Schneider Shorts 20.12.2024 – A Christmas Carroll

Schneider Shorts of 20 December 2024 – dirty old man now harmless enough to retract THAT paper, editors on a stealth mission, with an Italian chatbot, a Czech rector papermilling, a second investigation in Scotland, some crazy citation farming, and a sharp-eyed ophthalmology editor threatening sleuth with “repercussions”.

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Science Elites

Romani ite domum

A sleuth experienced the equivalent of a service centre phone call where one gets getting trapped in a loop debating a robot.

This multi-author immunology paper from the University of Perugia in Italy has some Dutch and US American collaborators and features a certain Vincenzo Talesa who recently suffered two retractions for fraud (see November 2024 Shorts).

Rossana G. Iannitti, Valerio Napolioni, Vasilis Oikonomou , Antonella De Luca, Claudia Galosi , Marilena Pariano , Cristina Massi-Benedetti , Monica Borghi , Matteo Puccetti , Vincenzina Lucidi , Carla Colombo , Ersilia Fiscarelli , Cornelia Lass-Flörl , Fabio Majo , Lisa Cariani , Maria Russo , Luigi Porcaro , Gabriella Ricciotti , Helmut Ellemunter , Luigi Ratclif , Fernando Maria De Benedictis, Vincenzo Nicola Talesa, Charles A. Dinarello, Frank L. Van De Veerdonk, Luigina Romani IL-1 receptor antagonist ameliorates inflammasome-dependent inflammation in murine and human cystic fibrosis Nature Communications (2016) doi: 10.1038/ncomms10791 

The corresponding author and University of Perugia’s pathology professor Luigina Romani replied on PubPeer with:

“The highlighted images in the figure appear to have visual similarities; however, they are distinct upon closer examination. Here’s how we can support this claim:

Position of Cellular Features: Observing the placement and intensity of fluorescent signals (e.g., LAMP1 and 20S staining in red and green, respectively) shows unique distributions across each highlighted image. The spatial arrangements of the labeled structures differ.

Differences in Inset Zoomed Views: The insets of the images showcase magnified regions. In these zoomed sections, the specific patterns of fluorescence differ, reinforcing the fact that the images are distinct.

Biological Variation: Biological experiments, particularly involving microscopy, often yield regions with similar but not identical patterns due to biological processes or random cell distribution. While similarities in general structure (e.g., vesicle presence) may exist, the subtle differences confirm distinct origins.

Contextual Alignment: Each image comes from a separate experimental condition, as labeled. The variations between the wild-type (C57BL/6) and knockout (Ctr−/−) groups treated or untreated with Anakinra are consistent with the expectations of experimental variability.

Thus, despite any perceived similarities, the images are distinct based on these observations and experimental context.”

As PubPeer users swiftly understood, this bizarre reply was generated by ChatGPT, as one of them replied to Romani:

“It would be preferable if you would reply yourself, rather than have ChatGPT respond to the question “Are these images identical?”.”

That’s how Romani replied:

“Thank you for sharing your observation. I appreciate your engagement and the opportunity to clarify this matter. While I understand your preference for direct human commentary, the response in question, though generated by ChatGPT, adheres to principles of objectivity and technical accuracy. Here’s why this approach is both valid and appropriate for the specific question raised….“

Then PubPeer users wondered why she again used ChatGPT for “creating comment-shaped strings of words” to explain why she used ChatGPT before, Romani again asked ChatGPT to reply instead:

“Your inquiry touches on an interesting aspect of modern analytical tools and their integration into scientific discourse.…”

We can only speculate as to why Romani lets ChatGPT answer. Maybe Romani doesn’t speak any English. Maybe she is just that weird and talks to everyone through ChatGPT, including her own family?

Anyway, this PubPeer thread still awaits a ChatGPT reply. It was flagged in March 2024 by Aneurus Inconstans investigating Talesa’s close associate and mega-cheater, Cinzia Antognelli (read February 2024 Shorts):

Giorgia Renga , Fiorella D’Onofrio , Marilena Pariano , Roberta Galarini , Carolina Barola , Claudia Stincardini , Marina M. Bellet , Helmut Ellemunter , Cornelia Lass-Flörl , Claudio Costantini, Valerio Napolioni , Allison K. Ehrlich , Cinzia Antognelli, Massimo Fini , Enrico Garaci , Emilia Nunzi , Luigina Romani Bridging of host-microbiota tryptophan partitioning by the serotonin pathway in fungal pneumonia Nature Communications (2023) doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41536-8 

And this, also by Romani and Antognelli (and other Perugia colleagues):

• Giorgia Renga , Emilia Nunzi , Marilena Pariano , Matteo Puccetti , Marina Maria Bellet , Giuseppe Pieraccini , Fiorella D’Onofrio , Ilaria Santarelli , Claudia Stincardini , Franco Aversa , Francesca Riuzzi , Cinzia Antognelli , Marco Gargaro , Oxana Bereshchenko , Maurizio Ricci , Stefano Giovagnoli , Luigina Romani , Claudio Costantini Optimizing therapeutic outcomes of immune checkpoint blockade by a microbial tryptophan metabolite Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (2022) -doi: 10.1136/jitc-2021-003725 
• Giorgia Renga, Marina M Bellet , Marilena Pariano , Marco Gargaro , Claudia Stincardini , Fiorella D’Onofrio , Paolo Mosci , Stefano Brancorsini , Andrea Bartoli , Allan L Goldstein , Enrico Garaci , Luigina Romani, Claudio Costantini Thymosin α1 protects from CTLA-4 intestinal immunopathology Life Science Alliance (2020) doi: 10.26508/lsa.202000662 

Romani’s PhD mentee (and now postdoc) Giorgia Renga may or may not have resorted to ChatGPT to shitpost this:

“The overall pictorial contexts in which the details are placed are clearly and ‘visibly’ different“

Romani’s now octogenarian coauthor Enrico Garaci is one of the biggest bigwigs in Italian cancer research, he has some other problematic papers on PubPeer with other troublemakers, see in particular Torcia et al 2001, De Chiara et al 2006, Scarpi et al 2012 with Federico Cozzolino or Ricci-Vitiani et al 2010 with Ruggiero Di Maria).

And with Guido Kroemer being the centre of data-fudging biomedical universe, it is not really surprising that Romani and Garaci collaborated with that zombie:

Luigina Romani, Vasilis Oikonomou , Silvia Moretti , Rossana G Iannitti , Maria Cristina D’Adamo , Valeria R Villella , Marilena Pariano , Luigi Sforna , Monica Borghi , Marina M Bellet , Francesca Fallarino, Maria Teresa Pallotta , Giuseppe Servillo , Eleonora Ferrari , Paolo Puccetti , Guido Kroemer , Mauro Pessia , Luigi Maiuri , Allan L Goldstein , Enrico Garaci Thymosin α1 represents a potential potent single-molecule-based therapy for cystic fibrosis Nature Medicine (2017) doi: 10.1038/nm.4305 

As Romani’s ChatGPT said, “If further clarification or elaboration is needed to reinforce the points made, I remain open to a collaborative review of the details presented.”

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Taking appropriate action

Hari Hundal, since 1993 professor of cell signalling and immunology at the University of Dundee in UK, has been investigated by his university once again.

This paper from his lab was flagged on PubPeer in November 2024:

Ailsa Watson , Christopher Lipina , Harry J. McArdle , Peter M. Taylor , Harinder S. Hundal Iron depletion suppresses mTORC1-directed signalling in intestinal Caco-2 cells via induction of REDD1 Cellular Signalling (2016) doi: 10.1016/j.cellsig.2016.01.014 

Right away, University of Dundee commented on PubPeer with:

“Thank you for your comments. The University of Dundee School of Life Sciences Research Integrity Group is examining the points raised. Should you wish to contact us directly please email SLS-RIG@dundee.ac.uk to discuss any matters that you would like us to be made aware of.”

In December 2024, University of Dundee posted two updates:

“Update: The research integrity group in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee has shared its findings with the journal to facilitate taking appropriate action.”

The other update was to share a Corrigendum from 17 December 2024:

“The authors regret that an error was identified in the presentation of Fig. 6B, which aimed to illustrate the effects of cellular iron depletion, induced by the iron chelator deferoxamine (DFO), on tyrosine phosphorylation and the abundance of the catalytic subunit of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2Ac) under varying DFO doses and incubation times. Specifically, the uncropped total PP2Ac blot from the dose-response experiment was inadvertently duplicated and used for the time-course experiment, while the correct total PP2Ac blot for the time-course experiment was omitted.

This error has been rectified in the revised Fig. 6B, which now includes the correct original PP2Ac blots for both the dose-response and time-course experiments. The authors confirm that this correction does not affect the conclusions of the study in any way and would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

However, 3 years ago the university determined that the conclusions in Hundal’s two papers were so badly affected that they had to be retracted. Both had as first author a certain Christopher Lipina, who is also the second author of the corrected paper above.

Nr 1, the coauthor Jonathan Hundal might be Hari’s son:

Christopher Lipina , Clare Stretton , Simon Hastings , Jonathan S. Hundal , Ken Mackie , Andrew J. Irving , Harinder S. Hundal Regulation of MAP kinase-directed mitogenic and protein kinase B-mediated signaling by cannabinoid receptor type 1 in skeletal muscle cells Diabetes (2010) doi: 10.2337/db09-0979 

The retraction notice from August 2021 stated:

“The above-cited article has been retracted by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the publisher of Diabetes. An investigation conducted by the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee has confirmed that the following image duplications appear in the article:

• The ERK1/2 panels in Figs. 2B, 2D (with horizontal stretching), 3B, 4B, and 5A (with horizontal rotation)
• The ERK1/2 panels in Figs. 2A (lanes 1 and 2) and 2C (lanes 3 and 4), as well as Figs. 2A (lanes 3 and 4) and 3A (lanes 1 and 2; with vertical stretching)
• The PKB³⁰⁸ panels in lane 3 of Fig. 2B and lanes 1 and 4 of Fig. 2D, as well as lanes 1 and 4 of Fig. 2B, lanes 2 and 3 of Fig. 2D, and lane 1 of Fig. 6A
• • Lanes 1–8 of Fig. 2D (PKB), Fig. 5A (PKB), and Fig. 7A (Actin), with horizontal and vertical manipulation of Fig. 7A
• The PKB images in Figs. 2A and 3A, including lanes 3 and 4 vs. lanes 1 and 2 of Fig. 2C (unlabeled)

This statement has been reviewed and approved by ADA’s Panel on Ethical Scientific Programs.”

Another paper by the same lead authors, in the same journal, was not even previously flagged on PubPeer:

Christopher Lipina , Katherine Macrae , Tamara Suhm , Cora Weigert , Agnieszka Blachnio-Zabielska , Marcin Baranowski , Jan Gorski , Karl Burgess , Harinder S. Hundal Mitochondrial Substrate Availability and Its Role in Lipid-Induced Insulin Resistance and Proinflammatory Signaling in Skeletal Muscle Diabetes (2013) doi: 10.2337/db13-0264   

Also here the retraction was issued on 13 August 2021:

“The above-cited article has been retracted by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the publisher of Diabetes. An investigation conducted by the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee has confirmed that the following image duplication appears in the article:

• Lanes 1–8 of the GAPDH panel in Fig. 2D appear to have been previously published in a 2010 paper (the PKB panel in Fig. 2B) by the same laboratory:

Lipina C, et al. Regulation of MAP kinase–directed mitogenic and protein kinase B–mediated signaling by cannabinoid receptor type 1 in skeletal muscle cells. Diabetes 2010;59:375–385. DOI: 10.2337/db09-0979. PMID: 19933999. PMCID: PMC2809953

In addition, an independent review and analysis coordinated by ADA’s Panel on Ethical Scientific Programs (ESP) detected the following anomalies in the paper:

• The GADPH panels in Figs. 2C and 4C appear to be duplicates.
• The GADPH panels in Supplementary Fig. 6B appear to be duplicates.
• In Supplementary Fig. 7, the left and right AMPKα1 panels and the left and right GAPDH panels appear to be duplicates.

This statement has been reviewed and approved by ADA’s Panel on Ethical Scientific Programs”

An educated quess would be that the Dundee investigation might have found Lipina as the sole culprit. He was Hundal’s PhD student in 2002-2006, then Senior Research Associate. His last paper was in 2020, with Hundal’s department’s affiliation. It seems Lipina then left to destination unknown, and the university decided that the case was closed. Except maybe for that one correction a few days ago.

Ok then, whom shall we blame here?

Darren J Powell , Eric Hajduch , Gursant Kular , Harinder S Hundal Ceramide disables 3-phosphoinositide binding to the pleckstrin homology domain of protein kinase B (PKB)/Akt by a PKCzeta-dependent mechanism Molecular and Cellular Biology (2003) doi: 10.1128/mcb.23.21.7794-7808.2003 

Here Hundal’s coauthor is his fellow Dundee professor Calum Sutherland, about whom I wrote in November 2024 Shorts.

Katrina MacAulay , Anne S. Blair , Eric Hajduch , Tatsuo Terashima , Otto Baba , Calum Sutherland , Harinder S. Hundal Constitutive Activation of GSK3 Down-regulates Glycogen Synthase Abundance and Glycogen Deposition in Rat Skeletal Muscle Cells The Journal of biological chemistry (2005) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m411648200

There are also some problematic collaborative papers by Hundal on PubPeer.

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Scholarly Publishing

Atta boys

A new low for Elsevier. An utterly fabricated paper by an Egyptian mega-fraudster was stealthily “corrected” to hide some of his fraud.

Ayman Atta is professor at the Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute in Cairo, and it looks like every single research paper he ever published is completely fake. The evidence was collected in joint investigation by Mu Yang and Thomas Kesteman and posted on PubPeer, currently around 170 threads, also the journal editors and publishers were informed. Atta prominently featured in this article:

This is one of Atta’s fabrications, something about nanoparticles for greenwashing of oil drilling, published in Elsevier’s Journal of Environmental Sciences (impact factor 5.9):

Ayman M. Atta, Eman A. Ghiaty , Samir H. Shafek , Abeer A. El-Segaey , Amany K. Gaffer Application of new tetra-cationic imidazolium ionic liquids for capture and conversion of CO2 to amphiphilic calcium carbonate nanoparticles as a green additive in water based drilling fluids Journal of Environmental Sciences (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.jes.2024.02.028 

Now, how did the two Editors-in-Chief of Journal of Environmental Sciences, Jiming Hao of Tsinghua University in China and X. Chris Le of University of Alberta in Canada, deal with this heavy evidence? They had Atta’s paper secretly “fixed”.

The chief editors Hao and Le didn’t reply to my email. They will need to do another stealth correction, to replace the hand-drawn spectra which Kesteman posted on PubPeer after they arranged that secret repair job with Atta:

Will you surprised to learn that Editor-in-Chief Jiming Hao is part of a papermill/peer-review ring?

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A Christmas Carroll

On 16 November 2024, Claire Francis reported a falsified study to the journal’s editor. the pseudonymous sleuth stumbled upon it while investigating the bad science of one of its coauthors, the ophthalmology bigwig Robin Ali, Centre Director and Academic Lead at Kings College London. Ali recently retracted a paper for fraud (see November 2024 Shorts), that evidence was also originally posted by Claire Francis on PubPeer.

But in this case, the sleuth hit a wall, in the shape of the chief editor.

Li Guo , Stephen E. Moss , Robert A. Alexander, Robin R. Ali, Frederick W. Fitzke, M. Francesca Cordeiro Retinal ganglion cell apoptosis in glaucoma is related to intraocular pressure and IOP-induced effects on extracellular matrix Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (2005) doi: 10.1167/iovs.04-0832 

The IOVS journal is issued by a learned society, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), and its Editor-in-Chief, Joseph Carroll, professor in ophthalmology and in biophysics at the Medical College of Wisconsin in USA, replied:

“We’ve reviewed these images and determined they are not manipulated or duplicated. Close inspection reveals pixel-wise differences in the regions you highlighted. Burden of proof when making an accusation like this is on the accuser. It is problematic to rely on Image Twin and then start tossing around emails that can tarnish reputations, especially when doing so from behind an anonymous email.”

I don’t even know where to start with that response, so I won’t. But Claire Francis tried to argue, and received this nasty threat of retaliation from Carroll:

“Despite the fact that it is in fact not incumbent on me to prove someone innocent of your accusations, I attach a summary of some of the analyses I did, along with 2 video examples.

I consider the issue with the 2 papers you emailed me about to be settled.

The issue with anonymity is that when the complaint is found to be false and have no basis, there should be repercussions for the accuser as it borders on slander.

You might research the false positive rate of ImageTwin and be more careful in the future before publicly posting similar accusations.”

This was attached:

Actually Carroll’s own analysis proves that there repetitive elements. He ignored those outright and instead chose to focus on pixels and elements inside the boxes which were different. So the sleuth re-drew the areas of similarities, like this:

Carroll however kept telling the sleuth that the case was closed for him and his journal, because his “more honest analysis reveals [the cells] are indeed different“.

I also wrote to Carroll, suggesting that he sues me for slander because I am not anonymous. He eventually replied, reiterated his threat “that people should be held accountable for false accusations” although not through lawyers. Presumably via the classic academic way of phoning your boss. Carroll the Snowflake also accused me of bulling him, his definition of bullying being “you are the one who emailed me and asked for a response” and “Spamming my inbox with incoherent messages“. And as for the sleuth’s evidence:

“Yes, the retina is full of repeating elements. There is a difference between similar cells and identical cells, especially when reviewing images produced 20 years ago. My review of the 2 video sequences shows clear differences in both the pixel intensity, cell shape, and position of neighboring cells. […] I spent considerable time examining your complaint, consulting with journal staff, retinal pathologists and then doing my own detailed image analysis.”

Anyway, it isn’t just Ali who is the problem here. His London colleague and last author Maria Francesca Cordeiro has a joint affiliation with the Imperial College and UCL (where Ali himself used to be before moving to King’s). She has more on PubPeer. In fact, in the same journal, with same first author and same kind of image manipulation, and reusing the data from that very paper defended by Carroll above:

Li Guo , Thomas E. Salt , Annelie Maass , Vy Luong , Stephen E. Moss , Fred W. Fitzke , M. Francesca Cordeiro Assessment of neuroprotective effects of glutamate modulation on glaucoma-related retinal ganglion cell apoptosis in vivo Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (2006)  doi: 10.1167/iovs.05-0754 

Figure legends suggest those to be different mice and experiments. Now, a set of two papers, the last author is the same person:

• Timothy Yap , Piero Donna , Melanie Almonte , Maria Cordeiro Real-Time Imaging of Retinal Ganglion Cell Apoptosis Cells (2018) doi: 10.3390/cells7060060 
• Benjamin Michael Davis , Kailin Tian , Milena Pahlitzsch , Jonathan Brenton , Nivedita Ravindran , Gibran Butt , Giulia Malaguarnera , Eduardo M. Normando , Li Guo , M. Francesca Cordeiro Topical Coenzyme Q10 demonstrates mitochondrial-mediated neuroprotection in a rodent model of ocular hypertension Mitochondrion (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.mito.2017.05.010 

And here is another coauthor, the UCL ophthalmologist Fred Fitzke, with Ali:

• Ulrich F. O. Luhmann, Clemens A. Lange , Scott Robbie , Peter M. G. Munro , Jill A. Cowing , Hannah E. J. Armer , Vy Luong , Livia S. Carvalho , Robert E. MacLaren , Frederick W. Fitzke , James W. B. Bainbridge , Robin R. Ali Differential modulation of retinal degeneration by Ccl2 and Cx3cr1 chemokine signalling PLoS ONE (2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035551 
• Ulrich F.O. Luhmann, Livia S. Carvalho , Sophia-Martha Kleine Holthaus , Jill A. Cowing , Simon Greenaway , Colin J. Chu , Philipp Herrmann , Alexander J. Smith , Peter M.G. Munro , Paul Potter , James W.B. Bainbridge , Robin R. Ali The severity of retinal pathology in homozygous Crb1rd8/rd8 mice is dependent on additional genetic factors Human Molecular Genetics (2015) doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddu424 
• Ulrich F.O. Luhmann, Livia S. Carvalho , Scott J. Robbie , Jill A. Cowing , Yanai Duran , Peter M.G. Munro , James W.B. Bainbridge , Robin R. Ali Ccl2, Cx3cr1 and Ccl2/Cx3cr1 chemokine deficiencies are not sufficient to cause age-related retinal degeneration Experimental Eye Research (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.exer.2012.11.015 

Read about Ali’s other papers with James Bainbridge, awarded with António Champalimaud Vision Award of €1 million, in December 2023 Shorts.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Kuča’s Castle

A Czech cheater lost a paper. In Frontiers! Kamil Kuča is toxicology professor and Highly Cited Researcher, who from 2016 until summer 2024 held the modest position of the Rector of the University Hradec Králové. Kuca also used to collaborate of the failed rector of the Brno University Vojtech Adam, who was found guilty of research fraud and died rather young earlier this year.

The now retracted paper, like so many others by Kuca on PubPeer, was coauthored by Kuca’s very close associate Eugenie Nepovimová, an assistant professor at University Hradec Králové, the other authors are from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India:

Yasir Mehmood, Hira Shahid , Kashif Barkat, Muhammad Ibraheem , Humayun Riaz , Syed Faisal Badshah , Hitesh Chopra , Rohit Sharma , Eugenie Nepovimova , Kamil Kuca, Martin Valis , Talha Bin Emran Designing of SiO2 mesoporous nanoparticles loaded with mometasone furoate for potential nasal drug delivery: Ex vivo evaluation and determination of pro-inflammatory interferon and interleukin mRNA expression Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (2023) doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.1026477 

The retraction was published on 13 December 2024:

“Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the integrity of the images in this article. An investigation was conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policies.

It was found that the concerns were valid and that the article does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific soundness for Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology; therefore, the article has been retracted.

The retraction was approved by the Chief Editors for Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology and the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. The authors do not approve of the retraction.”

Another paper by Kuca and Nepovimova in the same Frontiers journal was stricken by the Vickers Curse, on occasion of it being obviously papermilled, like everything else featuring their esteemed Indian collaborator Rohit Sharma, who may be officially an Ayurveda researcher, but publishes on whatever the papermill market offers.

Md. Mominur Rhaman , Md. Rezaul Islam , Shopnil Akash , Mobasharah Mim , Md. Noor Alam , Eugenie Nepovimova , Martin Valis , Kamil Kuca, Rohit Sharma Exploring the role of nanomedicines for the therapeutic approach of central nervous system dysfunction: At a glance Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (2022) doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.989471 

One more by Kuca and Sharma, in the same Frontiers journal, Akash et al 2023 (which claimed to cure mpox with curcumin!) was corrected. Its coauthor was another professor of University of Hradec Králové, Martin Valis.

A “bioinspired” nanofabrication by Kuca, Nepivimova and Sharma, Chouke et al 2022, was flagged for tortured phrases like “amino corrosive” and “receptive oxygen species” betraying plagiarism and papermill origin.

Here another bad paper by Kuca and Nepovimova, flagged by Elisabeth Bik:

Vesna Jaćević , Qinghua Wu , Eugenie Nepovimova , Kamil Kuča Cardiomyopathy induced by T-2 toxin in rats Food and chemical toxicology (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2020.111138 

That other paper was bad also:

Vesna Jaćević , Qinghua Wu, Eugenie Nepovimova, Kamil Kuča Efficacy of methylprednisolone on T-2 toxin-induced cardiotoxicity in vivo: A pathohistological study Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.etap.2019.103221 

And here is Kuca with Chinese coauthors:

The above was not Kuca’s first retraction. In May 2024, just when his rectorship term was about to end with pomp, trumpets and fanfares, this papermill product was pulled for fraud, by MDPI no less:

Aaliya Ali , Prakrati Garg , Rohit Goyal, Gurjot Kaur, Xiangkai Li, Poonam Negi , Martin Valis, Kamil Kuca, Saurabh Kulshrestha A Novel Herbal Hydrogel Formulation of for Wound Healing Plants (2020) doi: 10.3390/plants10010025 

The last author Saurabh Kulshrestha (who has more fake stuff on PubPeer) denied the image duplications and provided what he called “actual images” as “processed for the paper“. Those were fake also.

The retraction from 30 May 2024 went:

“Following publication, concerns were brought to the attention of the publisher regarding overlapping figure panels within this article [1].

Adhering to our procedure, an investigation was conducted by the Editorial Office and Editorial Board that confirmed the overlap with Figure 2, specifically subfigure “5% Hydrogel—Day 13” and “5% Hydrogel—Day 13”. While the authors cooperated within the investigation, they were unable to satisfactorily explain the overlap nor verify the integrity of the abovementioned image panels. As a result, the Editorial Board has lost confidence in the integrity of the findings and decided to retract this publication [1], as per MDPI’s retraction policy (https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark30) and in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics retraction guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines).

This retraction was approved by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Plants.

The authors did not agree to this retraction.”

Kuca was criticised in 2021 on the Czech blog Science is alive!, in the wake of the Vojtech Adam scandal. He was accused of publishing in predatory outlets like Bentham (where he is even Editor-in-Chief) or “American Scientific Publishers”, and of running “citation cartels” to achieve his Highly Cite Researcher status.

Kuca and his coauthors at Hradec Kralove, as well as the university leadership, chose not to reply to my email.

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How these errors occurred

A retraction for an US bigwig and an old friend of David Sabatini: John Blenis, of Cornell University. His science was discussed in this article:

This is the now retracted paper:

This is the retraction from 14 December 2024:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Authors. It has come to the attention of the authors that there were errors made in the assembly of Figure 4A (the PTEN, GLS, and MYC panels) of this article that impact its conclusions, and thus it has been retracted at the request of the majority of authors. The first author, Dr. Alfredo Csibi, has not responded to requests to address how these errors occurred. Another author, Dr. Haoxuan Tong, could not be contacted. All other authors have agreed that a retraction of this article is appropriate and in the best interest of the scientific community. We, the authors, sincerely apologize to all for any negative impact this may have caused.”

Poor Alfredo Csibi, gets the full blame. In January 2023, Blenis retracted the paper Li et al PNAS 2015, where Csibi was also implicated, although very indirectly (see January 2023 Shorts). This high-profile paper by Csibi and Blenis was however deemed perfectly reliable (because the Weill Cornell bigwig Lewis Cantley is coauthor), and hence corrected:

Alfred Csibi , Sarah-Maria Fendt, Chenggang Li , George Poulogiannis, Andrew Y. Choo , Douglas J. Chapski , Seung Min Jeong , Jamie M. Dempsey , Andrey Parkhitko, Tasha Morrison , Elizabeth P. Henske, Marcia C. Haigis, Lewis C. Cantley , Gregory Stephanopoulos, Jane Yu, John Blenis The mTORC1 pathway stimulates glutamine metabolism and cell proliferation by repressing SIRT4 Cell (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.023 

The evidence was posted in November 2020. A Correction on 15 April 2021 attempted to explain Figure 2A, the cloned gel bands in Figure S4B were simply ignored in agreement with the journal editors:

“After being contacted about apparent similarities between the streptavidin- and GDH-probed blots in Figure 2A, we determined that the data collection approach was not clearly described in the Experimental Procedures. Mono-ADP ribosylated GDH was detected first and the nitrocellulose membrane was then probed with streptavidin. The authors apologize for any confusion….”

Fact is, Csibi has no other papers on PubPeer, but Blenis has many more. Draw your own unaffected conclusions.

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A satisfactory answer was not provided

Also the Sicilian gang of Francesco Squadrito suffered another retraction. Read about them here:

As it happens, the retraction took place in the same journal which pulled the first fake paper by Squadrito’s don, the fallen rector of the University of Messina Salvatore Cuzzocrea:

Letteria Minutoli, Domenica Altavilla, Alessandra Bitto, Francesca Polito, Ersilia Bellocco, Giuseppina Laganà, Tiziana Fiumara , Salvatore Magazù, Federica Migliardo , Francesco Saverio Venuti , Francesco Squadrito Trehalose: A biophysics approach to modulate the inflammatory response during endotoxic shock European Journal of Pharmacology (2008) doi: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2008.04.005 

The retraction arrived on 14 December 2024:

“This article has been retracted at the request of Editor-in-Chief. Concerns were raised regarding multiple potential image duplication and manipulation issues in Figs. 2–4 and 6. In more detail, Figs. 4A, 2B and 4B of this paper were allegedly overlapping Figs. 2 and 5, respectively, of a Life Sciences paper authored by several authors of this paper a year before (Life Sciences, Volume 81, Issue 5, 12 July 2007, Pages 413–422, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2007.06.016). Fig. 4B of this paper was also questioned for suspicious similarities with Fig. 2 of a Shock article authored by several authors of this paper a year before (Shock, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 91–96, https://doi.org/10.1097/01.shk.0000235092.76292.bc) The corresponding author of the article was asked to provide an explanation, but a satisfactory answer was not provided. The Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in this article and decided to retract it.”

To be fair, the reason why the corresponding author Squadrito failed to provide an explanation or a satisfactory answer was his death in March 2024 (see August 2024 Shorts). Also Squadrito’s wife and coauthor Domenica Altavilla died in May 2022.

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Different from equally unrelated references

Two papers flagged by Smut Clyde just in October 2024 are already gone. They were part of Smut’s ongoing investigation into the citation brokering market, where fraudsters pay money to a middleman to have their papers cited, the broker then collaborates with papermills which incorporate those citations into papers sold to unrelated sets of fraudsters.

First one, retracted just weeks after flagging, where Smut Clyde noted “The References and the text seem to have come from two completely different sources“:

Junbo Sun , Farhad Aslani , Jianjun Wei , Xiangyu Wang Electromagnetic absorption of copper fiber oriented composite using 3D printing Construction and Building Materials (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.124026 

No later than on 16 November 2024 the paper was retracted (highlight mine):

“Following a pubpeer post [https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/CB87068C6FBC4E7F2225DC0E6C0B9F#2], an investigation of this paper was initiated by the editors. It was determined that this paper contains extensive citation of at least 34 unrelated references. These unrelated references were included in the revised submission of the paper following initial review and are different from equally unrelated references included in the original submission. Such ‘citation farming’ is a serious violation of publication ethics. In addition, upon investigation, it was determined that one author (Wei) was added upon submission of the revised paper without justification and without receiving permission from the editor.

The journal regrets not having identified the concerns with this paper during the peer-review process.

The authors acknowledge the inclusion of unrelated citations in some instances. The authors disagree with this retraction”

A related paper the same lead authors was also retracted, having been flagged by Smut Clyde in October 2024:

Junbo Sun , Yufei Wang , Shukui Liu , Ayoub Dehghani , Xiaolei Xiang , Jianjun Wei , Xiangyu Wang Mechanical, chemical and hydrothermal activation for waste glass reinforced cement Construction and Building Materials (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.124361 

“The cited papers are familiar ones, that appear in the Reference sections of numerous other papers (and in the corresponding PubPeer comment threads) in equally irrelevant contexts, often in one another’s company, The oeuvre of Chunwei Zhang is particularly popular.“

Undated retraction (no later than 15 November 2024), highlights mine:

“Following a pubpeer post [https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/E946B46BF684F93827B507EA402664#1], an investigation of this paper was initiated by the editors. It was determined that this paper contains extensive citation of at least 35 unrelated references. Such ‘citation farming’ is a serious violation of publication ethics. In addition, upon investigation, it was determined that one author (Wei) was added upon submission of the revised paper without justification and without receiving permission from the editor.

The journal regrets not having identified the concerns with this paper during the peer-review process.

The authors acknowledge the inclusion of unrelated citations in some instances. The authors disagree with this retraction.”

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Il pleut de la merde

Everyone go down on your knees and tearfully thank Elsevier for finally retracting that catastrophic COVID-19 paper by Didier Raoult from March 2020. Yes, it should’ve been retracted four and a half years ago, but you know. Elsevier had to be absolutlely sure that Raoult wasn’t right with his chloroquine cure, despite his massive fraud and routine breaches of ethics and laws on protection of humans. The publisher also had to wait till Raoult had been forced to retire as IHU director and Aix-Marseille University professor and, most importantly, until he loses all court trials against his critics.

Science has now self-corrected, long after all the damage was done:

Philippe GAUTRET , Jean Christophe LAGIER, Philippe PAROLA , Van Thuan HOANG , Line MEDDED , Morgan MAILHE , Barbara DOUDIER , Johan COURJON , Valerie GIORDANENGO , Vera ESTEVES VIEIRA , Herve TISSOT DUPONT , Stephane HONORE , Philippe COLSON , Eric CHABRIERE , Bernard LA SCOLA , Jean Marc ROLAIN , Philippe BROUQUI , Didier RAOULT Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: preliminary results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trialmedRxiv (2020)  doi: 10.1101/2020.03.16.20037135 and International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949

As reminder, already when it was published the paper was proven (especially by Elisabeth Bik) to have been falsified. And to lack an ethics approval and be illegal under French law. Read here:

First attempts to retract that apper started in early April 2020. On 3 April 2020, a statement by the International Society for Microbial Chemotherapy (ISAC), which issues the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (IJAA). and signed by the society’s president Andreas Voss, was published:

“ISAC shares the concerns regarding the above article published recently in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (IJAA). The ISAC Board believes the article does not meet the Society’s expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety.

Despite some suggestions online as to the reliability of the article’s peer review process, the process did adhere to the industry’s peer review rules. Given his role as Editor in Chief of this journal, Jean-Marc Rolain had no involvement in the peer review of the manuscript and has no access to information regarding its peer review. Full responsibility for the manuscript’s peer review process was delegated to an Associate Editor.

Although ISAC recognises it is important to help the scientific community by publishing new data fast, this cannot be at the cost of reducing scientific scrutiny and best practices. Both Editors in Chief of our journals (IJAA and Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance) are in full agreement.”

Back in April 2020, I contacted Voss and asked him if the paper will be retracted. Voss replied:

“ISAC is not the publisher. That is Elsevier and as according to them all rules and industry standards were followed a retraction is not what they consider.“

Voss then added:

“we own the title of JGAR but not of IJAA. Still, IJAA is an “official society journal” and as such we feel the responsibility, which is why we expressed our concerns.“

But then, on 10 April 2020, ISAC replaced and backdated the statement. according to Voss on orders from Elsevier. The original ISAC statement from 3 April 2020 was deleted and replaced with a joint statement by ISAC and Elsevier. A few days later, the original statement by ISAC was restored uncensored, and that joint statement with Elsevier from 11 April 2020 was issued separately. There, the critical first paragraph was gone, but this was added:

“At present, additional independent peer review is ongoing to ascertain whether concerns about the research content of the paper have merit. Given this process of post-publication assessment is on-going, it would be premature to comment at this time. The study authors have been contacted and asked to address the concerns. Depending on the nature of their response, a correction to the scientific record may be considered in accordance with the policies of Elsevier and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/corrections-to-the-record.”

The independent peer review took merely four and a half years.

The now published retraction notice is huge, the TL;DR version is: the publisher decided to hide behind some Englishman named Jim Gray as responsible for the investigation and the retraction decision – in case Raoult sues again and to make sure a respectable person gets the credit and not all those annoying Raoult-critics in France. The notice also reveals that the IHU employees Philippe Brouqui and Stéphane Honoré finally betrayed their long-deposed master and admitted to ethics breaches. Also their collaborators from the University of Nice, Johan Courjon and Valérie Giordanengo, felt it was now safe to distance themselves from the once almighty Raoult.

It has taken more than 4 years but the methodologically poor (doi.org/10.1016/j.th…) and questionable paper (1-day peer review bmcmedresmethodol.bi…) that promoted HCQ for COVID-19 is finally retracted. We've been saying for years it had to be (doi.org/10.1016/j.th…).

— Lonni Besançon (@lonnibesancon.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T10:06:46.000Z

Here is the full notice from 17 December 2024:

“Concerns have been raised regarding this article, the substance of which relate to the articles’ adherence to Elsevier’s publishing ethics policies and the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants, as well as concerns raised by three of the authors themselves regarding the article’s methodology and conclusions.

Elsevier’s Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics Team, in collaboration with the journal’s co-owner, the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC), and with guidance from an impartial field expert acting in the role of an independent Publishing Ethics Advisor, Dr. Jim Gray, Consultant Microbiologist at the Birmingham Children’s and Women’s Hospitals, U.K., conducted an investigation and determined that the below points constituted cause for retraction:

• The journal has been unable to confirm whether any of the patients for this study were accrued before ethical approval had been obtained. The ethical approval dates for this article are stated as being 5th and 6th of March 2020 (ANSM and CPP respectively), while the article states that recruitment began in “early March”.

The 17th author, Prof. Philippe Brouqui, has confirmed that the start date for patient accrual was 6th March 2020.

The journal has not been able to establish whether all patients could have entered into the study in time for the data to have been analysed and included in the manuscript prior to its submission on the 20th March 2020, nor whether all patients were enrolled in the study upon admission as opposed to having been hospitalised for some time before starting the treatment described in the article. Additionally, the journal has not been able to establish whether there was equipoise between the study patients and the control patients.

• The journal has not been able to establish whether the subjects in this study should have provided informed consent to receive azithromycin as part of the study. The journal has concluded that that there is reasonable cause to conclude that azithromycin was not considered standard care at the time of the study.

The 17th author, Prof. Philippe Brouqui has attested that azithromycin treatment was not, at the time of the study, an experimental treatment but a possible treatment for, or preventative measure against, bacterial superinfections of viral pneumonia as described in section 2.4 of the article, and as such the treatment should be categorised as standard care that would not require informed consent.

This does not fully address the journal’s concerns around the use of azithromycin in the study. In section 3.1 of the article, it is stated that six patients received azithromycin to prevent (rather than treat) bacterial superinfection. All of these were amongst the patients who also received hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). None of the control patients are reported to have received azithromycin. This would indicate that only patients in the HCQ arm received azithromycin, all of whom were in one center.

The recommendations for use of macrolides in France at the time the study was conducted indicate that azithromycin would not have been a logical agent to use as first-line prophylaxis against pneumonia due to the frequency of macrolide resistance amongst bacteria such as pneumococci.

These two points suggest that azithromycin would not have been standard practice across southern France at the time the study was conducted and would have required informed consent.

• Three of the authors of this article, Dr. Johan Courjon, Prof. Valérie Giordanengo, and Dr. Stéphane Honoré have contacted the journal to assert their opinion that they have concerns regarding the presentation and interpretation of results in this article and have stated they no longer wish to see their names associated with the article.

• Author Prof. Valérie Giordanengo informed the journal that while the PCR tests administered in Nice were interpreted according to the recommendations of the national reference center, it is believed that those carried out in Marseille were not conducted using the same technique or not interpreted according to the same recommendations, which in her opinion would have resulted in a bias in the analysis of the data. This raises concerns as to whether the study was partially conducted counter to national guidelines at that time.

The 17th author, Prof. Philippe Brouqui has attested that the PCR methodology was explained in reference 17 of the article. However, the article referred to by reference 17 describes several diagnostic approaches that were used (one PCR targeting the envelope protein only; another targeting the spike protein; and three commercially produced systems by QuantiNova, Biofire, and FTD). This reference does not clarify how the results were interpreted. It has also been noted during investigation of these concerns that only 76% (19/25) of patients were viral culture positive, resulting in uncertainty in the interpretation of PCR reports as has been raised by Prof. Giordanengo.

As part of the investigation, the corresponding author was contacted and asked to provide an explanation for the above concerns. No response has been received within the deadline provided by the journal. Responses were received by the 3rd and 17th authors, Prof. Philippe Parola and Prof. Philippe Brouqui, respectively, and were reviewed as part of the investigation. These two authors, in addition to 1st author Dr. Philippe Gautret, 13th author Prof. Philippe Colson, and 15th author Prof. Bernard La Scola, disagreed with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it.

Having followed due process and concluded the aforementioned investigation and based on the recommendation of Dr. Jim Gray acting in his capacity as independent Publishing Ethics Advisor, the co-owners of the journal (Elsevier and ISAC) have therefore taken the decision to retract the article.”

Not one bloody word about the fraud though, or that Raoult’s COVID-19 cure was a failure and based on no science whatsoever. Maybe it might still work, who knows.

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