC Laboratory of Medical Science at Imperial, which is Gil’s department. In October 2022 Shorts, I wrote about Gil’s retraction in Oncogene for data manipulation, and I also discussed some other of his dodgy papers on PubPeer.

New things came to light since. This was found by Sholto David:

Nicolás Herranz , Suchira Gallage , Massimiliano Mellone , Torsten Wuestefeld , Sabrina Klotz , Christopher J. Hanley, Selina Raguz , Juan Carlos Acosta , Andrew J. Innes , Ana Banito , Athena Georgilis , Alex Montoya , Katharina Wolter , Gopuraja Dharmalingam , Peter Faull , Thomas Carroll , Juan Pedro Martínez-Barbera , Pedro Cutillas , Florian Reisinger , Mathias Heikenwalder , Richard A. Miller, Dominic Withers, Lars Zender, Gareth J. Thomas, Jesús Gil mTOR regulates MAPKAPK2 translation to control the senescence-associated secretory phenotype Nature Cell Biology (2015) doi: 10.1038/ncb3225 

In April 2024, Gil announced on PubPeer to publish a Correction, which appeared on 22 May 2024:

“…duplicated due to an error in figure preparation. […] The errors are in
presentation only and do not affect the conclusions of the study. “

More Gil duplications found by Sholto:

Scott Haston, Estela Gonzalez-Gualda , Samir Morsli , Jianfeng Ge , Virinder Reen , Alexander Calderwood , Ilias Moutsopoulos , Leonidas Panousopoulos , Polina Deletic , Gabriela Carreno , Romain Guiho , Saba Manshaei , Jose Mario Gonzalez-Meljem , Hui Yuan Lim , Daniel J. Simpson , Jodie Birch , Husayn A. Pallikonda , Tamir Chandra , David Macias , Gary J. Doherty, Doris M. Rassl, Robert C. Rintoul, Massimo Signore, Irina Mohorianu, Arne N. Akbar, Jesús Gil, Daniel Muñoz-Espín, Juan Pedro Martinez-Barbera Clearance of senescent macrophages ameliorates tumorigenesis in KRAS-driven lung cancer Cancer Cell (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2023.05.004 

In November 2023, the last author and Gil’s London neighbour at UCL, Juan Pedro Martinez-Barbera, announced to publish a correction. Then he didn’t.

This couldn’t be corrected because the last author and Gil’s former postdoctoral mentor, the Imperial College professor Gordon Peters, died in 2016, and the first author tried to pass off unrelated gels as original raw data:

Goedele N. Maertens, Selma El Messaoudi-Aubert , Tomas Racek , Julie K. Stock , James Nicholls , Marc Rodriguez-Niedenführ , Jesus Gil, Gordon Peters Several distinct polycomb complexes regulate and co-localize on the INK4a tumor suppressor locus PLoS ONE (2009) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006380 

This is from the times when Gil was still pipetting in the lab, his coauthor Carlos Cordon-Cardo has a huge PubPeer record himself:

Clare L Scott , Jésus Gil , Eva Hernando , Julie Teruya-Feldstein , Masako Narita , Dolores Martínez , Tapio Visakorpi , David Mu , Carlos Cordon-Cardo , Gordon Peters , David Beach , Scott W Lowe Role of the chromobox protein CBX7 in lymphomagenesis Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2007) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0608721104  

Another Jesus miracle of duplication, rots on PubPeer since 2017. Jesus’ coauthor is a problematic Belgian named François Fuks (read about him in December 2023 Shorts):

D Bernard , J Gil , P Dumont , S Rizzo , D Monte , B Quatannens , D Hudson , T Visakorpi , F Fuks , Y De Launoit The methyl-CpG-binding protein MECP2 is required for prostate cancer cell growth Oncogene (2006) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1209179 

One Jesus allegedly cured the blind and the lame, and rose the dead. Another Jesus turns old mice into supermodels while pocketing senolytics money. You now saw how Jesus does science.

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