Schneider Shorts 16.05.2025 – Something that runs through the whole organisation

Schneider Shorts of 16 May 2025 – totally not an Italian mafia in Philly, a Korean groceries papermill, with ACS’s morals, Springer Nature’s gatekeeping, radiant biophotons, Harvard’s AI to get rid of useless eaters, and finally, Theranos’s triumphal return!

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Science Elites

Stand by the integrity

Meet Renato Iozzo, the Italian-born professor of pathology at the Thomas Jefferson University in USA. As Aneurus Inconstans reminded me, Iozzo was very briefly mentioned as a Top Italian Scientist in this article:

The pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis studied Iozzo’s papers and has some concerns, which were shared on PubPeer. It seems Iozzo is a member of an Italian ma.. uhm, group who publish manipulated data. In 2019, this study by Iozzo and his Jefferson University colleagues was retracted:

Marco Genua , Shi-Qiong Xu , Simone Buraschi , Stephen C. Peiper , Leonard G. Gomella , Antonino Belfiore , Renato V. Iozzo , Andrea Morrione Proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2) regulates IGF-I-induced cell motility and invasion of urothelial carcinoma cells PloS one (2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040148 

The coauthor Leonard Gomella is Chairman of Urology at Jefferson University and Senior Director Clinical Affairs at the Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Yes, he has more on PubPeer.

Also the Italian professor Antonino Belfiore from University of Catania has his own very worrisome PubPeer record, which qualified him as Top Italian Scientist. He is mentioned in this article:

Another Italian native, Andrea Morrione, left Jefferson in 2018 for the neighbouring Temple University, by which he followed a certain Italian mega-cheater named Antonio Giordano. Incidentally, Morrione is Deputy Director of the Sbarro Institute at Temple, which is run by President Giordano and is sponsored by Sbarro Pizza restaurant chain, the owner of which is the father of Giordano’s wife. Read this article, which also discusses Morrione’s papers with Giordano:

More papers by Iozzo, Belfiore and Morrione need to be retracted. Like this one, coauthored with Peter Black, an associate of Martin Gleave at University of British Columbia in Canada (see for example Gleave et al 2020):

Simone Buraschi , Shi-Qiong Xu , Manuela Stefanello , Igor Moskalev , Alaide Morcavallo , Marco Genua , Ryuta Tanimoto , Ruth Birbe , Stephen C. Peiper , Leonard G. Gomella , Antonino Belfiore , Peter C. Black , Renato V. Iozzo, Andrea Morrione Suppression of progranulin expression inhibits bladder cancer growth and sensitizes cancer cells to cisplatin Oncotarget (2016) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.9556 

A Correction from October 2024 declared that a “cell field was mistakenly duplicated” and of course, “these corrections do not change the results or conclusions of this paper.”

To be fair, with Oncotarget you must submit fake data or your paper will be rejected. The Editor-in-Chief was until his recent death Mikhail Blagosklonny, who was succeeded by Wafik El-Deiry.

In the same journal, the Italian boys were at it again, Belfiore roped in his regualr coauthor Riccardo Vigneri (emeritus professor in Catania, who just received some award for his “scientific excellence”):

Roberta Malaguarnera, Maria Luisa Nicolosi , Antonella Sacco , Alaide Morcavallo , Veronica Vella , Concetta Voci , Michela Spatuzza , Shi-Qiong Xu , Renato V. Iozzo , Riccardo Vigneri , Andrea Morrione , Antonino Belfiore Novel cross talk between IGF-IR and DDR1 regulates IGF-IR trafficking, signaling and biological responses Oncotarget (2015) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.3177

This time, no correction was deemed necessary by the editors, especially given that the later Oncotarget paper (where Iozzo was not part of) is absurdly fraudulent.

But of course Iozzo doesn’t need Belfiore and Morrione to produce fake trash. Rather recent:

Thomas Neill , Carolyn G. Chen , Simone Buraschi , Renato V. Iozzo Catabolic degradation of endothelial VEGFA via autophagy Journal of Biological Chemistry (2020) doi: 10.1074/jbc.ra120.012593 

How to explain this? Stolen elsewhere, labels removed by corner clones?

Iozzo’s mentee Maurizio Mongiat is now back in Italy and runs his own lab at National Cancer Institute in Aviano, earning him a worrisome PubPeer record which includes the atrocity Calladei et al Oncotarget 2016. Here is Mongiat with his old boss at Jefferson University:

Eva Andreuzzi , Roberta Colladel , Rosanna Pellicani , Giulia Tarticchio , Renato Cannizzaro , Paola Spessotto , Benedetta Bussolati , Alessia Brossa , Paolo De Paoli , Vincenzo Canzonieri , Renato V. Iozzo , Alfonso Colombatti , Maurizio Mongiat The angiostatic molecule Multimerin 2 is processed by MMP-9 to allow sprouting angiogenesis Matrix biology (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2017.04.002 

Iozzo taught his student well, and indeed Mongiat has other papers on PubPeer. But here another one with Iozzo:

Here another one by Mongiat while learning the ropes from Iozzo:

Eva M. Gonzalez , Maurizio Mongiat , Simon J. Slater , Raffaele Baffa , Renato V. Iozzo A novel interaction between perlecan protein core and progranulin: potential effects on tumor growth Journal of Biological Chemistry (2003) doi: 10.1074/jbc.c300310200 

Rafaele Baffa is another Italian native in USA, he made a big career in pharma industry and is since 2022 Chief Medical Officer at CARsgen Therapeutics, ready to cure cancer. Naturally, also Baffa has a PubPeer record, including with Italy’s greatest superstar in USA, Carlo Croce.

And here is everyone together: Iozzo, Baffa, Morrione, Gomella, plus Luca Scorrano from Veneto Institute of Molecular Medicine in Italy (who is officially totally innocent of anything):

A Vecchione , M Fassan , V Anesti , A Morrione , S Goldoni , G Baldassarre , D Byrne , D D’Arca , J P Palazzo , J Lloyd , L Scorrano , L G Gomella , R V Iozzo , R Baffa MITOSTATIN, a putative tumor suppressor on chromosome 12q24.1, is downregulated in human bladder and breast cancer Oncogene (2009) doi: 10.1038/onc.2008.381 

Western blots from that paper was later reassembled and reused in another journal by this same Italian, uhm, can’t use that m-word:

Matteo Fassan, Domenico D’Arca , Juraj Letko , Andrea Vecchione , Marina P. Gardiman , Peter McCue , Bernadette Wildemore , Massimo Rugge, Dolores Shupp-Byrne , Leonard G. Gomella, Andrea Morrione, Renato V. Iozzo, Raffaele Baffa Mitostatin is down-regulated in human prostate cancer and suppresses the invasive phenotype of prostate cancer cells PloS one (2011) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019771 

But here is Iozzo with several German scholars:

Chiara Poluzzi , Madalina-Viviana Nastase , Jinyang Zeng-Brouwers , Heiko Roedig , Louise Tzung-Harn Hsieh , Jonas B Michaelis , Eva Miriam Buhl , Flavia Rezende , Yosif Manavski , André Bleich , Peter Boor , Ralf P Brandes , Josef Pfeilschifter , Ernst H K Stelzer , Christian Münch , Ivan Dikic , Christian Brandts , Renato V Iozzo , Malgorzata Wygrecka , Liliana Schaefer Biglycan evokes autophagy in macrophages via a novel CD44/Toll-like receptor 4 signaling axis in ischemia/reperfusion injury Kidney international (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2018.10.037 

University of Frankfurt professor Liliana Schaefer and the University of Giessen professor Malgorzata Wygrecka already have a similarly shifted image duplication in Wygrecka et al 2017 (with Giessen colleague Ralph Schermuly!) Ivan Dikic of University of Frankfurt has a PubPeer record already, including for duplicated gels (e.g., Kensche et al 2012 or Grumati et al 2017).

Basically, the Schneider Rule applies again. For those interested, there are more dodgy collaborations by Iozzo on PubPeer.

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Fermented Oyster Cult

Meet Yung Hyun Choi, professor at Dong-eui University, and his associate Gi-Young Kim of Jeju National University, also in Korea. Together they have almost a hundred of bad papers on PubPeer (Kim’s own PubPeer record stands at “merely” 73 papers).

Apparently, every paper they published contains forged data. Most were flagged by the sleuth Indigofera tanganyikensis, but also other sleuths joined the treasure hunt. I am presenting some nice examples.

Here, fermented oyster sauce was postulated as a cure for osteoporosis:

Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Wisurumuni Arachchilage Hasitha Maduranga Karunarathne , Yung Hyun Choi , Eui Kyun Park , You-Jin Jeon , Bae-Jin Lee , Chang-Hee Kang, Gi-Young Kim Fermented Oyster Extract Promotes Osteoblast Differentiation by Activating the Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling Pathway, Leading to Bone Formation Biomolecules (2019) doi: 10.3390/biom9110711 

Here another oyster sauce paper by Choi and Kim in MDPI:

Jin-Woo Jeong , Sung Choi , Min Han , Gi-Young Kim , Cheol Park , Su Hong , Bae-Jin Lee , Eui Park , Sung Kim , Sun-Hee Leem, You-Jin Jeon , Yung Choi Protective Effects of Fermented Oyster Extract against RANKL-Induced Osteoclastogenesis through Scavenging ROS Generation in RAW 264.7 Cells International journal of molecular sciences (2019) doi: 10.3390/ijms20061439 

In March 2025, Choi announced on PubPeer a retraction which didn’t happen yet:

“I should have conducted a more thorough review. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I feel it necessary to withdraw the paper and will request this from the publisher.”

That was because his oyster sauce paper shared data with two other studies which proclaimed two different sea weed sauces as cures for bone disease. First, Laminaria algae:

Jin-Woo Jeong , Seon Yeong Ji , Hyesook Lee , Su Hyun Hong , Gi-Young Kim , Cheol Park , Bae-Jin Lee , Eui Kyun Park , Jin Won Hyun , You-Jin Jeon , Yung Hyun Choi Fermented Sea Tangle ( Laminaria japonica Aresch) Suppresses RANKL-Induced Osteoclastogenesis by Scavenging ROS in RAW 264.7 Cells Foods (2019) doi: 10.3390/foods8080290 

The laminaria algae sauce used to be Sargassum extract and it used to cure oxidative stress in hearts:

Ji Sook Kang, Il-Whan Choi, Min Ho Han, Su Hyun Hong, Sung Ok Kim, Gi-Young Kim, Hye Jin Hwang , Byung Woo Kim, Byung Tae Choi, Cheol Min Kim, Yung Hyun Choi Sargassum horneri methanol extract rescues C2C12 murine skeletal muscle cells from oxidative stress-induced cytotoxicity through Nrf2-mediated upregulation of heme oxygenase-1 BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2015) doi: 10.1186/s12906-015-0538-2 

Eventually, the oyster sauce returned to curing osteoporosis, but again as sea weed sauce, but from a different Sargassum algae:

Jong Jae Kim , Cheol Park , Gi-Young Kim , Eui Kyun Park , You-Jin Jeon , Suhkmann Kim , Hye Jin Hwang , Yung Hyun Choi Sargassum serratifolium attenuates RANKL-induced osteoclast differentiation and oxidative stress through inhibition of NF-κB and activation of the Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway Bioscience trends (2018) doi: 10.5582/bst.2018.01107 

That sargassum sea weed sauce actually used to be satsuma peels and as such used to cure bladder cancer:

Kyu Im Ahn , Eun Ok Choi , Da He Kwon , Hyun HwangBo , Min Yeong Kim , Hong Jae Kim , Seon Yeong Ji , Su-Hyun Hong , Jin-Woo Jeong , Cheol Park , Nam Deuk Kim , Wun Jae Kim, Yung Hyun Choi Induction of apoptosis by ethanol extract of Citrus unshiu Markovich peel in human bladder cancer T24 cells through ROS-mediated inactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway Bioscience trends (2017) doi: 10.5582/bst.2017.01218 

The algae sauce which used to be satsuma peel then transformed into liquorice in another MDPI study by Choi and Kim, and again, instead of bone diseases, it now cures bladder cancer:

Su Hyun Hong , Hee-Jae Cha , Hyun Hwang-Bo , Min Yeong Kim , So Young Kim , Seon Yeong Ji , JaeHun Cheong , Cheol Park , Hyesook Lee , Gi-Young Kim , Sung-Kwon Moon , Seok Joong Yun , Young-Chae Chang , Wun-Jae Kim, Yung Hyun Choi Anti-Proliferative and Pro-Apoptotic Effects of Licochalcone A through ROS-Mediated Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis in Human Bladder Cancer Cells International journal of molecular sciences (2019) doi: 10.3390/ijms20153820 

In September 2023, Choi explained that a “coauthor performed data curation, I apologized for being careless with verification and couldn’t reconfirm all the data“, announced a Correction which was duly informed in December 2024 “that the scientific conclusions are unaffected.”

More satsumas, against breast cancer this time:

Min Yeong Kim , Eun Ok Choi , Hyun HwangBo , Da He Kwon , Kyu Im Ahn , Hong Jae Kim , Seon Yeong Ji , Su-Hyun Hong , Jin-Woo Jeong , Gi Young Kim , Cheol Park , Yung Hyun Choi Reactive oxygen species-dependent apoptosis induction by water extract of Citrus unshiu peel in MDA-MB-231 human breast carcinoma cells Nutrition Research and Practice (2018) doi: 10.4162/nrp.2018.12.2.129 

These satsumas used to be sea weed which you saw above in Kang et al 2015, and here they are again:

Min Yeong Kim , Hyun Hwang Bo , Eun Ok Choi , Da He Kwon , Hong Jae Kim , Kyu Im Ahn , Seon Yeong Ji , Jin-Woo Jeong , Shin-Hyung Park , Su-Hyun Hong , Gi-Young Kim , Cheol Park , Heui-Soo Kim , Sung-Kwon Moon , Seok-Joong Yun , Wun Jae Kim , Yung Hyun Choi Induction of Apoptosis by Citrus unshiu Peel in Human Breast Cancer MCF-7 Cells: Involvement of ROS-Dependent Activation of AMPK Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin (2018) doi: 10.1248/bpb.b17-00898.

Already in Park et al 2017, Choi and Kim proved that brown algae kill colon cancer cells. Using simple tricks of data forgery, Choi and KIm managed to cure cancer with all possible edible Asian plants: ginseng of course (Park et al 2023), sea weed sauce of course (Kim et al 2021, Park et al 2018), crimson glory vine (Lu et al 2017, Kim et al 2020), japanese pepper (Park et al 2022), japanese honeysuckle (Park et al 2018), Chinese goldthread (Kim et al 2020), cordyceps parasitic fungus (Jeong et al 2018), and even flowers, for example primroses (Lee et al 2020) and tea roses (Kim et al 2025).

Morin from osage oranges or guave helps against cancer, see Hwang-Bo et al 2019, but it also protects against oxydative stress:

Moon Hee Lee , Min Ho Han , Dae-Sung Lee , Cheol Park , Su-Hyun Hong , Gi-Young Kim , Sang Hoon Hong , Kyoung Seob Song , Il-Whan Choi , Hee-Jae Cha , Yung Hyun Choi Morin exerts cytoprotective effects against oxidative stress in C2C12 myoblasts via the upregulation of Nrf2-dependent HO-1 expression and the activation of the ERK pathway International journal of molecular medicine (2017) doi: 10.3892/ijmm.2016.2837 

However, morin can easily become a Korean traditional polyherbal decoction and start curing cancer:

MOON HEE LEE , SU-HYUN HONG , CHEOL PARK , GI-YOUNG KIM , SUN-HEE LEEM , SUNG HYUN CHOI , YOUNG-SAM KEUM , JIN WON HYUN , TAEG KYU KWON , SANG HOON HONG , YUNG HYUN CHOI Hwang-Heuk-San induces apoptosis in HCT116 human colorectal cancer cells through the ROS-mediated activation of caspases and the inactivation of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway Oncology reports (2016) doi: 10.3892/or.2016.4812

Of course also Traditional Korean Medicine works, e.g. with Naesohwangryeon-tang poly herbal formula (Kim et al 2019).

Cancer can also be cured with magnolia berries, see Yu et al 2015 or this, also sometimes magnolia berries turn into mulberries, what can do you know:

• Jin-Woo Jeong , Jongsik Kim , Eun Ok Choi , Da Hye Kwon , Gyu Min Kong , Il-Whan Choi , Bum Hoi Kim , Gi-Young Kim , Ki Won Lee , Ki Young Kim , Sung Goo Kim , Young Whan Choi , Su Hyun Hong , Cheol Park , Yung Hyun Choi Schisandrae Fructus ethanol extract ameliorates inflammatory responses and articular cartilage damage in monosodium iodoacetate-induced osteoarthritis in rats EXCLI journal (2017) doi: 10.17179/excli2017-119 
• Jin-Woo Jeong , Hye Hyeon Lee , Jongsik Kim , Eun-Ok Choi , Hyun Hwang-Bo , Hong Jae Kim , Min Young Kim , Kyu Im Ahn , Gi-Young Kim , Ki Won Lee , Ki Young Kim , Sung Goo Kim , Su Hyun Hong , Cheol Park , Hee-Jae Cha , Yung Hyun Choi Mori Folium water extract alleviates articular cartilage damages and inflammatory responses in monosodium iodoacetate‑induced osteoarthritis rats Molecular medicine reports (2017) doi: 10.3892/mmr.2017.7075 

Also Park et al 2022 proved that white mulberries cure cancer. And this plant also prevents oxidative stress to muscle, but first mullberry twigs must be formed from glutatione:

• Cheol Park , Hyesook Lee , Sung Ok Kim , Eun-Woo Lee , Hyun-Tai Lee , Hyun Ju Kwon , Byung Woo Kim , Gi-Young Kim, Mi Ryeo Kim, Yung Hyun Choi The preventive effect of Mori Ramulus on oxidative stress-induced cellular damage in skeletal L6 myoblasts through Nrf2-mediated activation of HO-1 Toxicological Research (2023) doi: 10.1007/s43188-022-00141-5 
• Da Hye Kwon, Hee-Jae Cha, Hyesook Lee, Su-Hyun Hong, Cheol Park, Shin-Hyung Park, Gi-Young Kim, Suhkmann Kim, Heui-Soo Kim, Hye-Jin Hwang, Yung Hyun Choi Protective Effect of Glutathione against Oxidative Stress-induced Cytotoxicity in RAW 264.7 Macrophages through Activating the Nuclear Factor Erythroid 2-Related Factor-2/Heme Oxygenase-1 Pathway Antioxidants (2019) doi: 10.3390/antiox8040082 

Inflammation can be reduced by fisetin from fresh fruits (Molagoda et al 2020, Molagoda et al 2021a, Molagoda et al 2021b, Molagoada et al 2021c), by Japanese cornelian cherry (Fernando et al 2020, Park et al 2022), or by hibiscus:

Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Kyoung Tae Lee, Yung Hyun Choi , Gi-Young Kim Anthocyanins from Hibiscus syriacus L. Inhibit Oxidative Stress-Mediated Apoptosis by Activating the Nrf2/HO-1 Signaling Pathway Antioxidants (2020) doi: 10.3390/antiox9010042 

Also cinnamon works, see Choi 2020 or this:

Cheol Park , Hyesook Lee , Suhyun Hong , Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Jin-Woo Jeong , Cheng-Yun Jin , Gi-Young Kim , Sung Hyun Choi , Sang Hoon Hong , Yung Hyun Choi Inhibition of Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Inflammatory and Oxidative Responses by -cinnamaldehyde in C2C12 Myoblasts International journal of medical sciences (2021) doi: 10.7150/ijms.59169 

Be aware that anti-inflammatory cinnamon sometimes transforms into Hijiki algae to cure melanoma:

Cheol Park , Hyesook Lee , Hyun Hwangbo , Seon Yeong Ji , Min Yeong Kim , So Young Kim , Su Hyun Hong , Gi-Young Kim , Yung Hyun Choi Ethanol Extract of Hizikia fusiforme Induces Apoptosis in B16F10 Mouse Melanoma Cells through ROS-Dependent Inhibition of the PI3K/Akt Signaling Pathway Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP (2020) doi: 10.31557/apjcp.2020.21.5.1275 

As you see, the hijiki algae extract can easily become isorhamnetin from onions and cure bladder cancer, which in turn can for the same purpose transmutate into genistein from soy beans:

• Cheol Park, Hee-Jae Cha, Eun Ok Choi, Hyesook Lee, Hyun Hwang-Bo, Seon Yeong Ji, Min Yeong Kim, So Young Kim, Su Hyun Hong, JaeHun Cheong , Gi-Young Kim, Seok Joong Yun, Hye Jin Hwang , Wun-Jae Kim , Yung Hyun Choi Isorhamnetin Induces Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis Via Reactive Oxygen Species-Mediated AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling Pathway Activation in Human Bladder Cancer Cells Cancers (2019) doi: 10.3390/cancers11101494
• Cheol Park , Hee-Jae Cha , Hyesook Lee , Hyun Hwang-Bo , Seon Yeong Ji , Min Yeong Kim , Su Hyun Hong , Jin-Woo Jeong , Min Ho Han , Sung Hyun Choi , Cheng-Yun Jin , Gi-Young Kim , Yung Hyun Choi Induction of G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis by Genistein in Human Bladder Cancer T24 Cells through Inhibition of the ROS-Dependent PI3k/Akt Signal Transduction Pathway Antioxidants (2019) doi: 10.3390/antiox8090327

Here we have silibinin from milk thistle transforming into camptothecin from chinese happy tree:

• Matharage Gayani Dilshara , Rajapaksha Gedara Prasad Tharanga Jayasooriya , Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Jin-Woo Jeong , Seungheon Lee , Sang Rul Park , Gi-Young Kim , Yung Hyun Choi Silibinin sensitizes TRAIL-mediated apoptosis by upregulating DR5 through ROS-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress-Ca2+-CaMKII-Sp1 pathway Oncotarget (2018) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.23129 
• Rajapaksha Gedara Prasad Tharanga Jayasooriya , Matharage Gayani Dilshara , Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Cheol Park , Sang Rul Park , Seungheon Lee , Yung Hyun Choi, Gi-Young Kim Camptothecin induces G/M phase arrest through the ATM-Chk2-Cdc25C axis as a result of autophagy-induced cytoprotection: Implications of reactive oxygen species Oncotarget (2018) 10.18632/oncotarget.24934 

Here again silibinin changed into camptothecin:

Rajapaksha Gedara Prasad Tharanga Jayasooriya , Matharage Gayani Dilshara , Wisurumuni Arachchilage Hasitha Maduranga Karunarathne , Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Yung Hyun Choi , Gi-Young Kim Camptothecin enhances c-Myc-mediated endoplasmic reticulum stress and leads to autophagy by activating Ca-mediated AMPK Food and chemical toxicology (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2018.09.057 

Let’s end as we started, we fermented oyster sauce against osteoporosis.

Ilandarage Menu Neelaka Molagoda , Athapaththu Mudiyanselage Gihan Kavinda Athapaththu , Eui Kyun Park , Yung Hyun Choi , You-Jin Jeon , Gi-Young Kim Fermented Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) Extract Cures and Prevents Prednisolone-Induced Bone Resorption by Activating Osteoblast Differentiation Foods (2022) doi: 10.3390/foods11050678 

Now you are on your own, if you wish to continue with that endless parade of fraud by Yung Hyun Choi and Gi-Young Kim on PubPeer. I wonder anything at all will be retracted.

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Scholarly Publishing

Something that runs through the whole organisation

In its 2023 annual report, the scholarly publisher Springer Nature beat a big drum for research integrity:

“Our editorial staff are supported by a team of experts. In 2023, the Springer Nature research integrity group doubled in size. The group prevents and resolves integrity problems and supports our network of more than 174,000 academic editors and our editorial office teams […]

Besides our quality-control checks, we’re using the latest technologies, including AI, to identify unethical behaviour.
In 2023, we launched Geppetto, an AI-enabled tool that trawls submissions across all our journals for indicators of suspicious text, and started testing SnappShot, which screens for manipulated images.”

Chris Graf, Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Director and Chair of the World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) Foundation Governing Board, was quoted:

“It’s not just my team that is deeply committed to research integrity; it’s something that runs through the whole organisation, and I’m really proud of that.”

In October 2024, Dorothy Bishop published an “An open letter regarding Scientific Reports” to Graf, which concerned the problem of bad editorial oversight (starting with bad editors!) and was also co-signed by yours truly and various sleuths, including Sholto David. Chemistry World reported on 24 October 2024 about this open letter, and quoted Graf’s reply:

“Fraudulent submissions are a challenge for the entire publishing industry. Ensuring the veracity of the scientific record is a priority for Scientific Reports and everyone at Springer Nature, with our research integrity team dedicated to this goal, and we are continuing to grow and invest in this area. We have increased our full-time employees in pre-checks and in our dedicated research integrity team by almost 200 who, supported by continued investment in detection technology, scrutinise incoming content and address any concerns that may arise either pre or post publication.’”

Now Sholto took Graf at his word and briefly checked what Scientific Reports published since then. The sleuth focussed of cell biology, by scrutinising papers published in 2025 and containing the word “cell”. Here are some of his findings, staring with January 2025:

Dandan Zhang , Yuting Dai , Xiaoyan Xu , Fuguo Ma , Mingshan Wang , Weiwei Qin S100A8-CAMKK2-AMPK axis confers the protective effects of mild hypothermia against cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats Scientific reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-87184-4 

200 full-time experts armed with a Geppetto and a SnappShot, and they missed those duplications inside the same figure. Maybe it took time for the effect to kick in? Here from April 2025:

Yuchen Shan , Yongfei Fan , Xudong Zhu , Yi Zhao , Xiangseng Liu , Xiaoyu Duan , Zhaojia Gao , Ming Lou , Kai Yuan VIRMA promotes NSCLC progression by modifying ADAR m6A and increasing the activity of the TGF-β signaling pathway Scientific Reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-97237-3

Even worse:

Xi Chen , Jianyao Mao , Liwei Zhou , Weichao Jiang , Zhangyu Li , Yukui Li , Sifang Chen , Guowei Tan , Yuanyuan Xie, Chen Wang , Jinli Sun Reducing PKCδ inhibits tumor growth through growth hormone by inhibiting PKA/CREB/ERK signaling pathway in pituitary adenoma Scientific reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-95865-3 

On 28 April 2025, Graf announced to start a new phase of a fight against papermills, and mentioned that Springer Nature invests “into the development of tools that help identify problematic content and prevent it from being published (e.g., software to identify manufactured manuscripts, to identify manipulated images, and to identify other suspicious patterns in manuscript submissions)“. Chris, your tools aren’t working:

Fuao Xing , Yimin Liu , Faming Tian , Xiaoli Hou , Qiangqiang Lian , Yunpeng Hu , Lei Xing , JingYuan Gao , Xinhao Fan BMP2 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma and its effects on SCC9 cell biological behavior Scientific reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-96274-2 

The last author Xinhao Fan replied right away:

“Thank you so much for pointing out this problem of our article. Due to technical issues that resulted in image misuse, we decide to retract this publication. We have sent a formal request for the retraction of this article.“

That was quick. Another one, missed by 200 experts:

Guanglin Shi , Jiashuai Wei , Subi Rahemu , Jiujian Zhou, Xia Li Study on the regulatory mechanism of luteolin inhibiting WDR72 on the proliferation and metastasis of non small cell lung cancer Scientific reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-96666-4 

This time, retraction is out of the question. The last author Xia Li offered a correction instead:

“Importantly, after rigorous re-evaluation, we confirm that this issue was purely a technical error and does not affect the scientific validity or reliability of the study’s core conclusions.“

What was the point of that team of 200 experts and state-of-the-art detective tools again?

Xiao Wu , Yameng Liu , Yinxi Hu , Fang Su , Zishu Wang , Yongxia Chen , Zhixiang Zhuang Leucine rich repeat containing 15 promotes triple-negative breast cancer proliferation and invasion via the ITGB1/FAK/PI3K signalling pathway Scientific Reports (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-98661-1 

Dear Chris, I am no child and I do understand that these days scholarly publishing business is not viable or maybe even impossible without relying on Asian papermills for a steady flow of “product”. There’s a tough completion from Elsevier and MDPI who are not ashamed of anything. But please, can you at least ask your papermillers to replace the most obvious and laziest duplications? Because you look like a laughing stock now.

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ACS Neutrality

As the history of Nazi Germany taught us, academics are the first to anticipatory obey totalitarian demands, to attack the designated outgroup, and to embrace fascism. Must come with having superior intelligence and genetics which professors claim to have.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) now basically announced not to give any fellowships to non-white people, allegedly in fear of a lawsuit from some unhinged fascists from Do No Harm, a litigious far-right lobby group which “opposes the critical race theory-inspired concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and gender-affirming care for minors.”

However, it’s not like the academic non-profit ACS doesn’t have money to defend itself, it makes oodles with scholarly publishing (often of papermill fraud), and has the publication ethics concept quite possibly even worse than Elsevier. ACS owns almost $2 billion in assets, has an annual revenue of over $700 million, and pays its President an annual salary of over $1.3 million a year.

So no, they didn’t have to cave in to fascists, unless they wanted to. Here the c&en report from 8 May 2025:

“ACS had run the Scholars Program since 1995, awarding over $1 million to more than 300 students annually who were pursuing bachelor’s degrees in the chemical sciences. Many alumni are African American, Native American, Hispanic, or Latino. Each recipient was awarded up to $5,000 per academic year; more than 3,500 students had received funds from the program since its inception.

In a May 7 news release, ACS announced that it is transitioning to a new program for the 2026–27 academic year. The settlement agreement says ACS had already decided to end the race-based eligibility criteria before the lawsuit was filed.”

Look what else ACS does to please Trump and his ilk.

Yes, Mika Sillanpää, who was sacked in Finland for sexual harassment, bullying, theft and fraud, was invited by ACS to host a Symposium on some random topic (“Water Neutrality: Towards Sustainable Water Management“), and edit a book based on whatever his fellow papermillers submitted, which was published on 9 May 2025. According to ACS, Sillanpää is a genius who “published more than 1000 articles in peer-reviewed international journals“, and “received numerous awards for research and innovation“, and of course he is also “a highly cited researcher by Thomson Reuters in two different disciplines.” You can read the truth about this despicable psychopath and papermill fraudster in the last part of the following article:

But allow me to briefly introduce you to the other fraudster who assisted Sillanpää with making this important ACS Symposium Series. Santanu Patra, currently postdoc at DTU in Denmark, has almost 40 fake papers on PubPeer, many of which were already retracted, including by ACS. RW database counts 22 retraction for Patra, which is exactly why for ACS, he was the hottest candidate.

Those retractions happened to Patra several years ago because he is an old associate of the fraudster duo Prashant K. Sharma and Rashmi Madhuri. You can read here about their collaboration:

Yet there is another member in this Indian nano-fraud gang, and you all know and love him: Ashutosh Tiwari, the scamference organiser! Tiwari’s and Patra’s joint papers were mentioned here:

DEI is evil, for real equality there are always some male Indian fraudsters from wealthy families in need of support.

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Science Breakthroughs

Help a doctor make these tough decisions

An AFP release informs about “A Revolutionary New Algorithm” which allows users to figure out how long a person on a photo has left to live:

“FaceAge, a deep learning algorithm described Thursday in The  Lancet Digital Health, converts a simple headshot into a number that more accurately reflects a person’s biological age rather than the birthday on their chart.

Trained on tens of thousands of photographs, it pegged cancer patients on average as biologically five years older than healthy peers. […]

“We hypothesize that FaceAge could be used as a biomarker in cancer care to quantify a patient’s biological age and help a doctor make these tough decisions,” said co-senior author Raymond Mak, an oncologist at Mass Brigham Health, a Harvard-affiliated health system in Boston. […]

The model was trained on 58,851 portraits of presumed-healthy adults over 60, culled from public datasets.

It was then tested on 6,196 cancer patients treated in the United States and the Netherlands, using photos snapped just before radiotherapy. Patients with malignancies looked on average 4.79 years older biologically than their chronological age.

Among cancer patients, a higher FaceAge score strongly predicted worse survival…”

Here is the revolutionary study from Harvard Medical School in USA:

Dennis Bontempi , Osbert Zalay , Danielle S Bitterman , Nicolai Birkbak , Derek Shyr , Fridolin Haugg , Jack M Qian , Hannah Roberts , Subha Perni , Vasco Prudente , Suraj Pai , Andre Dekker , Benjamin Haibe-Kains , Christian Guthier , Tracy Balboni , Laura Warren , Monica Krishan , Benjamin H Kann , Charles Swanton , Dirk De Ruysscher , Raymond H Mak, Hugo J W L Aerts FaceAge, a deep learning system to estimate biological age from face photographs to improve prognostication: a model development and validation study The Lancet. Digital health (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.landig.2025.03.002

Basically, this great American AI tool can look at your photo and decide that you will probably die soon from cancer, and therefore do not deserve to get a job, a loan or a medical treatment.

Interestingly, a preprint for this masterpiece was published already in September 2023, and it declared in its abstract:

“We found that FaceAge can improve physicians’ survival predictions in incurable patients receiving palliative treatments, highlighting the clinical utility of the algorithm to support end-of-life decision-making.”

Want your medicine? Computer says no.

With the US Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr and Medicare Administrator Mehmet Oz (Dr Oz) being concerned about all those useless eaters and Lebensunwertes Leben in need of being euthanised – ah pardon, not yet, for now just denied healthcare – this FaceAge algorithm is indeed what the market waited ford. Not because it really predicts someone’s life expectations, but the pretence of such prediction is more than enough to decide to put someone down instead of wasting Trump’s money on keeping them alive for a few more years.

There’s indeed serious money to be made by bumping off old grannies. The preprint insisted that “The authors have declared no competing interest“, but in the Lancet Digital Trash paper the authors remembered about all that big cash they get from all possible pharma industry sources. For example, the last author Hugo JWL Aerts, professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Harvard and at the Maastricht University in The Netherlands:

“HJWLA reports consulting fees or stock from Onc AI, Love Health, AstraZeneca, Health-AI, Ambient, and Sphera, outside the submitted work. “

Onc.AI even advertises for “AI-powered technology to bring clarity to cancer treatment decisions“, exactly what the paper sells.

Anyway. If this death prediction from photos sounds familiar: the French professor Arnaud Delorme claimed the same, in Frontiers in 2016, and it ended with a retraction. More recently, Delorme collaborated with MD Anderson scholars in Texas to cure mice from cancer using magic, i.e. “biofields” from a healer. Read here:

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Our reality inconvenient

In comedy news, Theranos is back!

Luckily, Trump hasn’t defunded NPR yet, so we have this report from 10 May 2025:

“The partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has raised millions of dollars for an artificial intelligence startup hoping to introduce a product that can be used in medical testing and other settings, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the endeavor who could not speak publicly because the company has not yet officially launched. The company is called Haemanthus, which is Greek for “blood flower.”

Holmes, a former Silicon Valley star, is serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison for misleading investors about her blood-testing startup Theranos, once heralded as a breakthrough in laboratory science before its core technology proved faulty.

Since being imprisoned at a federal facility in Bryan, Texas, Holmes has been providing advice to her partner, Billy Evans, on the startup, according to the sources.”

Also The New York Times reported, on the same day:

“A photo provided to potential investors of the start-up’s prototype bears more than a passing physical resemblance to Theranos’s infamous blood-testing machine, variously known as the Edison or miniLab. […] Haemanthus says its device will test blood as well as saliva and urine.

The marketing documents provided with the photo say there is “no regulatory oversight — U.S.D.A. confirmed in writing.”

It’s not clear what the company means by that. […] Mr. Evans sent a partially redacted document from the U.S.D.A. that said, “It does not appear that the proposed product is within the regulatory jurisdiction” of the Center for Veterinary Biologics, which is a part of the U.S.D.A.”

You laugh, but wait till US Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy hears of this magic device!

And until then, the dog market beckons:

“Pet health care is the first market Mr. Evans’s company aims to address. The start-up has thus far received one patent.“

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We emit a visble light

In even more comedy news, looneys in Canada vindicated the late quack Michael Persinger on the existence of biophotons!

Science Alert alerted us all on 13 May 2025: “We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die“:

“An extraordinary experiment on mice and leaves from two different plant species has uncovered direct physical evidence of an eerie ‘biophoton’ phenomenon ceasing on death, suggesting all living things – including humans – could literally glow with health, until we don’t. […]

University of Calgary physicist Vahid Salari and his team have claimed to observe just that – an ultraweak photon emission (UPE) produced by several living animals in strong contrast with their non-living bodies, as well as in a handful of plant leaves. […]

The researchers found they could capture individual photons in the visible band of light popping out of the mouse cells before and after death. The difference in the numbers of these photons was clear, with a significant drop in UPE in the measurement period after they were euthanized. […]

A process carried out on thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) and dwarf umbrella tree (Heptapleurum arboricola) leaves revealed similarly bold results. Stressing the plants with physical injuries and chemical agents provided strong evidence that reactive oxygen species could in fact be behind the soft glow.”

Here is the paper, from the lab of University of Calgary associate professor Daniel Oblak, and published in an ACS journal:

V. Salari , V. Seshan , L. Frankle , D. England , C. Simon , D. Oblak Imaging Ultraweak Photon Emission from Living and Dead Mice and from Plants under Stress The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (2025) doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c03546 

Oblak’s lab has a website, where they talk about biophotons and cite various biophoton studies, including by Persinger (Dotta et al 2012):

“…the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from the brain was found to be strongly correlated with the emission intensity of the bio-photons [KTS+99, DSP12]. Such results manifest a potential connection between brain activity and bio-photons generation, but for an indication of a functional role we look at the capability of neurons to guide light and, thus, their potential for being involved in neuronal communication [SVB+15]”

Indeed, if the internet works via optical cables, why shouldn’t a brain? The whole biophotonics circus began apparently with a Hungarian looney named István Bókkon of Budapest University of Technology and Economics. See for example g, Bokkon 2008, Bokkon et al 2013 or this, with Salari (back then still in Iran) and another Canadian looney named Jack Tuszynski of University of Alberta:

I. Bókkon, V. Salari , J.A. Tuszynski , I. Antal Estimation of the number of biophotons involved in the visual perception of a single-object image: biophoton intensity can be considerably higher inside cells than outside Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.jphotobiol.2010.06.001

However, in 2016, Salari, Bokkon and Tuszynski jointly protested against the main findings of a PNAS paper from China Wang et al 2016 which claimed that “glutamate-induced biophotonic activities […] present a spectral redshift feature from animals (bullfrog, mouse, chicken, pig, and monkey) to humans, […] explaining why human beings hold higher intelligence“, and was edited by Persinger, two years before his own biophoton luminescence extingiished. The reply by Salari et al in PNAS objected that “a mechanistic explanation of the correlation between intelligence and the spectral properties of biophotonic emission is not given […], the observed correlation does not reflect a causal relationship but rather an accidental coincidence.“

Yet in 2020, Salari, Bokkon and a whole team of Iranian scholars held a mirror (!) against a dish of extracted mouse brain cells (alternatively, silver nanoparticles were added as tiny mirrors), with this result:

Tahereh Esmaeilpour, Esmaeil Fereydouni, Farzaneh Dehghani, Istvan Bókkon, Mohammad-Reza Panjehshahin, Noemi Császár-Nagy, Mehdi Ranjbar & Vahid Salari An Experimental Investigation of Ultraweak Photon Emission from Adult Murine Neural Stem Cells. Scientific Reports (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-57352-4

“The AgNPs increases the UPE intensity of NSC that pushes more differentiation of NSC to the neurons. The mirror was not effective in enhancement of UPE.”

And last year, Salari, Bokkon, Oblak and their esteemed Iranian peers proved that biophoton emission was indeed directly correlated to cognition:

Niloofar Sefati, Tahereh Esmaeilpour, Vahid Salari, Asadollah Zarifkar, Farzaneh Dehghani, Mahdi Khorsand Ghaffari, Hadi Zadeh-Haghighi, Noémi Császár, István Bókkon, Serafim Rodrigues, Daniel Oblak Monitoring Alzheimer’s disease via ultraweak photon emission iScience (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108744

“The study used a rodent model of sporadic AD, demonstrating that STZ-induced sAD resulted in increased hippocampal UPE, which was associated with oxidative stress. Treatment with donepezil reduced UPE and improved oxidative stress. These findings support the potential utility of UPE as a screening and diagnostic tool for AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.”

It seems, the idea for that groundbreaking Alzheimer’s study was nicked from the Chinese paper Wang et al 2023 which Salari peer-reviewed for Frontiers.

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