Schneider Shorts 27.06.2025 – Dig deeper into the credentials of those doing the critiquing

Schneider Shorts of 27 June 2025 – the innocent man of Santa Cruz, the guilty man of Arkansas, a woman and her dogs harassed, a Marquis knighted by King of Spain, with one of Australia’s top researchers, money shortage in Marseille, retractions in Heidelberg, and a lawsuit at Duke.

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Science Elites

This is a confidential matter

Meet the fishy fish researcher Pallab Kumer Sarker, who is assistant professor at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and (according to his LinkedIn profile) “Project Director of USDA-NIFA projects”. Before that, the Bangladesh-born Sarker was Research Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College, in the lab of Anne R. Kapuscinski, and he followed her to UCSC. The lab is still called “Kapuscinski – Sarker lab group”. In 2023, Sarker received a unsolicted grant from the Mitchell Foundation, in addition to his big grant from US Department of Agriculture.

Sarker has currently 14 papers on PubPeer, his regular coauthor being the papermill fraudster Shafaqat Ali. Ali in turn has 90 papers on PubPeer, coauthored with papermill professionals like Jörg Rinklebe, Rafael Luque, Dmitry Bokov, Afshin Davarpanah or Muhammad Rizwan).

Basically, anyone seen together with Ali is suspicious. Especially when their common papers contain falsified data. On 1 March 2025, Fabian Wittmers aka Archasia Belfragei reported 8 such papers by Sarker and Ali to UCSC.

1. Eram Rashid , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Shafaqat Ali, Pallab K. Sarker , Shabab Nasir , Khalid Mashay Al-Anazi , Nadia Nazish New Insights into the Effects of Polystyrene Microplastics on Freshwater Fish, Labeo rohita: Assessment on Histopathology, Mineral Composition, Bioaccumulation and Antioxidant Activity Water Air & Soil Pollution (2025) doi: 10.1007/s11270-024-07643-y 

2. Arzoo Fatima , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Shafaqat Ali, Pallab K. Sarker , Khalid A. Al-Ghanim , Eman Naeem Mitigating potentials of natural herbal supplements against heavy metal toxicity in freshwater fish, Cyprinus carpio Aquaculture International (2024) doi: 10.1007/s10499-024-01622-0 

Another recurrent author is Syed Makhdoom Hussain from Pakistan, he however doesn’t seem to be such a papermill professionals as Ali is.

3. Eram Rashid , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Pallab K. Sarker, Shafaqat Ali, Adan Naeem , Khalid A. Al-Ghanim Evaluating the influence of aquatic environmental hazard, polylactic acid microplastics, on Labeo rohita Environmental Pollutants and Bioavailability (2025) doi: 10.1080/26395940.2025.2467745 

4. Syed Muhammad Farhan Ali Shah , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Shafaqat Ali , Pallab K. Sarker , Khalid A. Al-Ghanim , Sunakbaeva Dilara Ameliorating Nickel-Induced Stress in Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (Silver Carp) Through Piper nigrum Extract Supplementation Biological trace element research (2025) doi: 10.1007/s12011-025-04560-x 

5. Muhammad Mahmood , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Pallab K. Sarker , Shafaqat Ali , Muhammad Saleem Arif , Nadia Nazish , Danish Riaz , Nisar Ahmad , Bilal Ahamad Paray , Adan Naeem Toxicological assessment of dietary exposure of polyethylene microplastics on growth, nutrient digestibility, carcass and gut histology of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fingerlings Ecotoxicology (2024) doi: 10.1007/s10646-024-02749-9 

6. Eram Rashid , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Pallab K. Sarker, Shafaqat Ali, Bilal Ahamad Paray Assessment of polystyrene microplastics as dietary additives in aquaculture species, Catla catla: Alters growth, feed utilization, nutritional composition, hematology and gut histopathology Aquaculture Reports (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.aqrep.2024.102100 
7. Eram Rashid , Syed Makhdoom Hussain , Shafaqat Ali, Khalid A. Al-Ghanim , Pallab K. Sarker Toxicological consequences of polystyrene microplastics on Cirrhinus mrigala: effects on growth, body composition, nutrient digestibility, haematology and histopathology Marine and Freshwater Research (2024) doi: 10.1071/mf24055 

And finally, this one:

8. Sawera Maqaddas , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Shafaqat Ali, Ameer Fawad Zahoor , Ebru Yilmaz , Pallab K. Sarker , Mohammad Abul Farah , Eman Naeem Recuperative effects of herbal feed supplement on Hypohthalmichthys molitrix: Improvement in physiology and histopathology against waterborne-induced heavy metals toxicity Aquaculture Reports (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.aqrep.2025.102705 

On 12 May 2025, Fabian received a reply from the very top, namely from UCSC’s Vice Chancellor for Research, John MacMillan, who himself is a biochemist. MacMillan informed the sleuth that a research misconduct inquiry was performed with Sarker as Respondent, and attached its final report. He stressed: “This is a confidential matter and the results of this inquiry should remain confidential.“

Maybe you can imagine where this is going. Here is the Summary:

“Vice Chancellor MacMillan reviewed the e-mail correspondence provided by Complainant and carried out an initial assessment of the eight published manuscripts that were specifically mentioned in the allegation. […]

The Respondent provided an explanation that he was unaware of these publications and had not given his approval to be included as a co-author. […] There are three publications (not those included in this allegation) that the Respondent acknowledged he did collaboratively participate.

V. Conclusion
After reviewing all of the information received during this Inquiry phase, the Office of Research believes that the Allegation stems from the inappropriate inclusion of the Respondent as an author on the manuscripts of concern. While
the inquiry did determine there is potential evidence of data plagiarism and manipulation, the Respondent was unaware of these activities.

As an action, the Respondent has reached out to the editorial staff for the journals that are included in the allegations, informing them of his inclusion without permission (documentation provided to the Office of Research) and has
communicated to the corresponding authors that the manuscripts should be retracted.

The Office of Research is investigating the process to file a research misconduct claim against the corresponding authors at their home institution.”

Yes, Sarker is officially an innocent and clueless victim of some foreign criminals. Here the full report, please treat it confidentially:

Wait, this is not the end of story. Fabian wanted to know which 3 papers with Ali and Hussain it were which Sarker admitted to have wilfully coauthored. Silence. Then Fabian wrote to MacMillan and UCSC again, sending them 5 more papers authored by Sarker with Ali and Hussain, like this:

Nisar Ahmad , Syed Makhdoom Hussain, Shafaqat Ali, Muhammad Farrukh Tahir , Pallab K. Sarker , Mudassar Shahid Nano-selenium supplementation: improving growth, digestibility and mineral absorption in freshwater fish, Catla catla BMC Veterinary Research (2024) doi: 10.1186/s12917-024-04291-6 

Rashid et al Ecotoxicology 2024 had a falsified table (“the sd values in table 5 seem extremely repetitive“), and so did Rashid et al Aquaculture Reports 2024 (“Multiple values in Table 7 are identical for III and IV, including sd“. Also Ahmad et al Scientific Reports 2024 and Amjad et al Aquaculture Reports 2024 have very dodgy tables, and most remarkably: on both of these Sarker was recorded as corresponding author, even with his UCSC email address. Will UCSC now do as promised and “file a research misconduct claim against the corresponding authors at their home institution“?

And this is why MacMillan and UCSC did not dignify the sleuth with any replies again.

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One of Australia’s top researchers

We remain on the topic of Bangladeshi scientists. Meet “One of Australia’s top researchers“, “One of Australia’s research field leaders“, and of course a “Highly Cited Researcher“, Md Rabiul Awual, adjunct professor for chemical engineering at Curtin University.

If you happen to work in the field, you probably never heard of the great Dr Awual, and for a good reason. The dude is a scam, all his highly cited achievements are the result of fraud, extortion and papermilling.

The current PubPeer record is less about Awual’s own papers (although he did manage to use the same image in SEVEN publications, see Awual et al 2024), but rather about papers by other people whom he somehow forced to cite huge blocks of his fake trash. As happened to some Polish scholars, see February 2025 Shorts.

As Fabian Wittmers aka Archasia Belfragei shared on social media:

(2/x) Md. Rabiul Awual is Adjunct Processor at Curtin University in Western Australia, currently with around 38k citations. They publish mostly wastewater treatment and hydrogen related 'studies'. staffportal.curtin.edu.au/staff/profil…

— Archasia Belfragei (@academic-integrity.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T16:42:16.309Z

Here is Awual’s own paper, with his much-cited friend from back home at University of Dhaka in Bangladesh – Md Munjur Hasan. There, at least 123 citations went to Awual:

Md Nazmul Hasan, M A Shenashen, Md Munjur Hasan, Hussein Znad , Md Rabiul Awual Assessing of cesium removal from wastewater using functionalized wood cellulosic adsorbent Chemosphere (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.128668 

Elsevier journal Chemosphere was delisted by Clarivate for papermilling, exactly because of practices like this. Here another papermill-infested Elsevier journal, you don’t see Awual who is cited 128 times, because Mohammad Mahbub Kabir and Aminul Islam are authors:

Mohammad Mahbub Kabir, Snigdha Setu Paul Mouna , Samia Akter , Shahjalal Khandaker , Md. Didar-ul-Alam , Newaz Mohammed Bahadur , Mohammad Mohinuzzaman , Md. Aminul Islam , M.A. Shenashen Tea waste based natural adsorbent for toxic pollutant removal from waste samples Journal of Molecular Liquids (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.molliq.2020.115012 

Fabian commented on Bluesky:

“I reported dozens of articles with ~75% self-citation rate, especially around 2019/2020. I believe some journals/reviewers started to give them trouble for it, so they started being more careful. They didn’t stop excessively citing themself. Instead, they started manipulating reference sections. […] They systematically deleted Awual’s name from most of the citations text, leaving all other authors listed correctly. Awual was only listed if it was a single-author study. Still 70% of all refs go to Awual…”

Here an example, by Awual and his Bangladeshi buddies Md. Nazmul Hasan, Aminul Islam, Md. Munjur Hasan et al. While more than a hundred papers by Awual are cited, his name is listed on only 14, where he is first author. But not on others:

Khadiza Tul Kubra , Md. Shad Salman , Md. Nazmul Hasan , Aminul Islam , Md. Munjur Hasan , Md. Rabiul Awual Utilizing an alternative composite material for effective copper(II) ion capturing from wastewater Journal of Molecular Liquids (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.molliq.2021.116325 

Not all journals are run by utter crooks and idiots, thus Awual’s opportunities to excessively cite himself are limited. The simple way is to have his friends cite him, here 125 Awual citations by the four boys you just met above:

Md. Shad Salman , Md. Nazmul Hasan , Khadiza Tul Kubra , Md. Munjur Hasan Optical detection and recovery of Yb(III) from waste sample using novel sensor ensemble nanomaterials Microchemical Journal (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.microc.2020.105868 

Another option is to enlist yourself as peer reviewer and then extort citations while from the cover of anonymity. This paper, in an ACS journal, has 152 citations to Awual, and 34 to Munjur Hasan:

Khalid Althumayri , Ahlem Guesmi , Wesam Abd El-Fattah , Ammar Houas , Naoufel Ben Hamadi , Ahmed Shahat Enhanced Adsorption and Evaluation of Tetracycline Removal in an Aquatic System by Modified Silica Nanotubes ACS Omega (2023) doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c07377 

This study, again in that papermill-infested Elsevier journal, contains ONE HUNDRED SIXTY TWO references to Awual, plus 50 to Munjur Hasan:

Ahmed Alharbi Cellulose nanofiber-based nano-collector for highly sensitive preconcentration, spectrophotometric detection, and efficient recovery of Co(II) ions in lithium-ion battery waste Journal of Molecular Liquids (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.molliq.2024.124219 

Those studies above at least had water pollution as research topics. But these, in the Elsevier journal Food Chemistry, had nothing to do, even remotely, with anything Awual himself ever published about. And yet they cite Awual’s wastewater sewage several times:

• Jinying Guo , Feng Liu , Chuanfa Gan , Yingying Wang , Ping Wang , Xiaolan Li , Jiaxing Hao Effects of Konjac glucomannan with different viscosities on the rheological and microstructural properties of dough and the performance of steamed bread Food Chemistry (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.130853 
• Jinhui Zhang , Zeping Shao , Yaozhong Hu , Bing Liu , Yan Zhang, Shuo Wang Formation of a creatinine thermal degradation product and its role and participation in the radical pathway of forming the pyridine ring of 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP) Food Chemistry (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.126083 
• Yudie Sun , Kehong Quan , Ruilai Zhang , Aobo Feng , Mingfu Ye , Kui Zhang An enzyme-free multi-stage hybridization chain reaction for the electrochemiluminescence detection of MRSA using MoS2 NF@AuNPs catalyst Food Chemistry (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.144043 

Fabian summed up:

“A couple things jump out: It’s a lot of papers showing this type of pattern. Dozens, possibly 100ths over the past 5 years. Always citing ~5-10 of Awual’s papers. Always stacked in unnecessary paragraphs or just inserted as references for completely unrelated statements. A lot of these articles appear in the same journals: Food Chemistry / Food Chemistry: X & Environmental Research (all three Elsevier outlets).”

Like this one, four meaningless references to Awual:

Ling Liu , Haiyang Yin , Yanan Xu , Bin Liu , Yuqing Ma , Jianxue Feng , Zhihan Cao , Jinho Jung , Ping Li , Zhi-Hua Li Environmental behavior and toxic effects of micro(nano)plastics and engineered nanoparticles on marine organisms under ocean acidification: A review Environmental Research (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.120267 

This one is very revealing, the authors admitted a reviewer forced them to cite at least 8 papers by Awual on the topic of wastewater treatment, completely outside of any context or logical connection:

Qingzhen Tian , Jinjin Liu , Yuxuan Long , Hao Liang , Kechen Wu , Xi Chen , Qinqin Bai , Xiangheng Niu Catalytic preference-enabled exclusive bimodal detection of methyl-paraoxon in complex food matrices using double site-synergized organophosphorus hydrolase-mimetic fluorescent nanozymes Food Chemistry (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.144023 

It is safe to assume that Awual and his Bangladeshi friends somehow manage to get invited as editors and reviewers of papers outside of their nominal expertise (nominal, because I don’t think any of these clown has any scientific expertise whatsoever), and then the extortion party begins. And if you wonder why they extort only 5-10 references to Awual, and not say 25 or 50? Maybe anything up to 10 references is roughly the amount which journals see as a perfectly reasonable request from a reviewer.

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Highly unacceptable deviation from professional standards

You surely remember the hilarious fraudster duo Hari and Aruna Sharma, who were found guilty of research misconduct in Sweden (see January 2025 Shorts). No, I am not going to expose you to further home videos of them in bed or bathtub. It is about one of their coauthors.

Here a representative study, one of those many now retracted book chapters. Like all others, it was flagged by Mu Yang.

Hari Shanker Sharma , José Vicente Lafuente , Lianyuan Feng , Dafin F Muresanu , Preeti K Menon , Rudy J Castellani, Ala Nozari , Seaab Sahib , Z Ryan Tian , Anca D Buzoianu , Per-Ove Sjöquist , Ranjana Patnaik , Lars Wiklund , Aruna Sharma Methamphetamine exacerbates pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury at high altitude. Neuroprotective effects of nanodelivery of a potent antioxidant compound H-290/51 Progress in Brain Research (2021) doi: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2021.06.008 

This was the removal notice:

“”REMOVED. This chapter has been removed due to substantiated image manipulation. Following a complaint by a reader, an internal investigation discovered several examples of reused images from different publications by some of the co-authors that were presented in this work as unique.”

The Sharmas had many international collaborators, I reported most of them for suspected research misconduct in their home universities. There were 3 Americans. Rudy J Castellani, professor of pathology at Northwestern University, managed to convince everyone that he was added as author without his knowledge. Elsevier then removed his name from all studies with Sharma.

In December 2023, the Research Compliance Officer at Boston Medical Center of the Boston University, announced to open an investigation against their anaesthesiology professor Ala Nozari. I now asked for an update to the investigation, and was promised one. But I decided not to wait, there are clues: Nozari remains in his position of Vice Chair for Research at Boston Medical Center, where he is, among other things, in charge of all such misconduct investigations. It is safe to assume Nozari officially determined himself to be both innocent and beautiful.

Z. Ryan Tian, associate professor for nanotechnology at University of Arkansas in USA, was however properly investigated.

Back in December 2024, Tian blamed his lab members Asya Ozkizilcik and Seaab Sahib in an email to me:

“All the figures that you have questioned about are from Sharma’s lab.
My lab only provided the TiO2 nanowires, so the papers and book chapters with Sharma are not in my field, thus I am not a corresponding author in these publications.
Sharma directly emailed my lab’s Asya and Seaab and called their cellphones, for editing/submitting these papers and book chapters.
I will talk to Sharma asap, as I plan to delete such publications with him from my CV and to even stop working with him in the team that he and I started in 2006.
Nonetheless, thank you for kindly recognizing that my lab is innocent in this misconduct.”

In the next email, Tian decided to try the Castellani-Nosari exit:

“Between you and me — quite a few papers and book chapters (Sharma put my name in and omitted my students Asya or Seaab) didn’t get my okay beforehand (as he might think I must appreciate the co-authorships) although I urged him to co-publish papers in top journals (like mine in Nat Mat, Science, PNAS) as he got no paper in a high-impact-factor journal.”

The investigation at University of Arkansas was chaired by Douglas Behrend, head of department of sociology and criminology. I was video-interviewed twice, where I had to explain to the university officials again and again that Tian included all these fake papers in his official CV and can therefore not claim to not have known about them or to have not contributed anything to them, because gift authorships are actually research misconduct.

On 19 June 2025, Behrend finally informed me of the outcome of the investigation:

“As provided for in the University of Arkansas Research and Scholarly Misconduct Policy, I am informing you of the results of the University’s investigation of your allegation of research misconduct against one of our faculty members, Dr. Ryan Tian. 

The University’s deciding official, the Provost, concluded that Dr. Tian’s conduct did not meet the definition of research misconduct under the University’s policy.  However, Dr. Tian’s failure to personally review publications at issue in this matter, on which Dr. Tian is credited as a co-author, was a highly unacceptable deviation from professional standards.  This is now being addressed as a confidential personnel matter.”

Will Tian leave the University of Arkansas now? He had at least three profile websites there, this one is gone now, but this faculty page and this one remain:

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Marquis of Castillo de Lerés

In case you are interested in all things related to royalty and nobility, I have just the story for you. From Spain!

ABC Espana reported on 19 June 2025 (DeepL-translated):

“To round off this year of celebrations for his 10th anniversary of reign – which ends today, eleven years after his proclamation as King-, Felipe VI has decided to award his first noble titles to former head of the King’s Household, Jaime Alfonsín; the sportsman Rafa Nadal; the swimmer Teresa Perales; the singer Luz Casal; the biochemist Carlos López Otín and the photographer Cristina García Rodero. […]

The biochemist and molecular biologist Carlos López Otín will be Marquis of Castillo de Lerés. A distinction for life, which will return to the Crown upon his death.”

Yes, Carlos Lopez-Otin is a Marquis now, it seems the title of “Marqués de Castillo de Lerés” was invented just for him, he is the first to wear this title. Lopez-Otin is still touted as Spain’s greatest cancer and aging researcher, despite his having published massive fraud, which led to 9 retractions, 8 in JBC and 1 in Nature Cell Biology. He also lost his Nature Mentoring Award. All because of the investigation by my sleuthing colleagues, and my reporting.

When his fake science was exposed, Lopez-Otin killed all of his 5000 transgenic mice (to hide evidence?) and hid in France with Guido Kroemer for a year or so. Before their martyr’s return to University of Oviedo (supported by Opus Dei!), Spanish academic elites threatened JBC with war, led a massive campaign in media and elsewhere, and the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain (RAC) issued statements of public support to St Carlos. At the same time, both Lopez-Otin and the president of RAC, Jesus Maria Sanz Serna, terrorized Lopez-Otin’s critics with lawsuits and threats thereof. Two Spanish journalists were forced to publicly recant and apologise for writing about St Carlos’ retractions, and two Oviedo professors who uttered criticism were found guilty of blasphemy misconduct.

Since his research fraud scandal, Lopez-Otin evolved from an atheist liberal scientist into a guru of a quasi-religious sect, preaching all kind of bollocks. The Church of Otin is quite successful, the newspaper El Cierre reminded in this regard:

“One of the strongest sources of support during difficult times came from the Royal Family, especially from Queen Letizia, who keeps a deep intellectual relationship with Otín. She considers him her “mentor,” and he refers to her as a “student,” reflecting an academic and human bond built over years of mutual interest in science and health.

The relationship between Carlos López Otín and Queen Letizia began in 2019, when the Queen attended the presentation of his book Life in Four Letters. Letizia has attended several of his lectures, such as the Cancer Tour in Lleida in 2022, and has personally purchased his books.”

In any case, a message to everyone in Spain who might think of blowing the whistle on research fraud. Off with their heads.

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Industry Giants

Dig deeper into the credentials of those doing the critiquing

Enough of male dominance, time to defend some role model Women in Science.

As you all sure know, the US company Colossal Biosciences, founded by the MIT professor George Church and a tech bro called Ben Lamm, was recently celebrated in Times and everywhere else for having allegedly de-extincted the dire wolf. Collosal’s Chief Science Officer behind that “de-extiction” is Beth Shapiro, currently on leave as professor of evolutionary biology at University of California Santa Cruz. Read here:

To stake their claims, Colossal had first to redefine what the original dire wolf was and what it must have looked like (even by enlisting support of world’s top authority, the Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin), then to redefine what the terms “species” and “de-extinction” mean. Still, almost everyone in the relevant scientific community was either angrily shakign their fists or rolling on the floor laughing, because of course those white doggies Collosal paraded in the media were no dire wolves. At best (if the official claims are true, that is), those are grey wolves with 20 gene edits.

A statement from our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Beth Shapiro, on the dire wolf project pic.twitter.com/upl3WPSeUw

— Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 10, 2025

Soon after the big party, Collossal started to distance itself from their own bullshit claims. On 24 May 2025, New Scientist brought the headline: “Colossal scientist now admits they haven’t really made dire wolves“, Shapiro was quoted:

““It’s not possible to bring something back that is identical to a species that used to be alive. Our animals are grey wolves with 20 edits that are cloned,” she tells New Scientist. “And we’ve said that from the very beginning. Colloquially, they’re calling them dire wolves and that makes people angry.” […]

“We didn’t ever hide that that’s what it was. People were mad because we were calling them dire wolves,” she says. “Then they say to us, but they’re just grey wolves with 20 edits. But the point is we said that from the beginning. They’re grey wolves with 20 edits.”

Shapiro also sought to distance Colossal from suggestions that if de-extinction is possible, less needs to be done to save endangered species – a view espoused by some in the Trump administration. “Now it’s suddenly tied to this idea that we don’t have to care. It’s terrible,” she says.”

As reminder, Colossal previously celebrated the US Secretary of Interior Doug Burgham, who celebrated the successfuly de-extinction only to announce to abolish the Endangered Species Act because, as Trump’s shitgoblin insinuated, who needs to protect any living species if one can easily de-extinct them centuries later should anyone ever miss them.

Elsewhere, it was mentioned that Colossal sent lawyers against above report, accusing New Scientist of having “misquoted Beth Shapiro” who allegedly “ never said they weren’t dire wolves”. It seems, Shapiro was quoted correctly, the New Scientist article remains unchanged as of today. Instead, a Daily Galaxy article from 2 June 2025 was deleted, it re-celebrated Colossal’s silly orange wooly (trumpian?) mice as “a striking step toward reviving one of the Earth’s most iconic lost creatures: the woolly mammoth“.

Indeed, Shapiro personally calls those animals “dire wolves” as she poses with them for pictures. See for example this article in Lookout Santa Cruz from 17 April 2025. But now, Colossal (a company owned by two white men) is rolling out its biggest guns to discredit their critics. The accusations of sexism and misogyny!

Forbes frought this bizarre piece on 21 June 2025:

“Dr. Beth Shapiro, Chief Science Officer of Colossal Biosciences is a champion of animal bioscience, but she’s been met with scrutiny from others in the industry. Namely, less qualified males. […]

While leaving academia wasn’t an easy decision for Shapiro, she has gone on to work on some of the most exciting projects in her career. Last year, she made history when she brought the dire wolf back from extinction. On October 1, 2024, the first two dire wolf pups, Romulus and Remus, were born; on January 31, 2025, a third dire wolf named Khaleesi was welcomed into the world. […]

She has faced some level of criticism for the project, and the harshest are often less qualified males in the STEM field. […]

This isn’t just about Shapiro; it’s about the culture of tearing down women in fields where they’re already underrepresented. The stakes are high—not just for the scientists, but for the future of innovation itself.”

The article is followed by professional advice:

“Not all scientists are created equal. Before buying into criticism, dig deeper into the credentials of those doing the critiquing. Are their accomplishments anywhere near the level of those they’re disparaging? […]
Question why women face disproportionate scrutiny. Is it jealousy, insecurity, or outdated biases? Sometimes, the problem isn’t the science. It’s the ego of the critic.”

Now those dogs are officially dire wolves again, and if you still doubt it, you are a sexist swine. Racist also, probably.

Anyway, here is our heroic women champion Shapiro on the far-right podcast of Joe Rogan, who is an idol of the so-called Manosphere and has been “critiqued for fostering and amplifying harmful ideologies, including misogyny“:

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Fraudulent ability to experimentally treat patients

Maybe you remmeber that the prestigious Duke University in USA has a side business of running a stem cell quackery clinic where desperate parents pay $15k for umbilical cord blood from the company Cryo-Cell to have their autistic children abused with this bullshit therapy. The case was briefly described here:

At some point, even the Duke Autism Center professors Geraldine Dawson and Joanne Kurtzberg had to admit their scam doesn’t work (read Paul Knoepfler’s blog from May 2020), but since when are facts and decency allowed to stand in the way of some greedy sods getting rich.

Thus, Duke and Cryo-Cell are at each other’s throats in court, as The Chronicle reported on 24 June 2025:

“In mid-May, Duke terminated its controversial Patent and Technology License Agreement with the umbilical cord blood and cord tissue stem cell bank Cryo-Cell International, Inc., after almost five years of exclusive partnership. Leading up to the termination, both parties claimed the other breached the agreement. 

Cryo-Cell filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association against Duke in October 2024, claiming $100 million in damages and five counts of the institution breaching the Duke License Agreement. The counts were based on claims that Duke fraudulently induced the company into entering the agreement and restricted its ability to experimentally treat patients.

In the termination notice sent on May 17, Duke claims that Cryo-Cell also breached the Duke License but does not specify how the agreement was breached. “

In this regard, we are helpfully reminded that Duke’s distinguished professor of pediatrics Kurtzburg is not only the holder of the relevant patents, but also the medical director of Cryo-Cell. Dawson is not employed by this company directly, but she declares in her publications to hold patents licenced to Cryo-Cell and to have “benefited financially” from that relationship.

We are also reminded by The Chronicle that in 2021, long after their autism “stem cell” therapy was proved as ineffectual, “Cryo-Cell entered an executive license agreement with Duke for the rights to cord blood technologies and data, intending to eventually open its first for-profit stem cell infusion clinic in 2025, in Durham.” And:

“Through the Duke agreement, some patients would receive the treatments on clinical trials or as part of expanded access protocols (EAPs) before they were approved by the FDA as standard treatments. […]
In 2023, Duke discontinued its EAP for cord stem cell treatment for autism, which allowed patients who did not qualify for clinical trials to access treatments. […]
The autism treatments, however, continued at Cryo-Cell without the use of Duke’s EAP, as the licensing agreement allowed Cryo-Cell to develop its own cell therapy program.”

Even before that, Cryo-Cell francised into other countries, for example to Israel. Jerusalem Post touted in April 2021:

“Dr. Omer Bar Yosef, a clinical and research neurobiologist at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, has thus far treated 25 children with autism as part of a Phase II trial using a protocol developed at Duke University Medical Center.”

I hope Kurtzburg and Dawson will soon learn the golden rule of academia: never sue your university or they’ll sack you.

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No competing interests

On the topic of greedy academics and their businesses, I have a very illustative case. It showcases how professors understand the concept of the Conflict of Interests. The paper featured before in this article about Canada’s top urologist, Martin Gleave, who is professor at University of British Columbia and founding director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre:

Gleave is also the owner of the biotech startup OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, which markets the Heat Shock Protein 27 (HSP27) antisense RNA called OGX-427 (Apatorsen), deployed in this study. The study was done in France, one coauthor is the notorious cheater Carmen Garrido, who caused Gleave his only retraction, on a HSP27 related topic, (see October 2024 Shorts):

C Andrieu , D Taieb , V Baylot , S Ettinger , P Soubeyran , A De-Thonel , C Nelson , C Garrido , A So , L Fazli , F Bladou , M Gleave , J L Iovanna , P Rocchi Heat shock protein 27 confers resistance to androgen ablation and chemotherapy in prostate cancer cells through eIF4E Oncogene (2010) doi: 10.1038/onc.2009.479 

On top of flasified data, there was this:

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Obviously in Gleave’s case this is a shameless lie. But in April 2025, the last author and Gleave’s former colleague Palma Rocchi, now research director at INSERM in Marseille, chimed in on PubPeer with this strange comment:

“M. Gleave, consultant, OncoGenex Technologies, Sanofi-Aventis, Astra-Zeneca; commercial research support, OncoGenex Technologies, Sanofi-Aventis, Astra-Zeneca, Pfizer; ownership interest, OncoGenex Technologies“

Well yes, sure, but none of that is mentioned anywhere in the original paper or the Expression of Concern as of now.

In June 2025, the PubPeer user Dendrodoris tuberculosa chimed in to inform us that another paper by this team says something different:

Virginie Baylot , Maria Katsogiannou , Claudia Andrieu , David Taieb , Julie Acunzo , Sophie Giusiano , Ladan Fazli , Martin Gleave , Carmen Garrido , Palma Rocchi Targeting TCTP as a new therapeutic strategy in castration-resistant prostate cancer Molecular therapy (2012) doi: 10.1038/mt.2012.155 

“The University of British Columbia has submitted patent applications, listing Dr Gleave and Dr Rocchi as inventors, on the Hsp27 antisense sequence (OGX-427) described in this paper. This patent has been licensed to OncoGenex Technologies, a Vancouver-based biotechnology company that Dr Gleave has founding shares in. The authors declared no conflict of interest.”

This joint patent to Gleave and Rocchi dates to 2003. The PubPeer user also points to the French biotech Silon Therpauetics, where Rocchi is the CSO, while her coauthor, the Aix Marseille University professor David Taieb is CMO. Both are listed as founders of this biotech which “aims to develop and test smart, versatile and adaptable therapeutic Hsp27-ASO Apatorsen nanoparticles“, i.e. Gleave’s and OncoGenex’s patented siRNA technology, but with nano-bollocks. The Silon website (original and archived) presents the technology using, uhm, a digitally manipulated western blot:

Silon was founded in 2024, and the above papers with Gleave and Garrido are old, but even now the authors refuse to declare this conflict of interests when writing about their company’s products:

Virginie Baylot, Thi Khanh Le , David Taïeb, Palma Rocchi , Laurence Colleaux Between hope and reality: treatment of genetic diseases through nucleic acid-based drugs Communications Biology (2024) doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06121-9 

“The authors declare no competing interests.”

This 2024 paper was published after Silon was incorporated, the last author, INSERM researcher Laurence Colleaux, is Silon’s co-founder and CEO. The PubPeer user also pointed out:

“As a physician and CMO, Dr. David Taieb has not disclosed this conflict of interest on the public French database “Transparency – Health”

Indeed, Taieb never mention Silons there:

Taieb retorted on PubPeer:

“To the best of my knowledge, the declaration applies to activities where the value of each benefit is equal to or exceeds €10 including VAT. However, in the context of my involvement with SILON Tx, I do not receive any remuneration.”

The PubPeer user reminded Taieb that he is Silon’s cofounder, stakeholder and CMO and that never mind how much he earned in cash, “under French regulations (Article D1453-1 related to Law n°2011-2012, codified in article L.1453-1 of the French Code de la Santé Publique), advantages must also be publicly disclosed.” And that despite his more than 250 research papers, around 30 publications in 2024 alone, he never disclosed his conflict of interest as Silon co-founder and CMO.

Taieb kept blathering back that his “role as CMO at this stage is quite limited and does not involve any financial compensation or qualitative benefits“, and this:

This is exactly what I saw elsewhere, when the German surgeon Axel Haverich insisted to have no conflicts of Interests whatsoever in his clinical studies which used artificial heart valve manufactured by his own company, Corlife, a spin-off from Haverich’s university, the Hannover Medical School (MHH). The official explanation from Corlife, which was accepted by MHH, was:

“it was not predictable if the relevant approval application will be successful. […] Therefore, there was no potential conflict of interest with this publication”

Read here:

You see, professors who start a company think they will have no conflicts of interests as long as their company doesn’t earn them a certain amount in cash. Until then, they publish research papers advertising for their products pretendign to be totally unbiased and unconflicted, exactly to stimulate financial investments and regulatory approvals so that the money starts to roll.

What more can I say? Which part of this academic logic don’t you understand?

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Retraction Watchdogging

Oncotarget has completed its investigation

Almost 2 years after the German cancer researcher Ingrid Herr, professor at the Universiyt Clinic Heidelberg, announced to retract an Oncotarget paper, it was finally retracted. Read the relevant guest post by Herr from August 2023:

Here is that paper:

Clifford C. Nwaeburu, Natalie Bauer, Zhefu Zhao, Alia Abukiwan, Jury Gladkich, Axel Benner, Ingrid Herr Up-regulation of microRNA let-7c by quercetin inhibits pancreatic cancer progression by activation of Numbl Oncotarget (2016) doi: 10.18632/ oncotarget.11122 

In August 2023, Herr announced an immediate retraction on PubPeer:

“Unfortunately, neither I, nor our internal review, nor the external reviewers saw these duplicate images before submitting the manuscript. There is extensive raw data and I don’t understand why the former PhD student is showing duplicates here at all. Now, however, there is no more pardon. I will withdraw this manuscript immediately.“

The first author Clifford Nwaeburu however posted something different, about “representative images” that “have no impact on the overall results“, and co-signed with Herr’s name, against which she immediatedly protested.

Almost 2 years passed and the “immediate” retraction finally arrived, on 25 June 2025. The journal editors plagiarised all PubPeer findings and claimed credit to themselves:

“This article has been retracted: Oncotarget has completed its investigation of this article, which determined that many instances of image overlap and duplication compromise the integrity of the presented data and findings. Wound healing assay Images from different treatment groups of different cell lines were the result of manipulations with a few initial images. Specifically, in Figure 3D, the 0-hour timepoint images one and two appear to be duplicates of images two and four, respectively. Furthermore, three images of AsPC-1 cells in Figure 3D at the 24-hour and 48-hour timepoints seem to be duplicates of three images of AsanPaCa cells found in Supplementary Figure 1E. Upon further review of Supplementary Figure 1E, we identified internal duplications at the 0-hour timepoint for both AsanPaCa cells (images 1 and 3 are duplicates of images 2 and 4) and PANC 1 cells (the top three images are duplicates). In addition, we have found duplications within the colony formation assay images presented in Figures 3 A-C. In Figure 3A, the last two images, representing different treatments, are duplicates. Moreover, the third image of Asan PaCa cells in Figure 3B appears to be a duplicate of the fourth image of PANC 1 cells in Figure 3C. First author Clifford Nwaeburu provided corrected files for a new Figure S1 and Figure 3, but these did not resolve all the issues noted. Corresponding author Ingrid Herr contacted Onoctarget regarding the remaining image duplications and requested retraction of the article. Based on these circumstances, the Editorial decision was made to retract this paper. All authors except the first author, Clifford C. Nwaeburu, agreed with the decision.”

It was the second retraction for Nwaeburu, after Nwaeburu et al 2017 was retracted by Herr in August 2023. I wonder how that awful journal Oncotarget, run by Mikhail Blagosklonny‘s widow Zoya Demidenko and Blagosklonny’s chosen successor (hopefully only as Editor-in-Chief!), the disastrous Wafik El-Deiry, finally agreed to retract that other paper.

Anyway, Ingrid Herr, who is a mentee of Klaus-Michael Debatin, has further papers on PubPeer, almost 20 of them, see for example February 2024 Shorts. To be fair, Herr did issue at least corrections, maybe not always suitable ones. Like this one in Oncotarget:

Yiyao Zhang , Li Liu , Pei Fan , Nathalie Bauer , Jury Gladkich , Eduard Ryschich , Alexandr V. Bazhin , Nathalia A. Giese , Oliver Strobel , Thilo Hackert , Ulf Hinz , Wolfgang Gross , Franco Fortunato , Ingrid Herr Aspirin counteracts cancer stem cell features, desmoplasia and gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer Oncotarget (2015) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.3171 

The coauthors include Herr’s former Heidelberg colleagues Thilo Hackert and Alexandr Bazhin, her past experience with the latter actually promted Herr to write that guest post for me. The July 2024 Correction spoke of “accidental duplicates” which of course “do not change the results or conclusions of this paper.”

Also this was corrected:

Nikolaus Gassler, Ingrid Herr, Martina Keith , Frank Autschbach , Hubertus Schmitz-Winnenthal , Alexis Ulrich , Herwart Otto , Jürgen Kartenbeck , Kaspar Z’graggen Wnt-signaling and apoptosis after neoadjuvant short-term radiotherapy for rectal cancer International Journal of Oncology (2004) doi: 10.3892/ijo.25.6.1543

Herr however insisted on PubPeer that “the tissue sections were unusually ultra-thin: 2 µm” and “a significant structural similarity of consecutive sections stained with different antibodies can be anticipated.” Soon after, she admitted that “indeed an incorrect figure was accidently published” and that “An erratum will be promptly published.” Indeed, a Corrigendum appeared 2 months later in October 2023.

Here, coauthored by Nwaeburu and Hackert, a corrigendum was announced in August 2023, but failed to materilise so far:

Yefeng Yin , Li Liu , Zhefu Zhao , Libo Yin , Nathalie Bauer, Clifford C. Nwaeburu , Jury Gladkich , Wolfgang Gross, Thilo Hackert , Carsten Sticht, Norbert Gretz, Oliver Strobel, Ingrid Herr Simvastatin inhibits sonic hedgehog signaling and stemness features of pancreatic cancer Cancer Letters (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2018.04.001

Also this still awaits a possible correction:

Yiqiao Luo, Bin Yan, Li Liu , Libo Yin, Huihui Ji , Xuefeng An, Jury Gladkich, Zhimin Qi , Carolina De La Torre, Ingrid Herr Sulforaphane Inhibits the Expression of Long Noncoding RNA H19 and Its Target APOBEC3G and Thereby Pancreatic Cancer Progression Cancers (2021) doi: 10.3390/cancers13040827 

Returning to that russian cheater Bazhin and Oncotarget, what about this one:

Orkhan Isayev , Vanessa Rausch , Nathalie Bauer , Li Liu , Pei Fan , Yiyao Zhang , Jury Gladkich , Clifford C. Nwaeburu , Jürgen Mattern , Martin Mollenhauer , Felix Rückert , Sebastian Zach , Uwe Haberkorn , Wolfgang Gross , Frank Schönsiegel , Alexandr V. Bazhin , Ingrid Herr Inhibition of glucose turnover by 3-bromopyruvate counteracts pancreatic cancer stem cell features and sensitizes cells to gemcitabine Oncotarget (2014) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.2120 

No editorial action, and no PubPeer replies by any of the authors.

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We appreciate your vigilance and commitment

Another retraction in Heidelberg, for another cancer researcher and, as it happens, a collaborator of the aforementioned Thilo Hackert, the long-retired professor of German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Margot Zöller.

Previously, Zöller had to retract a paper she has just succeeded in correcting (read March 2025 Shorts). I reported her gigantic PubPeer record to publishers, and on 26 June 2025 Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team sent me an email, informing me about the retraction and thanking me “for bringing to our attention”. the email ended with:

“We appreciate your vigilance and commitment to maintaining the integrity of the scientific record.”

What luck you can’t see me blushing. Anyway, this is the paper:

Sanyukta Rana , Shijing Yue, Daniela Stadel , Margot Zöller Toward tailored exosomes: the exosomal tetraspanin web contributes to target cell selection The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology (2012) doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2012.06.018 

This is the retraction notice from 26 June 2025:

“Post-publication, an investigation conducted on behalf of the journal by Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team identified a concern around the authenticity of the following figures/image panels:

Analysis verified with high confidence, the blot duplication posted on PubPeer; with additional instances of blot splicing.

• • Figure 1A – the CD151 and neuropilin blots are identical
• • Figure 1B – in the ‘antiCD49c’ IP blots, the tspan8 row has a clear line where the control lane has been spliced into the blot
• • Figure 1C – in the ‘GDF15’ IP blots, the CD9 row has a clear line where both the control lane and the AS-tspan8 lane have been spliced into the blot

The authors were requested to provide comment on these concerns, as well as the original unprocessed image files to aid investigation.

The explanation provided was unsatisfactory in resolving these concerns. The Editor-in-Chief has determined that the findings of the article cannot be relied upon, and has decided to retract the article.”

In March 2025, a reader commented under my relevant article about Zöller, identifying themselves as her former PhD student from “around 2000” period who “could not take it anymore 2 years later“:

“The technique was the usual one (seen in so many labs): refuse any results that were not fitting to the “gut feeling of her majesty”. You were asked to repeat until you got the result she expected and blaming you for everything that did not work her way. But she could change her mind and ask you why you were wasting your time on stupid experiments and refused to admit she asked you to. Most of the time you were left without any clear direction. At some point the threats were coming. She could shift you to a contract were you were less played or just cut the money.

Many students left science after this experience but needed their diploma so they gave her the results she wanted… “

Bullying and bad science always go hand in hand. Quite often the academic bully never needs to personally fake any data to get the result they want. The reader also had this anecdote:

“Margot came to the lab at 7h and left at 23h. Indeed, she was a real nerd. She was feeding on 1 apple and 3 packs of cigarettes a day. She was smoking all the time everywhere in the lab (in the DKFZ!!!) and no one was saying a thing. She was even smoking while working at the laminar flow bench!”

Zöller is now in her 80ies…

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Authenticity of the citations

A paper from Ghana about limitations of ChatGPT was written by ChatGPT and is now retracted.

George Clifford Yamson Immediacy as a better service: Analysis of limitations of the use of ChatGPT in library services Information Development (2023) doi: 10.1177/02666669231206762 

The publisher issued this retraction on 19 June 2025:

“At the request of Sage and the Journal Editors, the following article has been retracted:

Yamson GC (2023) Immediacy as a better service: Analysis of limitations of the use of ChatGPT in library services. Information Development 0(0): https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669231206762.

Concerns regarding the authenticity of the citations in this article were raised to the Journal Editor.

The author was unable to explain the inclusion of the concerning references but wished to review and verify the references cited.

As the references supporting this research can no longer be relied upon, this article has been retracted.

G.C.Y disagrees with the decision.”

Smut Clyde, who found this retraction, assumes that ChatGPT fabricated some non-existent references.

Happens to the best and brightest of people [-sarcasm trigger warning-], see US Secretary of Health, the murderous psychopath Robert F Kennedy Jr, and his “Make America Healthy Again”.

As Notus reported on 29 May 2025:

“Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says his “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report harnesses “gold-standard” science, citing more than 500 studies and other sources to back up its claims. Those citations, though, are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions.

Seven of the cited sources don’t appear to exist at all. […]

A section describing the “corporate capture of media” highlights two studies that it says are “broadly illustrative” of how a rise in direct-to-consumer drug advertisements has led to more prescriptions being written for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids.

The catch? Neither of those studies is anywhere to be found. Here are the two citations:

Shah, M. B., et al. (2008). Direct-to-consumer advertising and the rise in ADHD medication use among children. Pediatrics, 122(5), e1055- e1060.

Findling, R. L., et al. (2009). Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 19(5), 487-492.

Those articles don’t appear in the table of contents for the journals listed in their citations. […]

The administration updated the MAHA report to remove the seven references to reports that do not exist.”

And will you be surprised that RFK Jr and his imps continued in this vein?

CDC ACIP presentation tomorrow on thimerosal. http://www.cdc.gov/acip/downloa…Does Page 20 have a fake citation?

— Dr. David Boulware, MD MPH (@drboulware.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T19:33:20.015Z

The new Trumpian CDC either invented or asked a LLM like ChatGPT to invent a paper about the neurotoxicity of vaccine preservative thimerosal, Berman et al 2008, which shows the exact opposite that its real-life original.

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