Schneider Shorts 12.09.2025 – For artistic and illustration purposes only

Schneider Shorts of 12 September 2025 – obituary for the great protector of women in science, concerns for another woman in science (also at MIT), first retraction to break the ice in Germany, with a Swedish papermiller, some cancer researchers in the UK, and finally, with a brainlessly shameful correction.

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Obituaries

A science policy visionary

David Baltimore, the MIT professor, founding director of the Whitehead Institute and laureate of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is dead. He died on 6 September 2025, aged 87. MIT wrote:

“The longtime MIT professor and Nobel laureate was a globally respected researcher, academic leader, and science policy visionary who guided the careers of generations of scientists.”

His death is being lamented by all media all over the world now, but I want to recall here Baltimore’s greatest scientific achievements: making science fraud in USA a standard of science and painting science fraudsters as innocent victims of persecution by whistleblowers, who are nothing but rotten failed envious losers. Baltimore even engaged a book author, Daniel Kelves, to spend countless pages of his book “The Baltimore Case” defending Baltimore’s lady friend and science cheater Thereza Imanishi-Kari, and viciously smearing the whistleblower postdoc Margot O’Toole, whose scientific career was successfully destroyed in retaliation. Read here:

Basically, O’Toole proved that Imanishi-Kari faked the data in her Cell paper Weaver et al 1986, where Baltimore was last author. At that time the Nobel laureate was the President of Rockefeller University, Imanishi-Kari was his, uhm, let’s say mentee. He then started a two-pronged approach: destroying O’Toole and her credibility while saving Imanishi-Kari and their common paper, with a fraudulent correction to it in November 1988.

In 1994, Imanishi-Kari was however found guilty of research misconduct by the newly established HHS-ORI and barred from federal research for ten years. Prior to that a retraction was ordered, which took place in May 1991 with baltomore’s but without Imanishi-Kari’s approval.

But Baltimore unleashed lawyers and political networks, the HHS-OR investigator Suzanne Hadley was fired, erased and smeared by the new NIH director as “the Gestapo”. In 1997, all misconduct findings against Baltimore’s lady friend were overthrown, Imanishi-Kari was acquitted in full, Baltimore even succeeded in having that Cell paper de-retracted.

Baltimore’s behaviour in this affair must have been so awful that he had to leave the Rockefeller University. He returned to MIT. His loyal pitbull Kelves was rewarded with a professorship for science history in Yale. Imanishi-Kari is still associate professor at Tufts University.

Baltimore continued with his great science at MIT. Elisabeth Bik analysed this Science paper, which received a hidden Correction in 2007:

Alexander Hoffmann, Andre Levchenko, Martin L Scott, David Baltimore The Ikappa B-NF-kappa B Signaling Module: Temporal Control and Selective Gene Activation Science (2002) doi: 10.1126/science.1071914

This was “Contributed by David Baltimore“ as National Academy of Sciences member:

Brian Zarnegar, Jeannie Q He, Gagik Oganesyan, Alexander Hoffmann, David Baltimore, Genhong Cheng Unique CD40-mediated biological program in B cell activation requires both type 1 and type 2 NF-kappaB activation pathways Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2004) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0402629101

In 2005, Baltimore’s former mentee and MIT associate professor Luk van Parijs admitted to fraud and was fired. He was then found guilty by HHS-ORI in 2009 of having “engaged in scientific misconduct by including false data in seven published papers, three submitted papers (with two earlier versions submitted for one of
these), one submitted book chapter, and multiple presentations “. Five of his papers, all in the journal Immunity, and two of them with Baltimore as last author, were retracted. In 2011, Science reported that van Parijs “pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in Boston to one count of making a false statement on a federal grant application.“. Baltimore was never mentioned, also not in the Retraction Watch‘s coverage of van Parijs’ retractions.

Allow me to end with an advice to young women in science facing sexual harassment from their superiors – from Baltimore’s widow, Caltech professor, and former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Alice Huang:

“Imagine what life would be like if there were no individuals of the opposite—or preferred—sex. It would be pretty dull, eh? Well, like it or not, the workplace is a part of life. […] I don’t mean to suggest that leering is appropriate workplace behavior—it isn’t—but it is human and up to a point, I think, forgivable. Certainly there are worse things […]
As long as your adviser does not move on to other advances, I suggest you put up with it, with good humor if you can. Just make sure that he is listening to you and your ideas, taking in the results you are presenting, and taking your science seriously. His attention on your chest may be unwelcome, but you need his attention on your science and his best advice.“

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Science Elites

A great asset to our community

Another old white male professor suffers from Geriatric Obsessive-Compulsive Papermilling Syndrome (GOCPS).

Meet Bengt Sundén, emeritus professor and former department head at the Lund University in Sweden. In 2019, Elsevier’s International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer published a Festschrift by his former mentees, titled: “Professor Bengt Sundén on his 70th Birthday“:

As Maarten van Kampen noted, Sunden published between his 70th and 75th birthday 50 papers per year, with mostly Chinese co-authors. Like this:

Jian Ai , Jie Xue , Jiabang Yu , Xinyu Huang , Pan Wei , Xiaohu Yang , Bengt Sundén Heat and Humidity Transport Analysis Inside a Special Underground Building Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer (2023) doi: 10.32604/fhmt.2023.045134

But not only Chinese! There are also Iranians. Look, here is Sunden with papermill giants Nader Karimi, Omid Mahian, Abdul Ghani Olabi and others:

Saman Rashidi , Nader Karimi, Bengt Sunden, Kyung Chun Kim , Abdul Ghani Olabi , Omid Mahian Progress and challenges on the thermal management of electrochemical energy conversion and storage technologies: Fuel cells, electrolysers, and supercapacitors Progress in Energy and Combustion Science (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.pecs.2021.100966 

Karimi and Olabi most recently featured here:

Here is Sunden with the papermiller Davood Domiri Ganji, excessively citing another papermiller, Tasawar Hayat:

Alireza Rahbari, Morteza Abbasi , Iman Rahimipetroudi , Bengt Sundén , Davood Domiri Ganji , Mehdi Gholami Heat transfer and MHD flow of non-newtonian Maxwell fluid through a parallel plate channel: analytical and numerical solution Mechanical Sciences (2018) doi: 10.5194/ms-9-61-2018 

I trust that until his 80th birthday in 2029, Sunden will be able to raise his scientific output to at least 100 papers per year.

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Lenin’s Komsomol Prize

Let us celebrate another old man, this time a russian in England!

Grigory Dianov is emeritus professor at the University of Oxford and former Head of Biochemistry at the CRUK/MRC Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology, he retired in 2018. The university informs us:

“He obtained his Doctor of Biological Sciences degree from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the age of 36 to become the youngest Doctor of Biological Sciences in the country. The same year Grigory was awarded Lenin’s Komsomol Prize,”

Note: “Doctor of sciences” degree in USSR was the equivalent of German “habilitation“, which is a highle-level degree, entitling to full professorship (the PhD graduate is a “Candidate of sciences” in russian). And here is another laureate of the Lenin’s Komsomol Prize, Alexander Kabanov, who also went west, to USA:

Thanks to the pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis, Dianov now has a modest yet problematic PubPeer record of 7 papers. Oxford also says this about our russian hero:

“Dr Dianov moved to England and from 1990 – 1993 worked as a Senior Fellow at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London) with Dr. Tomas Lindahl (2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for DNA Repair mechanisms), where he worked on the basic mechanisms of DNA repair and genome stability. One of Grigory’s papers published jointly with Dr. Lindahl was cited in the Nobel Prize Committee’s justification for the Nobel Prize. In 1993 Grigory moved to the United States where he continue his work on DNA repair as a visiting Professor at the Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas with Dr. Errol Friedberg, a legendary figure in DNA repair field and later as a Senior Fellow with Dr. Vilhelm Bohr (National Institute on Ageing, NIH, Baltimore) where he investigated the role of DNA repair in ageing.”

Right, Nobel offspring Vilhelm Bohr will get his own Nobel Prize very soon, for curing old age…

In 2000, Dianov returned to England, where he produced great science like this:

Svetlana V. Khoronenkova , Irina I. Dianova , Nicola Ternette , Benedikt M. Kessler , Jason L. Parsons , Grigory L. Dianov ATM-dependent downregulation of USP7/HAUSP by PPM1G activates p53 response to DNA damage Molecular Cell (2012) doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2012.01.021 

The coauthor above, Irina Dianova, must be Dianov’s wife. His mentee Svetlana Khoronenkova is now group leader at the University of Cambridge. His other, non-russian mentee Jason Parsons is now Chair of Radiobiology at the University of Birmingham. Here they are all again:

Giulia Orlando , Svetlana V. Khoronenkova , Irina I. Dianova , Jason L. Parsons , Grigory L. Dianov ARF induction in response to DNA strand breaks is regulated by PARP1 Nucleic Acids Research (2014) doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt1185 

Another paper by Dianov’s lab, parsons is first author:

Jason L. Parsons , Phillip S. Tait , David Finch , Irina I. Dianova , Sarah L. Allinson , Grigory L. Dianov CHIP-mediated degradation and DNA damage-dependent stabilization regulate base excision repair proteins Molecular Cell (2008) doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2007.12.027 

Then there are inappropriately spliced gels, which may seem to some a sa non-issue, but this renders the entire figure useless at best. And fake at worst.

And another one:

Garth Hamilton , Aswin G. Abraham , Jennifer Morton , Oliver Sampson , Dafni E. Pefani , Svetlana Khoronenkova , Anna Grawenda , Angelos Papaspyropoulos , Nigel Jamieson , Colin McKay , Owen Sansom , Grigory L. Dianov , Eric O’Neill AKT regulates NPM dependent ARF localization and p53mut stability in tumors Oncotarget (2014) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.2178 

In February 2014, Dianov became adjunct professor and member of the International Supervisory Board at his russian alma mater, the University of Novosibirsk. He deepened his collaboration with russia as it annexed Crimea and waged the separatist war in eastern Ukraine. In 2016, Dianov entered a consulting relationship with the genomics company Genotek in Moscow. He continued publishing with russian colleagues, and the University of Oxford proudly informs us today:

“Grigory is […] a frequent reviewer for the Grants Council of the Russian Federation Government”

I wrote to Dianov’s Oxford email account, which turned out to be defunct.

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Exceptional research contributions

We remain in Britain, in Wales in particular. The following studies of regenerative dentistry were done at the University of Cardiff by professor of tissue repair Ryan Moseley together with his former Head of School and Dean, Alastair Sloan. Who is since 2020 far away in Australia, as Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research Collaboration of the University of Melbourne.

Nadia Y A Alaidaroos , Amr Alraies , Rachel J Waddington , Alastair J Sloan , Ryan Moseley Differential SOD2 and GSTZ1 profiles contribute to contrasting dental pulp stem cell susceptibilities to oxidative damage and premature senescence Stem Cell Research & Therapy (2021) doi: 10.1186/s13287-021-02209-9 

Their coauthor Rachel O’Brien-Waddington is professor of oral biochemistry and Director of Staff Wellbeing and Development at the Cardiff University. I wish they had a Director for Data Wellbeing in Cardiff, but no, they like their research data being fake there, read here:

Here another joint paper, again flagged by Claire Francis. It is a rat study with bone marrow cells for degenerative medicine, Sloan was still Dean of School of Dentistry in Cardiff:

Norhayati Yusop , Paul Battersby , Amr Alraies , Alastair J. Sloan , Ryan Moseley , Rachel J. Waddington Isolation and Characterisation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Rat Bone Marrow and the Endosteal Niche: A Comparative Study Stem Cells International (2018) doi: 10.1155/2018/6869128 

Before they blame Waddington, she is not on this one, something about pomegranate peels for oral wound healing:

Vildan Celiksoy , Rachael L. Moses , Alastair J. Sloan , Ryan Moseley , Charles M. Heard Evaluation of the In Vitro Oral Wound Healing Effects of Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Rind Extract and Punicalagin, in Combination with Zn (II) Biomolecules (2020) doi: 10.3390/biom10091234 

Here an image from an older paper wandered into one of Sloan’s younger papers, where the then-Cardiff Dean declared an additional affiliation with the Fourth Military Medical University in China:

Amr Alraies , Nadia Y. A. Alaidaroos , Rachel J. Waddington , Ryan Moseley , Alastair J. Sloan Variation in human dental pulp stem cell ageing profiles reflect contrasting proliferative and regenerative capabilities BMC Cell Biology (2017) doi: 10.1186/s12860-017-0128-x 

Sloan is also Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching (ANZCCART), and Vice-President of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), Australia and New Zealand Division. We are told that in 2022, Sloan received the IADR Distinguished Scientist Award for his “his exceptional research contributions“.

I wrote to Moseley, Sloan and Waddington, but nobody replied.

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Scholarly Publishing

For illustration purposes only

Eliezer Masliah was exposed as a research fraudster by Mu Yang and her colleagues, then sacked by NIH and found guilty of research misconduct. Several of his papers were retracted. But some journal editors still feel it is the sleuths who are the baddies.

This Masliah paper, authored by members of his usual team led by now-deceased Edward Rockenstein, was published in a journal by Oxford University Press, was corrected now, almost a year after it was flagged by Mu Yang on PubPeer and reported to the journal in September 2024:

Edward Rockenstein , Silke Nuber , Cassia R. Overk , Kiren Ubhi , Michael Mante , Christina Patrick , Anthony Adame , Margarita Trejo-Morales , Juan Gerez , Paola Picotti , Poul H. Jensen , Silvia Campioni , Roland Riek , Jürgen Winkler , Fred H. Gage , Beate Winner , Eliezer Masliah Accumulation of oligomer-prone α-synuclein exacerbates synaptic and neuronal degeneration in vivo Brain (2014) doi: 10.1093/brain/awu057 

The Correction from 24 June 2025 went (highlights mine):

“The authors would like to apologize for errors in Figs 2, 5 and 9 of the original published article. In Fig. 2E, in the Fila1 row, Lines 9 and 16 were duplicated during figure preparation. In Fig. 5B, an incorrect image was used to represent the E57K tg Line 9 pSer129 condition. In Fig. 9C, in the first and third panels of the Non-tg section, a processing issue occurred while preparing the figure.

These figures were for illustration purposes and the errors do not change the results or conclusions.

These details have been corrected in this correction notice to preserve the published version of record.”

The authors didn’t just replace the figures. They digitally edited them to remove the duplications inside the images! This however resulted in new duplications:

On board of this paper are two German professors: Beate Winner and Jürgen Winkler of University Clinic Erlangen (they have several more problematic papers on PubPeer, not only with Masliah). In 2023, Winkler assured me regarding another common paper with cloned gel bands and duplicated images (Minakaki et al 2018, read below):

“we will make every effort to resolve this first internally and then externally“.

Two years on, the Minakaki paper was never even corrected, maybe that’s because as Vice-Dean for Sustainability, Winkler doesn’t like throwing things away, especially things made from recycled materials.

You see how much effort Winkler put into resolving the problem with the Brain paper. Other coauthors are less-regular: a Swiss professor (Roland Riek of ETH Zürich), and a Danish professor (Poul Jensen of Aarhus University).

And then there is Fred “Rusty” Gage, the former President of the Salk Institute, who is an extremely powerful person in US neuroscience. Gage is in fact so powerful that his mini-brained mentee Alysson Muotri at UC San Diego gets showered with money (even from NASA) and celebrated for whatever new mini-brain stupidity that clown presses into some elite journal, all likely thanks to Gage’s string-pulling. Read here:

On 4 September 2025, Mu Yang protested about that bizarre correction to the Editor-in-Chief Masud Husain, professor at the University of Oxford in UK:

“I would really love to understand the mechanisms of these clones —both in terms of how they occurred in the first place, and how the images were fixed in the correction. I am sure your guidance on the science and technicalities of this matter will be extremely valuable.”

Husain replied on 7 September with questions of his own:

“Dear Dr Yang

Thank you for your email.

• Have you emailed the authors to put your query to them?
• Would you have any objections to us forwarding your message to them? Or would and your colleagues prefer to be anonymous?
• Finally, do you have any conflict of interest in this matter?”

The first and second points are somewhat insane. Husain really seems to believe that the publisher pays him as Editor-in-Chief to protect science fraudsters from sleuthing pests.

The reference to “conflict of interest” insinuates that Mu must be exposing fraudsters to enrich herself, because a professional academic will never lift a finger to do anything unless there’s financial reward.

But then again, Husain is an expert in apathy.

Anyway, as indicated above, here are more fake papers by Masliah with his German friends Winner & Winkler (should be the name of a cartoon series).

Leslie Crews , Hideya Mizuno , Paula Desplats , Edward Rockenstein , Anthony Adame , Christina Patrick , Beate Winner , Juergen Winkler, Eliezer Masliah Alpha-synuclein alters Notch-1 expression and neurogenesis in mouse embryonic stem cells and in the hippocampus of transgenic mice Journal of Neuroscience (2008) doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.0066-08.2008

And again Winner & Winkler with Masliah’s gang:

Zacharias Kohl , Beate Winner , Kiren Ubhi , Edward Rockenstein , Michael Mante , Martina Münch , Carolee Barlow , Todd Carter , Eliezer Masliah , Jürgen Winkler Fluoxetine rescues impaired hippocampal neurogenesis in a transgenic A53T synuclein mouse model European Journal of Neuroscience (2012) doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07933.x 

Winner & Winkler, with many other Germans and Rusty Gage, yet no Masliah to blame:

Himanshu K Mishra , Iryna Prots , Steven Havlicek , Zacharias Kohl , Francesc Perez-Branguli , Tom Boerstler , Lukas Anneser , Georgia Minakaki , Holger Wend , Martin Hampl , Marina Leone , Martina Brückner , Jochen Klucken , Andre Reis , Leah Boyer , Gerhard Schuierer , Jürgen Behrens , Angelika Lampert , Felix B Engel , Fred H Gage , Jürgen Winkler, Beate Winner GSK3ß-dependent dysregulation of neurodevelopment in SPG11-patient induced pluripotent stem cell model Annals of Neurology (2016) doi: 10.1002/ana.24633 

No Masliah to blame here either for Winner & Winkler:

Franz Marxreiter , Silke Nuber , Mahesh Kandasamy , Jochen Klucken , Robert Aigner , Ralf Burgmayer , Sebastien Couillard-Despres , Olaf Riess , Jürgen Winkler , Beate Winner Changes in adult olfactory bulb neurogenesis in mice expressing the A30P mutant form of alpha-synuclein European Journal of Neuroscience (2009) doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06641.x 

I asked WordPress AI to make a picture of the cartoon characters Winner & Winkler:

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For artistic purposes only

An Expression of concern for Li-Huei Tsai, fellow of academies in USA and China, Director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, Boston, USA. In September 2023 Shorts I wrote about some bad papers by Tsai and how EMBO Press declared to do absolutley nothing for Kim et a 2007, with David Sinclair!) that “At this resolution the bands are not definitely identical” and that “in our assessment the conclusion stands irrespective of the datapoints“.

Naturally, there are other bad papers by Tsai on PubPeer. This Nature paper helped its first author Tsai’s German mentee, Andre Fischer, to became full professor at the University of Göttingen in Germany. Today, Fischer and his university list it as one of his most important scientific achievements:

The paper was first criticised on PubPeer in 2017:

Andre Fischer, Farahnaz Sananbenesi , Xinyu Wang , Matthew Dobbin , Li-Huei Tsai Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling Nature (2007) doi: 10.1038/nature05772 

More was found in February 2025:

On 10 September 2025, Nature issued a paywalled Expression of Concern, maybe COPE’s guidelines about the need of Open Access for such editorial notices have changed?

“The Editors would like to alert the readers that concerns were raised regarding highly similar images in this article. Specifically:

• Fig. 1e β-catenin (lanes 2-3) and Supplementary Fig. 3h N-cadherin (lanes 1-2) appear highly similar;
• Supplementary Fig. 2e cortex β-catenin and Supplementary Fig. 3h N-cadherin (lanes 1-2) appear highly similar with different exposure;
• Supplementary Fig. 3g NeuN middle and right images appear to overlap (flipped horizontally);
• Supplementary Fig. 3d GAP43 (lanes 2-3) and Supplementary Fig. 4e actin appear highly similar;
• Supplementary Fig. 4e N-cadherin SB and B-catenin SB appear highly similar (flipped horizontally and stretched vertically). “

Due to the age of the article, the authors have been unable to sufficiently address these concerns. While the main conclusions of the article remain supported by the rest of the data in the article, as well as subsequent studies, readers are advised to interpret the data listed above with caution.”

I made some illustrations:

Normally this travesty would be retracted, but you can’t do this to an MIT professor.

By the way, Fischer is also Speaker of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) at its Göttingen iste, worth noting that the Director of DZNE itself (in Bonn) is the cheater Pierluigi Nicotera, read about him here:

Returning to Tsai, here are more of her bad papers (next to those already discussed in September 2023 Shorts):

Asaf Marco, Hiruy S. Meharena , Vishnu Dileep , Ravikiran M. Raju , Jose Davila-Velderrain , Amy Letao Zhang , Chinnakkaruppan Adaikkan, Jennie Z. Young , Fan Gao , Manolis Kellis , Li-Huei Tsai Mapping the epigenomic and transcriptomic interplay during memory formation and recall in the hippocampal engram ensemble Nature Neuroscience (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41593-020-00717-0 

 

But there is no need for Nature to act on this journal, because you see, Tsai explained (highlights hers):

“Because FACS nuclei isolation exhausts the tissue, the brains processed for sequencing could not also be used for histology; so we re-used an unrelated micrograph for artistic purposes only. It is not intended to convey, imply, or summarize experimental outcomes.”

This was supposed to be left in peace, but then Cell Press had to at least issue a correction:

Karun K. Singh , Gianluca De Rienzo , Laurel Drane , Yingwei Mao , Zachary Flood , Jon Madison, Manuel Ferreira , Sarah Bergen, Cillian King , Pamela Sklar , Hazel Sive, Li-Huei Tsai Common DISC1 polymorphisms disrupt Wnt/GSK3β signaling and brain development Neuron (2011) doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.09.030

In April 2018, Tsai announced on PubPeer to be “working with the journal to resolve this issue as soon as possible.” But then she lost interest. In february 2025, new evidence arrived:

A long Correction was published on 21 May 2025 (and covered by Retraction Watch):

“We were made aware of duplication errors in Figures 2A, 2B, 3B, 3C, S2A, and S2B in our published article. We carefully investigated our data by comparing the display figures to our source data, and this brought to light a mislabeled western blot film for Figure 2 and inadvertent mistakes made during the construction of cropped versions of Figures 3 and S2. […]”

In August 2025, the PubPeer user Yong‐Chang Zhou noticed that the Correction was frauudlent:

This one was at least easy to fix:

Damien Rei , Xenos Mason , Jinsoo Seo , Johannes Gräff , Andrii Rudenko , Jun Wang , Richard Rueda , Sandra Siegert , Sukhee Cho , Rebecca G. Canter , Alison E. Mungenast , Karl Deisseroth , Li-Huei Tsai Basolateral amygdala bidirectionally modulates stress-induced hippocampal learning and memory deficits through a p25/Cdk5-dependent pathway Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2015) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1415845112 

In February 2025, Tsai announced to be “actively searching for the original, uncropped scans, as well as documentation” and to be “committed to maintaining scientific integrity“. The Correction appeared on 14 August 2025:

“The authors note that SI Appendix, Fig. S1G appeared incorrectly: “The β-Tub. blot from Fig. 1B was inadvertently duplicated in SI Appendix, Fig. S1G. We have identified the original films for the Western blots for both Fig. 1B and SI Appendix, Fig. S1G and confirmed the original synaptophysin (SYP) and β-Tub. blots depicted in SI Appendix, Fig. S1G were incorrect. We regret this error.””

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Retraction Watchdogging

Multiple simultaneous studies

The British nanotechnologist and cancer healer Gareth Williams, professor of pharmaceutical materials science at UCL, earns his first retraction, hopefully with many more to come. After all, the man built a spectacular career on little else but coauthorships on fake papers with his Chinese collaborators. Read here:

The above article discusses papers by Williams and his associate, Li-Min Zhu. This one was flagged on PubPeer by Sholto David in July 2025:

Ying Wang , Gareth R. Williams , Yilu Zheng , Honghua Guo , Shiyan Chen , Rong Ren , Tong Wang , Jindong Xia, Li-Min Zhu Polydopamine-cloaked Fe-based metal organic frameworks enable synergistic multidimensional treatment of osteosarcoma Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.146 

The Retraction was issued by Elsevier already on 3 September 2025:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief and the authors. Specifically, the authors have requested retraction based on image overlaps in several figures:

1. Figure 4A: III + X-ray and IV + X-ray groups
2. Figure 4D(b): Free Rhm B and L-Arg/Rhm B@MOF(Fe) groups
3. Figure 5A: II + X-ray, IV + X-ray, and VI + X-ray groups
4. Figure 5C: Free D-Arg + X-ray and I + X-ray groups
5. Figure 8: V and VI groups in the Ki67 staining

The Editor-in-Chief has confirmed the occurrence of identical image elements claimed in the article to describe results for different samples. The authors state that the origin of this is mistakes caused due to multiple simultaneous studies. The journal cannot, however, exclude either gross negligence or ethical misconduct. This multiple occurrence of potential image and data manipulation undermines the credibility and reliability of the experimental data presented in the manuscript, as well as the validity of the conclusions drawn from it. Apologies are offered to readers of the journal.”

UCL is presumably investigating, although they already hinted to whitewash Williams as a victim of foreign fraud, if all else fails that is.

Williams has over 40 fake papers on PubPeer. Zhu has over 30 papers on PubPeer, most of them with Williams. Despite Williams having sworn never to work with Chinese cheaters again, he and Zhu just published another paper in the same Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, announcing “an innovative route for targeted tumor metalloimmunotherapy” (Xu et al 2025). That in addition to several other freshly issued joint publications by Williams and Zhu.

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Part of a series

Congratulations to the German geniuses of cancer research, Simone Fulda and her former mentor at the University of Ulm, Klaus Michael Debatin, on their first retraction. As reminder, Fulda was removed as President of the University of Kiel, then whitewashed by her past employers, the Universities of Frankfurt and Ulm, then, just when they felt they won and ready to sue everyone for reputational and financial damage, she and Debatin were found guilty of research misconduct by the German Research Council (DFG, read July 2025 Shorts).

Being a rich German professor with networks and expensive lawyers is generally the best retraction insurance, and indeed, so far Fulda and Debatin managed to weasel themselves out of retractions, the worst so far were some expressions of concern, read here:

But here is their first, for self-plagiarism. A reader flagged this paper in May 2025 on PubPeer as a copy of Fulda & Debatin Current Pharmacogenomics 2003, and notified the editors.

Simone Fulda, Klaus-Michael Debatin Modulation of apoptosis signaling for cancer therapy Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis (2006) doi: 10.1007/s00005-006-0019-x 

“The review “Modulation of apoptosis signaling for cancer therapy” (first published: 2006) appears to be part of a series of reviews between 2001 and 2008 by Simone Fulda and Klaus-Michael Debatin that substantially reuse previously published material without appropriate citation.“

Felimare zebra

The Retraction appeared on 6 August 2025:

“A significant overlap (78%) occurs between the mentioned above article and the article entitled „Apoptosis in drug response”, Current Pharmacogenomics
1, 9–16 (2003), by the same authors, who did not respond to our request for comments. The article is therefore retracted.”

Here are two more reincarnations of this same review, one wonders what will happen to them:

• Simone Fulda, Klaus-Michael Debatin Genes Involved in Apoptosis Regulation: Implications for Cancer Therapy Current Genomics (2005) doi: 10.2174/138920205775811407 
• Simone Fulda, Klaus-Michael Debatin Apoptosis Signaling in Tumor Therapy Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2004) doi: 10.1196/annals.1322.016 

By the way, my reader foudn this PowerPoint presentation from Debatin, titled “Scientific fraud/sloppiness in data handling/data reproducibilty“. You see, Debatin used to be not only DFG Senator, but also the Ombudsman for research integrity at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, thus nobody say Germans have no sense of humour.

In that presentation, Debatin discussed several science fraud cases, including the Cell paper by David Baltimore and Thereza Imanishi-Kari (“Sloppyness in data handling vs. faking data“). He also addressed the case of cancer researchers Friedhelm Herrmann and Marion Brach as “The major german scandal in biomedicine leading to the so far largest investigation of scientific fraud in Germany with subsequent action by the DFG and universities“. Debatin lamented there: “All fakes escaped the reviewers attention“.

This dude, eh?

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Moltan metal, Furnce cover!

Grzegorz Krolczyk almost became the boss of all science in Poland. But then my reporting exposed this nanotechnology professor as papermiller, the Polish media picked up the story, Polish politicians interfered, Krolczyk stepped down as already appointed chair of governmental commission, then as vice rector of his Opole University of Technology, and he is probably not yet done rolling downhill into the ditch.

Now yet another retraction for the papermill rabbit, and look what celebrity coauthors he has! The legendary Chinese papermiller and citation scammer Changhe Li! The Egyptian papermill fraudster Sayed M Tag El Din who writes his name in many different ways so he can peer-review his own papers!

Ravinder Kumar , Kanishka Jha , Shubham Sharma, Vineet Kumar , Changhe Li , Elsayed Mohamed Tag Eldin, S. Rajkumar , G. Królczyk Effect of particle size and weight fraction of SiC on the mechanical, tribological, morphological, and structural properties of Al-5.6Zn-2.2Mg-1.3Cu composites using RSM: fabrication, characterization, and modelling Heliyon (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10602 

The retraction was recorded by Elsevier on 4 September 2025 and was for different reasons than the fake Fig 5:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor.

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:

• Figure 7 from the current article and Figure 5 from the article published in Materials & Design by some of the same authors of the current article and which was available online prior to the current article having been submitted to Heliyon appear to depict the same source image, but are described as representing different experimental samples.
• Figure 12 (b) from the current article and Figure 10 (b) from the article published in Materials & Design by some of the same authors of the current article and which was available online prior to the current article having been submitted to Heliyon appear to depict the same source image, but are described as representing different experimental samples.

Article: Ravinder Kumar, Suresh Dhiman, A study of sliding wear behaviors of Al-7075 alloy and Al-7075 hybrid composite by response surface methodology analysis, Materials & Design, Volume 50, 2013, Pages 351-359, ISSN 0261-3069, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.02.038

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

It was felt that the explanation provided was unsatisfactory in resolving these concerns.

The Editor has determined that the findings of the article cannot be relied upon, and has decided to retract the article.

The authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it.”

Krolczyk was most likely gifted his coauthorship by an Indian friend: Shubham Sharma, who at that time was affiliated with the Opole University of Technology (next to Chandigarh University in India). These days Sharma claims affiliations with Chitkara University in India, Western Caspian University in Azerbaijan, and Jadara University in Jordan, and Lebanese American University in Lebanon.

Sharma also recently retracted two conference proceedings papers, they fell in the publisher’s purge of scamferences, read January 2025 Shorts about E3S conferences. Here one in India called “3^rd International Conference on Applied Research and Engineering (ICARAE2023)“:

• Kahtan A. Mohammed , Sharif Fadhil Abood Al-alawachi , Ameer Ali Hassan , Adel H. Omran Alkhayatt , Mohammad Malik Abood , Mohammed Ayad Alkhafaji , Rahman S. Zabibah , Sameer Algburi , Shubham Sharma The Impact of Polymer Matrix Type On the Optical Properties of Silver Nanocomposites E3S Web of Conferences (2024) doi: 10.1051/e3sconf/202450501017 
• Amer N. Jarad , Ahmed S. Abed , Kahtan A. Mohammed , Rahman S. Zabibah , Mohammed Al-khafaji , Sameer Algburi , Shubham Sharma Preparing and studying of Au Nanocomposites Synthesized with different polymer matrix E3S Web of Conferences (2024) doi: 10.1051/e3sconf/202450501035 

“This proceeding volume has been retracted from the publication because we found some solid reasons to believe that it has infringed our integrity criteria and now presents a risk for our journal and scholarly science in general. Different types of malpractice are involved, in particular citation manipulation and inappropriate references. We are extremely concerned by such malpractice which considerably impacts the image of our title and our Publisher’s reputation.”

Retraction notice

By trying to find out where Sharma works now, I accidentally found proof that Sharma is indeed the papermill salesman, and not just a customer. Here are De Gruyter’s records of authorship changes performed by Sharma as corresponding author (3 authors removed, 4 added):

Maninder Singh , Mukhtiar Singh , Mandeep Singh Rayat , Ajay Sharma , Harjit Singh , Rajeev Kumar , Shubham Sharma , V.K. Bupesh Raja , Abinash Mahapatro , Parveen Kumar , Renu Dhiman , Deepak Gupta , Ehab El Sayed Massoud Corrosion analysis of stainless steel exposed to Karanja oil biodiesel: a comparative study with commercial diesel fuel, surface morphology analysis, and long-term immersion effects in alternative fuels International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering (2025) doi: 10.1515/ijcre-2024-0205 

“As far as the incorporation of the newly added authors, Dr. V.K. Bupesh Raja, Dr. Abinash Mahapatro, Dr. Deepak Gupta, Dr. Ehab El Sayed Massoud are concerned, as they jointly have made substantial contributions during the revisions stage and offering one indispensable testing characterization that the reviewers have asked to perform during revisions stage and additionally, they played a pivotal role in the manuscript by meticulously addressing some of the laborious technical comments of the learnt referees and editors,”

“While as far the removal of one of the co-authors named, Dr. V Nagabhushana Rao, Dr. Rajesh Singh, and Dr. Abhinav Kumar are concerned, as they have not made any sort of valuable contributions and inputs during the initial submissions, in addition, they have not made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; although they have not involved in revised drafting of the work.””

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