Schneider Shorts 8.11.2024 – Mission to save millions of lives

Schneider Shorts of 8 November 2024 – German scholars save children from cancer, a German professor separates fraud from mistakes, Pakistani scholar saves millions in England, with a Belgian research fraud investigator, American senolytics, academic kakistokracy in Poland, silly drawings passed off as spectra, and finally, on Trump and fascist America.

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Russia’s war on Ukraine

American fascism

Americans, in totally free and free elections, overwhelmingly decided to embrace fascism. Trump’s second presidency will be very different from his first, as he clearly announced, and in fact, this is why people voted for him. Whites want their supremacy back, men want to dominate women again, the rich want to exploit the poor, and even those with migrant background want to see millions of “wrong” migrants dragged from the streets and their homes and deported. Apple-pie America as it always has been under the surface.

Trump means only bad things for Americans, don’t nourish any hopes that if you report your neighbour or your colleague for being a migrant, a “leftie”, or for having had an abortion you will get their things or their job. If you paranoidly thought the migrants were taking your stuff, watch now how Trump’s buddies and the oligarchs will take everything.

What does Trump mean for Ukraine? Nothing good obviously. But unlike Trump’s Hungarian clone Victor Orban believes, Trump is not the emperor of the world and nobody has to bow to his might and do his bidding (indeed, even in US!).

Ukrainian people have been fighting and dying for their freedom from russia since at least 1917 (I did not mistype). They will not surrender just because Trump gave an order. They won’t even surrender if their own president should give such order. This concept of free people is something dictators like putin or Trump don’t understand. If putin were to drop dead tomorrow, russians would celebrate any random new appointment they never heard of before as their new beloved Tsar, and meekly follow any of his orders. In fact, this is roughly how putin himself became russia’s ruler. Ukraine is the exact opposite of russia, and hopefully so is USA. When past Ukrainian presidents tried to establish an autocracy, Ukrainians rose in protest on the Maidan in Kyiv, in 2004 and in 2013, and the people won back their freedom. An inspiration for Americans hopefully.

Nothing is lost. Europe must get its act together and start defending itself on its own, because President Trump is on russia’s side. Europe sure has the money and the arms industry, what it needs is the will and a vision.

And for the Americans: don’t obey in advance. Unlike russia of the late 1990ies, USA is an economic superpower, with an established democracy tradition and political culture, a decentralised federal system, experts and professionals, free press, independent higher education and many other things which can prevent a nation from becoming a totalitarian fascist regime.

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Science Elites

Gardening Goats

In this article from April 2024, I told you about dodgy and possibly ethically problematic research by the cancer researcher from russia named Julia Skokowa, who ten years ago became Full Professor, Head of the Division of Translational Oncology and Founding Director of the Gene and RNA Therapy Center (GRTC) at the University Hospital of the prestigious University of Tübingen, Germany. Aged merely 38. For details of the allegations, read the article, but at the end the former research integrity official Skokowa was defended and whitewashed by University of Tübingen.

Now I will tell you about the possible reasons. We already knew that Skokowa is married to her former PhD mentor, the octogenarian Karl Welte, former dean and board member of Hannover Medical School (MHH), who arrived to Tübingen in 2013/2014 with his wife.

Now, Welte is member of the Board of Trustees of the Madeleine Schickedanz-KinderKrebs-Stiftung, a German paediatric cancer charity established by the billionaire heir Madeleine Schickedanz (who is the board’s president).

In 2009, the Schickedanz Foundation was criticised in the German media (translated):

“A good 3.3 million euros were raised in donations between 2006 and 2008. Less than half arrived to cancer-suffering children, hospitals and researchers. Although the foundation works practically at no staff costs, almost 1.7 million euros were all paid for administrative costs, as the foundation confirmed on request. At times, every euro donation benefited just 29 cents from the purpose of the foundation.”

That’s unfortunate, but at least some of the money flows into cancer research, right? Well, the Schickedanz foundation (motto: “Research helps healing”) proudly reports to be currently funding Skokowa! Indeed, the biggest source of funding to the lab of Welte’s wife Skokowa at the GRTC centre which she leads is:

“Marlene Schickedanz KinderKrebs Stiftung (750.000 €): Modeling tumorigenesis in zebrafish: The role of eh NAK salvage pathway and protein deacetylation in pediatric leukemia”

The two next-highest grants (€611k from the German Ministry for Research and €489k from the charity Deutsche Krebshilfe) are for clinical projects. Numerous publications by Skokowa and her PhD students acknowledge the Schickendanz funding (see for example the recent Klimiankou et al 2024, Zeidler et al 2024, Nasri et al 2024, Maksymenko et al 2023, or, much older, Skokowa et al 2012). As you see, Skokowa also receives funding from the German Jose Carreras Leukaemia Foundation, guess who is its scientific advisory board member since 2004 and since 2013 head of that board? Yes, Skokowa’s youthful husband. Since at least 2012, Carreras grant funding started to flow to Skokowa’s lab, first in Hannover, then in Tübingen. Also some of Skokowa’s PhD students are currently funded by Jose Carreras fellowships.

You surely see now why the University of Tübingen will do anything for Skokowa.

As it happens, another Trustee of the Schickedanz Foundation is a certain Martin Stanulla, who graduated as MD under the MHH professor Hansjörg Riehm (who happens to be yet another Schickedanz Trustee) and trained in Welte’s the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at MHH, and is now professor there. From 2004 till 2008, Stanulla was a Madeleine Schickedanz-sponsored professor (only evil lying tongues would insinuate an influence of Welte and Riehm!) Stanulla’s lab and Welte’s old department at MHH have been receiving Schickedanz money ever since, you can even see Stanulla’s happy face in this current announcement by the Schickedanz Foundation. Like with Skokowa, the money delivers the best cancer research possible:

A Alsadeq , S Strube , S Krause , M Carlet , I Jeremias , C Vokuhl , S Loges, J A Aguirre-Ghiso , A Trauzold , G Cario , M Stanulla , M Schrappe , D M Schewe Effects of p38α/β inhibition on acute lymphoblastic leukemia proliferation and survival in vivo Leukemia (2015) doi: 10.1038/leu.2015.153 

There are 4 currently funded projects listed by the Schickedanz Foundation. One is for a paediatric cancer clinic in Peru (led by Welte!), of the three remaining projects one is Skokowa’s, another is Stanulla’s, and the third one went to yet another Trustee, Thorsten Langer, professor at the University of Lübeck.

Welte, Skokowa, Stanulla or Langer didn’t reply to my email. Also the Schickedanz Foundation, the German Jose Carreras Foundation, the University of Tübingen, and MHH remained silent.

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Fraud Committee

I recently reported a case of suspected science fraud to the fraud commission of the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Of course, nobody replied. The common author is the Antwerp’s professor and chairman of the Biomedical Sciences Department Council, Wim Vanden Berghe, the papers were all flagged by Sholto David.

For example:

• René Delgado-Hernández, Ivones Hernández-Balmaseda, Idania Rodeiro-Guerra , Julio Cesar Rodriguez Gonzalez , Olivier De Wever , Emilie Logie , Ken Declerck, Claudina Pérez-Novo , Wim Vanden Berghe Anti-angiogenic effects of mangiferin and mechanism of action in metastatic melanoma Melanoma Research (2020) doi: 10.1097/cmr.0000000000000647 
• Ivones Hernández-Balmaseda, Idania Rodeiro Guerra, Ken Declerck, José Alfredo Herrera Isidrón, Claudina Pérez-Novo, Guy Van Camp, Olivier De Wever, Kethia González, Mayrel Labrada, Adriana Carr, Geovanni Dantas-Cassali, Diego Carlos Dos Reis, Livan Delgado-Roche, Roberto Rafael Nuñez, René Delgado-Hernández, Miguel David Fernández, Miriam T. Paz-Lopes, Wim Vanden Berghe Marine Seagrass Extract of Thalassia testudinum Suppresses Colorectal Tumor Growth, Motility and Angiogenesis by Autophagic Stress and Immunogenic Cell Death Pathways Marine Drugs (2021) doi: 10.3390/md19020052 

Or this, in an amazing Elsevier journal which really cares:

Geovanna Paladines-Santacruz , Andrea Orellana-Manzano, Glenda Sarmiento , Glenda Pilozo , Elsy Iñiga , Fausto Zaruma-Torres , Johana Ortíz-Ulloa , María Quijano-Avilés , Davide Di Grumo , Silvia Orellana-Manzano , María Del Carmen Villacrés , Patricia Manzano , Wim Vanden Berghe Acute oral toxicity of a novel functional drink based on , and cocoa husk Toxicology Reports (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.toxrep.2021.03.026 

Here an older finding by another PubPeer user (likely Clare Francis):

You may have noticed a fellow Belgian coauthor: Jacques Piette, director of a major research centre at the University of Liege. I wrote about his bad science in March 2024, which swiftly resulted in findings of fraud and misconduct by the Board of Ethics and Scientific Integrity of the University of Liege against, well Leonid Schneider, who else (read May 2024 Shorts).

Here is Vander Berghe with Piette again, joined by another Belgian cheater, Carine Van Lint from University of Brussels:

Julie Horion , Geoffrey Gloire , Nadia El Mjiyad , Vincent Quivy , Linda Vermeulen , Wim Vanden Berghe , Guy Haegeman , Carine Van Lint , Jacques Piette , Yvette Habraken Histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin A sustains sodium pervanadate-induced NF-kappaB activation by delaying IkappaBalpha mRNA resynthesis: comparison with tumor necrosis factor alpha Journal of Biological Chemistry (2007) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m609166200 

Now, someone white male and Belgian like Vander Berghe might be able to explain all the above with “mistakes” or false accusations due to absence of raw data, but what about this:

Livan Delgado-Roche , Kethia González , Fernando Mesta , Beatriz Couder , Zaira Tavarez , Ruby Zavala , Ivones Hernandez , Gabino Garrido , Idania Rodeiro, Wim Vanden Berghe Polyphenolic Fraction Obtained From Thalassia testudinum Marine Plant and Thalassiolin B Exert Cytotoxic Effects in Colorectal Cancer Cells and Arrest Tumor Progression in a Xenograft Mouse Model Frontiers in Pharmacology (2020) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.592985 

The referenced paper Wang et al 2019 from which Vanden Berghe et al, uhm, reused the images is a year younger, from China and has no common authors. But wait, the plagiarism gets much, much worse:

As Sholto noted, the papers which the Belgians plagiarised from are also fraudulent and likely produced by papermills. This one was the first appearance from June 2015, authored by Iranians in Malaysia, judge yourself:

1. Maryam Zahedifard , Fadhil Lafta Lafta Faraj , Mohammadjavad Paydar , Chung Yeng Looi , Maryam Hajrezaei , Mohadeseh Hasanpourghadi , Behnam Kamalidehghan , Nazia Abdul Majid , Hapipah Mohd Ali , Mahmood Ameen Abdulla Synthesis, characterization and apoptotic activity of quinazolinone Schiff base derivatives toward MCF-7 cells via intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways Scientific Reports (2015) doi: 10.1038/srep11544 

Here the later appearances of those immunohistochemistry images:

2. Min-Chen Liu , Lin Liu , Xia-Rong Wang , Wu-Ping Shuai , Ying Hu , Min Han , Jian-Qing Gao Folate receptor-targeted liposomes loaded with a diacid metabolite of norcantharidin enhance antitumor potency for H22 hepatocellular carcinoma both in vitro and in vivo International Journal of Nanomedicine (2016) doi: 10.2147/ijn.s96862 
3. Marianne K O Grant , Davis M Seelig , Leslie C Sharkey , Wan S V Choi , Ibrahim Y Abdelgawad , Beshay N Zordoky Sexual dimorphism of acute doxorubicin-induced nephrotoxicity in C57Bl/6 mice PLoS ONE (2019) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212486 
4. Vander Berghe’s 2020 paper
5. Fahad S. Alshehri, Nasser M. Alorfi Protective role of resveratrol against VCM-induced hepatotoxicity in male wistar rats Frontiers in Pharmacology (2023) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1130670 

The only logical explanation is that in 2020 some Iranian papermillers stole Vanden Berghe’s totally impeccable and pristine research, travelled in time into 2015 and used it for their nefarious papermilling purposes ever since.

You may laugh, but this is what the Biochemistry and Biotechnology Fraud Committee of the University of Antwerp most likely already determined. Incidentally, Vanden Berghe is a member of this committee. Yes, I expect them to find me guilty of research fraud also, just like their colleagues in Liege did.

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Mission to save millions of lives

Another case I reported to university authorities, this time at the University of Central Lancashire in UK, and also here I received no reply. I also included the Head of Translational Research at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, professor Ihtesham ur Rehman. His university informs us:

“Ihtesham is a leading expert in biomaterials and regenerative medicine, and clinical spectroscopy research and teaching. He has written many seminal publications on spectroscopy of biological tissues, cancer research, multiple sclerosis, synthesis and characterisation of biomaterials, human bone and dental materials. […] Ihtesham’s mission is to save “millions of lives””

This is how ur Rehman saves lives, according to Sholto David:

• Tayyba Sher Waris , Syed Tahir Abbas Shah , Azra Mehmood , Zohaib Iqbal , Mubashra Zehra , Aqif Anwar Chaudhry , Ihtesham Ur Rehman, Muhammad Yar Design and development of thyroxine/heparin releasing affordable cotton dressings to treat chronic wounds Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (2022) doi: 10.1002/term.3295 
• Tayyba Sher Waris , Syed Tahir Abbas Shah , Azra Mehmood , Afaq Mushtaq , Mubashra Zehra , Saima Zulfiqar , Anisa Andleeb , Faiza Jabbar , Muhammad Awais Anjum , Aqif Anwar Chaudhry , Ihtesham Ur Rehman, Muhammad Yar Chitosan-sodium percarbonate-based hydrogels with sustained oxygen release potential stimulated angiogenesis and accelerated wound healing Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials (2024) doi: 10.1002/jbm.b.35344 

It is quite possible that no mice were tortured for these wound-healing experiments, and everyting was fabricated by a Pakistani papermill. In fact, I previously wrote about ur Rehman’s associate in Pakistan, Muhammad Yar, in August 2024 Shorts, some papers coauthored by ur Rehman were mentioned. Yar is associate professor at the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Biomedical Materials of COMSATS University Islamabad. The English professor ur Rehman happens to be the founder and Executive Director of this Pakistani center.

Specifically, it was about this celebrated paper by Yar and ur Rehman with the award winning biotechnology professor and entrepreneur, Sheila MacNeil, and her colleague at the University of Sheffield, Anthony Bullock (past collaborator of the trachea transplanters Martin Birchall and Mark Lowdell):

Muhammad Awais Anjum , Saima Zulfiqar , Aqif Anwar Chaudhary , Ihtesham Ur Rehman , Anthony J. Bullock , Muhammad Yar , Sheila MacNeil Stimulation of hair regrowth in an animal model of androgenic alopecia using 2-deoxy-D-ribose Frontiers in Pharmacology (2024) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1370833

Alexander Magazinov proved that the SD values in the Figure 2D were mathematically impossible. That’s why on 25 October 2024, the paper received a Correction:

“In the published article, there was an error in Figure 2 as published. The data graph 2D representing skin color scores had erroneous error bars applied. The corrected Figure 2 and its caption appear below. [….] The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.”

The authors simply removed all SD bars and the “extremely signficant” stars:

They will need to publish another correction, for Figures 4 and 5:

Sholto found more for ur Rehman and Yar:

Lubna Shahzadi , Amna Ramzan , Awais Anjum , Faiza Jabbar , Ather Farooq Khan , Faisal Manzoor , Sohail Anjum Shahzad , Aqif Anwar Chaudhry , Ihtesham Ur Rehman, Muhammad Yar An efficient new method for electrospinning chitosan and heparin for the preparation of pro‐angiogenic nanofibrous membranes for wound healing applications Journal of Applied Polymer Science (2022) doi: 10.1002/app.53212

The scam works for the English professor ur Rehman even without Yar. Strontium is obviously best stored in the bones, peer-reviewed experts say:

Mozan Hassan , Mohsin Sulaiman , Priya Dharshini Yuvaraju , Emmanuel Galiwango , Ihtesham Ur Rehman, Ali H Al-Marzouqi , Abbas Khaleel , Sahar Mohsin Biomimetic PLGA/Strontium-Zinc Nano Hydroxyapatite Composite Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration Journal of Functional Biomaterials (2022) doi: 10.3390/jfb13010013

ur Rehman didn’t reply to my email, being busy saving millions of lives.

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Psychology of Marriage and Family

In Poland, where until recently the xenophobic Christian-fundamentalist “Law and Justice” (PiS) party ruled, one can see what far-right kakistokracy does to academia. Americans, take notice.

Notes from Poland reported on 31 October 2024:

“Collegium Intermarium, a university set up in Warsaw under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government with the aim of “forging elites for the entire region”, has not enrolled a single student this year.

However, the organisation behind the university, conservative legal group Ordo Iuris, claims that the problems it is suffering are because it is being deliberately “destroyed” by the new government that took power from PiS at the end of last year. […]

According to data obtained by state broadcaster TVP, in the years 2022-2023, the college received over 4.6 million zloty in funding from the education ministry, despite the fact that it enrolled only 15 full-time students for its first two academic years. Most of those subsequently did not complete their studies.”

Set up in 2021, Collegium Intermarium was announced to fight against the “absurd ideologies” of “postmodernism and neo-Marxism” and “become a forge of elites for the entire Intermarium region”, from the Black and Adriatic Seas to the Baltics. It offers courses in the “Psychology of Marriage and Family”, “Thomas Aquinas Studies”, “Faith and Science”, and Latin language.

Yet the only full-time academic program this “university” teaches is law. Probably that’s what the PiS party especially likes to usurp and sabotage.

“Last year, only one student was accepted onto the course.
According to the data provided this year, only two students in total are currently enrolled in the law programme after starting their studies in previous years.
Those figures come despite strong political and financial support from the PiS government for Collegium Intermarium.”

The Collegium Intermarium’s rector Artur Górecki, and Ordo Iuris’s president, Jerzy Kwaśniewski insists that they always meant to “educate up to a dozen or so people a year” and plead for someone rich to come and save them.

“In their statement, they said that the new government had put Collegium Intermarium on a “blacklist” and “attacked the foundations of its functioning” by ordering ten inspections and suspending previously agreed financing for research programmes.”

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Scholarly Publishing

Crayon time!

To those of you who still childishly believe into “peer review”, here is what gets published in respectable journals.

From Iraq, published by Springer Nature and ACS:

• Ali A. Jabbar, Dhia H. Hussain , Kamal H. Latif , Salim Albukhaty, Adel Kareem Jasim, Ghassan M. Sulaiman, Mosleh M. Abomughaid Extremely efficient aerogels of graphene oxide/graphene oxide nanoribbons/sodium alginate for uranium removal from wastewater solution Scientific Reports (2024) doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-52043-1
• Ali A. Jabbar, Dhia H. Hussain , Kamal H. Latif , Adel Kareem Jasim, Zaidon T. Al-aqbi, Hussein S. Alghannami , Abdulkarim Albishri High-Efficiency Adsorption of Uranium from Wastewater Using Graphene Oxide/Graphene Oxide Nanoribbons/Chitosan Nanocomposite Aerogels ACS Omega (2024) doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c01608 

We know that at least at Scientific Reports, two authors were removed. An Authors’ Correction from February 2024 replaced the reference Nr 10, from one paper by coauthor Ghassan Sulaiman to another paper of his (see his PubPeer record, including further fraud in SciReps). The correction also mentioned:

In addition, in the Author Contributions section,

[…] “M.S.J., A.M.A., S.A., G.M.S. A.G.A. writing-review and editing the manuscript.”

now reads:

[…] S.A., G.M.S. A.G.A. writing-review and editing the manuscript.””

Obviously the authors M.S.J. and A.M.A. were removed post-acceptance or even post-publication. Maybe they failed to pay the papermill. The former is likely Sulaiman’s regular coauthor Majid S. Jabir (also on the reference 10, which was replaced for a Sulaiman paper without Jabir!)

More fraud was found in the SciReps paper:

Same problem in the ACS Omega paper; uncredited “Rastak Lab” electron microscopy images were used. On PubPeer, the lead author Ali A. Jabbar openly admitted to have bought the figures:

“I would like to clarify that the laboratory in question provided paid services for the examination of the samples. As the original owner of the images, I opted not to include the laboratory’s name in the details of the research. I believed that focusing on the research findings and methodology would be more relevant for the readers.”

Another co-author, Salim Albukhaty, pointed to Iran as the place to buy papers, and blamed the Origin software:

“(XRD), were conducted at XRD Laboratory at the University of Kashan (Iran). All of the original data were acquired independently, and then plots of the XRD patterns of the GO, GONRs, and GO/GONRs/SA aerogels (Figure 2) were combined or merged using Origin Software so that they might look hand-drawn.“

Both journals announced to me to investigate. My prediction is that Scientific Reports will retract their copy, but ACS Omega will do nothing or issue a correction about unaffected conclusions.

Another crayon exercise, by different crooks and in Elsevier:

Eman A. Alghamdi, Refka Sai Impact of alloying iron pyrite by ruthenium on its band gap values and its insight to photovoltaic performance Heliyon (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20270 

Also in Elsevier, journal impact factor 7.7:

Prathipkumar Subramaniyan , Vijayakumar Subramaniyan, Sangeetha Renganathan , Vidhya Elavarasan , Mysoon M. Al-Ansari , Majdoleen Aldawsari , Praseetha Prabhakaran Kala , Woong Kim Enhanced photocatalytic efficiencies in a bifunctional ZnO/PVA nanocomposites derived from Capparis zeylanica L Environmental Research (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.116482

Do you still believe in the peer review?

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Retraction Watchdogging

This is legal

First retraction for the retired German professor Michael Wink, former dean and vice-dean of the faculties of pharmacology and life sciences at the University of Heidelberg, and his papermilling mentees. Read about the bad science and Wink’s defence of it in March 2024 Shorts.

In Frontiers no less!

Mansour Sobeh, Mona F. Mahmoud , Ganna Petruk, Samar Rezq , Mohamed L. Ashour , Fadia S. Youssef , Assem M. El-Shazly , Daria M. Monti , Ashraf B. Abdel-Naim , Michael Wink Syzygium aqueum: A Polyphenol- Rich Leaf Extract Exhibits Antioxidant, Hepatoprotective, Pain-Killing and Anti-inflammatory Activities in Animal Models Frontiers in Pharmacology (2018) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00566 

All three papers have Wink as last author and his former PhD studentMansour Sobeh (thesis here) as first author, plus on-and-off coauthors including Assem Elshazly (now professor in Egypt and Alumni-Ambassador in Heidelberg), Malak Dimireih, Ganna Petruck and Mohamed Ashour whom Wink declared also to be his former PhD students.

The retraction notice from 29 October 2024 went:

“Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the integrity of the images in the published figures. Image duplication was identified in Figure 5. The image in this article also appeared in two other articles with common authors which described the rats as Male Sprague-Dawley rats [in (Frontiers in Pharmacology (2018), doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00566) and (Food and Chemical Toxicology (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2018.01.031]) and as Male Wistar rats [in (Pharmaceuticals (2020), doi: 10.3390/ph13050084)]. The authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation during the investigation, which was conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policies. As a result, the data and conclusions of the article have been deemed unreliable and the article has been retracted.

This retraction was approved by the Chief Editors of Frontiers in Pharmacology and the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. The authors did not agree to this retraction.”

I wrote to Wink again, and he explained why he didn’t agree to the retraction (translated):

“my co-authors made mistakes that I hadn’t recognized. This really annoys me…
-Only one rat line was used
-Several plant extracts were in the analysis at the same time, for which a common control was used. This is legal; but my co-authors should have stated this in the papers.
But these were not forgeries but errors that could have been easily corrected with a correction. Unfortunately, Frontiers did not accept our reasons, but also did not discuss what would have been normal practice.
We therefore do not agree with the retraction“

As reminder, with this attitude Wink used to be the dean in Heidelberg.

Sobeh and Elshazly meanwhile retracted one more paper in Frontiers, pity Wink isn’t a coauthor. Flagged by Mu Yang:

Mona F Mahmoud , Samar Rezq , Amira E Alsemeh , Mohamed A O Abdelfattah , Assem M El-Shazly , Rachid Daoud , Mohamed A El Raey , Mansour Sobeh L. Extract Attenuates Neuroinflammation and Neuropathic Pain in Sciatic Nerve Chronic Constriction Injury-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Rats Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.799444 

The retraction from 28 October 2024 went:

“Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the integrity of the images in the published figures 4 and 7. The authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation during the investigation, which was conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policies. As a result, the data and conclusions of the article have been deemed unreliable and the article has been retracted. […] The authors have agreed to this retraction.”

Funny, without Wink they agreed to retraction. By the way, Wink also told me:

“I can distinguish scientific misconduct from mistakes“

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Intend to submit a new manuscript

Anti-aging researcher Judith Campisi died earlier this year (read May 2024 Shorts), all the senolytics she used to sell failed to help.

Now one of her papers was retracted.

Boyi Zhang , Qilai Long , Shanshan Wu , Qixia Xu , Shuling Song , Liu Han , Min Qian , Xiaohui Ren , Hanxin Liu , Jing Jiang , Jianming Guo , Xiaoling Zhang , Xing Chang , Qiang Fu , Eric W-F Lam , Judith Campisi , James L. Kirkland, Yu Sun KDM4 Orchestrates Epigenomic Remodeling of Senescent Cells and Potentiates the Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype Nature Aging (2021) doi: 10.1038/s43587-021-00063-1 

Most likely the paper was retracted because the coauthor Eric WF Lam was sacked by Imperial College London for fraud in 2021.

The retraction notice from 31 October 2024 went:

“The authors have retracted this article.

After publication, concerns were raised regarding image overlap within Fig 7c (vehicle and MIT). Further, the image data in Fig 7c also appear to overlap with data from two previous publications (Fig 6f (MIT) of¹, and Figure 6b (SEN Vehicle) of²).

The following concerns within this study have also been identified:

• Image overlap between Fig 2a (KDM4A untreated), ED Fig 9a (KDM4A ML324) and ED Fig 9c (KDM4B ML324)
• Image overlap within ED Fig 9e (vehicle H3K9me3 and ML324 H3K36me3)
• Image overlap within Fig S1d (SA-β-Gal staining MIT and p35; and phase images MIT and p25)
• Image overlap between Fig S7b (ML324) and S7e (vehicle)
• Image overlap within Fig. S7h (Vehicle H3K36me3 and ML324 H3K9me3)

The incorrect attribution of these imaging data affects the interpretation of the aforementioned figures, although the conclusions derived from certain affected datasets are supported by complementary analyses in the study.

The authors have checked the underlying data and found that these errors came about due to incorrect labelling of images at the time of acquisition, and mistakes during figure preparation.

It was not possible to replace these images with data corresponding to the correct samples from the original experiments with high confidence due to issues with data processing and storage. Due to the number of figures and data types affected, and as these errors may undermine the results and conclusions of this article, the authors decided that the appropriate course of action was to retract the article.

The authors are re-analysing their data, performing new experiments, and intend to submit a new manuscript for peer review in due course.

Judith Campisi is deceased. The Publisher has been unable to obtain current email addresses for Qixia Xu, Shuling Song and Jianming Guo. All other authors agree to this retraction.”

Campisi’s other prominent coauthor, the Mayo Clinic professor James Kirkland is a major senolytics entrepreneur in US academia. Here another paper he coauthored:

Laure-Emmanuelle Zaragosi , Brigitte Wdziekonski , Phi Villageois , Mayoura Keophiphath , Marie Maumus, Tamara Tchkonia , Virginie Bourlier , Tala Mohsen-Kanson , Annie Ladoux , Christian Elabd , Marcel Scheideler, Zlatko Trajanoski, Yasuhiro Takashima, Ez-Zoubir Amri, Daniele Lacasa , Coralie Sengenes, Gérard Ailhaud, Karine Clément, Anne Bouloumie, James L. Kirkland, Christian Dani Activin a plays a critical role in proliferation and differentiation of human adipose progenitors Diabetes (2010) doi: 10.2337/db10-0013 

The last author Christian Dani, CNRS group leader at University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France, explained on PubPeer in July 2021:

“a similar intensity of bands in the different lanes and blots is fully expected. When zooming on the bands in squares, it appears that the background around the Tubulin signals is not the same, indicating that it is not a duplicate.”

3 years later, another PubPeer user proved that the bands and the background were actually identical.

But this got corrected:

Edward O. List, Darlene E. Berryman , Kevin Funk , Adam Jara , Bruce Kelder , Feiya Wang , Michael B. Stout , Xu Zhi , Liou Sun , Thomas A. White , Nathan K. LeBrasseur , Tamara Pirtskhalava , Tamara Tchkonia , Elizabeth A. Jensen , Wenjuan Zhang , Michal M. Masternak , James L. Kirkland , Richard A. Miller , Andrzej Bartke , John J. Kopchick Liver-specific GH receptor gene-disrupted (LiGHRKO) mice have decreased endocrine IGF-I, increased local IGF-I, and altered body size, body composition, and adipokine profiles Endocrinology (2014) doi: 10.1210/en.2013-2086

The Correction from 27 June 2024 replaced that figure because “Bands labeled WAT LKO (white adipose tissue LiGHRKO) and SM LKO (skeletal muscle LiGHRKO) are duplicates“, we are informed that “the corrected Fig. 1D supports the same interpretation and conclusions that were provided in the article.”

A 2019 clinical trial report with Kirkland as last author (which postulated the “senolytics” combo Dasatinib and Quercetin as a cure against diabetic kidney disease) was heavily criticised on PubPeer and received a very significant correction in 2020 because “a re-analysis of the raw data has been conducted, which means that some conclusions presented in the paper have changed“.

Kirkland might need to fix other papers, simply so that people can trust his scientific claims.

Gunisha Sagar , Raghuwansh P Sah , Naureen Javeed , Shamit K Dutta , Thomas C Smyrk , Julie S Lau , Nino Giorgadze , Tamar Tchkonia , James L Kirkland, Suresh T Chari , Debabrata Mukhopadhyay Pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer exosome-induced lipolysis in adipose tissue Gut (2016) doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2014-308350 

The last author and Kirkland’s fellow Mayo Clinic professor Debabrata Mukhopadhyay insisted in December 2019 for Figure 5E: “We zoomed those figures and found that they are different!“, but he was unable to share the actual raw data. He didn’t react when new concerns were raised in 2022 about Figures 5B and 5C.

This is just naughty, by Kirkland and his Mayo Clinic colleagues, on PubPeer 2020:

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