Schneider Shorts 21.11.2025 – New metal-organic framework for the delivery of curcumin

Schneider Shorts of 21 November 2025 – with long Shorts about a fountain of youth found in grape seeds, rodents tortured for fake science in Brazil, an Iranian papermill operating from Canada, plus second servings for French couple and a Danish wildlife ecologist.

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Industry Giants

Living to 150 is definitely realistic

On 8 November 2025, The New York Times visited a Chinese anti-aging conference in China and reported exciting news, which were then picked up by the media all over the world. It seems, NYT followed and quoted the US professors and anti-aging entrepreneurs Vadim Gladyshev of Harvard and Steve Horvath of UCLA, who were described as “serious scientists” and “a legend in the field“. Also featuring are David Furman of Buck Institute in Stanford and a certain David Barzilai, “founder of Barzilai Longevity Consulting“, who is most likely the son of another US professor and anti-aging entrepreneur, Nir Barzilai.

So this is the hot story in NYT, turns out the grapeseeds prolong life! Furman said it was “promising” and announced that hsi Buck Institute will start trials to “demonstrate efficacy and validate” grapeseed extract:

“When a Chinese state television microphone recently caught China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia musing about the possibility of living to 150 and perhaps even forever, many reacted with anxious consternation.

But there has been no tut-tutting in the laboratory of Lonvi Biosciences, a longevity medicine start-up in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. “Living to 150 is definitely realistic,” said Lyu Qinghua, the chief technology officer of the company, which has developed anti-aging pills based on a compound found in grapeseed extract. “In a few years, this will be the reality.” […] “In five to 10 years, nobody will get cancer,” he predicted. […]

[Lonvi] opened a lab in 2022 in a business tower on the edge of the sprawling Chinese city next to Hong Kong after scientists in Shanghai discovered that a natural compound found in grapeseed extract — procyanidin C1 or PCC1 — increased the life span of mice by selectively killing senescent, or aged, cells and protecting healthy cells. (Lonvi is not connected to the Shanghai scientists.)

Mice treated with the compound lived 9.4 percent longer across their lifetime — and 64.2 percent longer from the start of treatment.

The findings, published in an article in Nature Metabolism in 2021, were groundbreaking. But in September, the journal issued an editor’s note alerting readers to “errors in the data,” though it did not retract the article. Subsequent studies, including one in Japan, have supported the initial claims.”

This is the paper, not exactly purely from Shanghai as NYT wants you to think. It is actually coauthored by US professors and anti-aging entrepreneurs James Kirkland of Mayo Clinic and Judith Campisi of Buck Institute. The latter died aged 73, maybe she took the wrong anti-aging supplements.

Qixia Xu , Qiang Fu , Zi Li , Hanxin Liu , Ying Wang , Xu Lin , Ruikun He , Xuguang Zhang , Zhenyu Ju , Judith Campisi , James L. Kirkland , Yu Sun The flavonoid procyanidin C1 has senotherapeutic activity and increases lifespan in mice Nature Metabolism (2021) doi: 10.1038/s42255-021-00491-8 

The last author is Yu Sun, who studied and ran a lab in Canada and USA, and who is since 2014 professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences at the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health. As I wrote in November 2024 Shorts, one paper by Sun, Campisi and Kirkland in Nature Aging (Zhang et al 2021) was retracted a year ago for data forgery. And those are most certainly not the only papers by these people with dodgy data. Here, Campisi’s last opus with Sun, curing old age with quercetin (too late for Campisi…):

Hanxin Liu , Qixia Xu , Halidan Wufuer , Zi Li , Rong Sun , Zhirui Jiang , Xuefeng Dou , Qiang Fu , Judith Campisi , Yu Sun Rutin is a potent senomorphic agent to target senescent cells and can improve chemotherapeutic efficacy Aging Cell (2024) doi: 10.1111/acel.13921 

Another paper by Sun with Campisi, and this is where it starts to get crazy:

Xuefeng Dou , Qiang Fu , Qilai Long , Shuning Liu , Yejun Zou , Da Fu , Qixia Xu , Zhirui Jiang , Xiaohui Ren , Guilong Zhang , Xiaoling Wei , Qingfeng Li , Judith Campisi , Yuzheng Zhao, Yu Sun PDK4-dependent hypercatabolism and lactate production of senescent cells promotes cancer malignancy Nature Metabolism (2023) doi: 10.1038/s42255-023-00912-w 

I previously discussed the above mentioned Zhang et al 2018 and two more outrageously fraudulent papers with Yu as last author (Xu et al 2019, Zhang et al 2021) in April 2024 Shorts, on the occasion of Campisi’s demise, because she coauthored two of these studies (and Kirkland one). There was another prominent coauthor, who also featured on Sun’s retraction with Kirkland and Campisi – the fraudster Eric Lam, sacked in UK by Imperial College London two years after my reporting (read below and June 2021 Shorts).

So here are Sun and Lam again:

Fei Chen , Qilai Long , Da Fu , Dexiang Zhu , Yan Ji , Liu Han , Boyi Zhang , Qixia Xu , Bingjie Liu , Yan Li , Shanshan Wu , Chen Yang , Min Qian , Jianmin Xu , Suling Liu , Liu Cao , Y. Eugene Chin , Eric W.-F. Lam , Jean-Philippe Coppé , Yu Sun Targeting SPINK1 in the damaged tumour microenvironment alleviates therapeutic resistance Nature Communications (2018) doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06860-4   

Another one by Sun and Lam, reusing data from the aforementioned studies, including from that decisive Procyanidin C1 study, Xu et al 2021:

Liu Han , Qilai Long , Shenjun Li , Qixia Xu , Boyi Zhang , Xuefeng Dou , Min Qian , Yannasittha Jiramongkol , Jianming Guo , Liu Cao , Y. Eugene Chin , Eric W.-F. Lam , Jing Jiang , Yu Sun Senescent Stromal Cells Promote Cancer Resistance through SIRT1 Loss-Potentiated Overproduction of Small Extracellular Vesicles Cancer research (2020) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-20-0506 

Sun, Lam and Campisi made those mice reappear again:

Changxu Wang , Qilai Long , Qiang Fu , Qixia Xu , Da Fu , Yan Li , Libin Gao , Jianming Guo , Xiaoling Zhang , Eric W.-F. Lam , Judith Campisi , Yu Sun Targeting epiregulin in the treatment-damaged tumor microenvironment restrains therapeutic resistance Oncogene (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41388-022-02476-7 

Ah, and here is another retraction for Sun, in Oncogene:

Y Sun, D Zhu , F Chen , M Qian , H Wei , W Chen , J Xu SFRP2 augments WNT16B signaling to promote therapeutic resistance in the damaged tumor microenvironment Oncogene (2016) doi: 10.1038/onc.2015.494 

The retraction from 19 November 2024 went:

“The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article because the authors were not able to provide documentation of approval from an appropriate ethics committee. Additionally, concerns have also been raised about some of the data reported:

• In Figure 5c, the panels for Vehicle Control PSC27RAD and PSC27C appear to be duplicates.
• In Figure 6b, the panels for MIT-treated and Placebo-treated PC3/PSC27+IgG appear to overlap.

The Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in the reliability of this article’s finds and conclusions.”

By the way, Oncogene‘s Editor-in-Chief Justin Stebbing is not just Lam’s former colleague at Imperial, but also himself a cheater, patient abuser and anti-aging entrepreneur:

Sun’s fraudulent papers were of course never even hinted at by NYT, those are after all professional journalists. It is probably clear now that everything Sun ever published is most likely fake. Including his Procyanidin C1 discovery.

NYT expects us to believe that Sun is not connected to the company Lonvi. Its website doesn’t tell anyway who founded it or sits on its advisory board, but the company does sell the “Procyanidin C1 Senotherapeutic Supplements” for $99 for a 3 day course. Yes, it’s a thousand dollars a month. If you are rich and want to spend many more years with your wealth, the investment is worth it.

NYT advocates that “Lonvi claims to have isolated molecules” from grapeseeds which will “kill zombie cells” – an old senolytics story Kirkland and Campisi were trying to get rich with.

“This is not just one more pill. This is the holy grail,” said Yip Tszho, who goes by the name Zico, Lonvi’s chief executive.
The company thinks its pills, combined with a healthy lifestyle and good medical care, can help people live past 100 and up to 120.”

On their website, Lonvi also provides a preprint as a form of advertisement:

Jiaxin Liang, Qun Wang, Jie Li, Xueying Lu, Ling Wang, Qinghua Lyu, Procyanidin C1: a Natural Dual- Mode Senotherapeutic for Pan- Organ Senescence Regulation MDPI Preprints (2025) doi: 10.20944/preprints202509.1608.v2

“”The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”

Of course.

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Science Elites

New metal-organic framework for the delivery of curcumin

Meet professor Sohrab Rohani, former department chair at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, Canada. Originally in Iran, he studied in Switzerland and UK, and arrived to Canada in 1982. His research area is in crystal biochemistry, and sometimes in Iranian papermills. Sleuths flagged several Rohani papers on PubPeer. It is bad.

How can anyone at this university consider this paper to be sane? Curcumin-loaded MOFs for cancer therapy, really?

Hafezeh Nabipour , Farhang Aliakbari , Kathryn Volkening , Michael J Strong , Sohrab Rohani New metal-organic framework coated sodium alginate for the delivery of curcumin as a sustainable drug delivery and cancer therapy system International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.128875 

The fabrication reappeared in another paper about MOF-curcumin for cancer, published in parallel. The penultimate author, the neurology professor Michael Strong, used to be President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Dean of the Schulich School of Medicine at UWO:

Hafezeh Nabipour , Farhang Aliakbari , Kathryn Volkening , Michael J. Strong , Sohrab Rohani The development of a bio-based metal-organic framework coated with carboxymethyl cellulose with the ability to deliver curcumin with anticancer properties Materials Today Chemistry (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.mtchem.2024.101976 

Elsevier’s International Journal of Biological Macromolecules specialises on papermill fraud, and it was founded by the British papermiller John F Kennedy (not the dead US president!). Read about Kennedy and his journals here:

Therefore, here is another MOF-curcumin for cancer fabrication from Iranian papermills, this time with chitosan even, authored by Rohani:

• Hafezeh Nabipour , Farhang Aliakbari , Kathryn Volkening , Michael J. Strong , Sohrab Rohani Novel metal-organic framework coated with chitosan-κ-carrageenan as a platform for curcumin delivery to cancer cells International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.140027
• Hafezeh Nabipour , Farhang Aliakbari , Kathryn Volkening , Michael J. Strong , Sohrab Rohani Development of metal-organic framework biocomposites from chitosan as drug delivery vehicles: In vitro evaluation on HeLa and SH-SY5Y cell lines International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.138878 

The clearest give-away that Rohani gets his papers from Iranian papermills is his collaboration with the notorious Iranian papermill fraudster Mohammad Reza Saeb, read about this professor in Gdansk, Poland, here:

The collaboration with Saeb was likely mediated by Hafezeh Nabipour, first author on the fake curcumin papers above and member of Rohani’s lab. Or maybe by Rohani’s PhD student from Iran, Amir Kazemi. The paper was already corrected:

Amir Kazemi , Mohammad Hossein Afshari , Hasan Baesmat , Faranak Manteghi, Hafezeh Nabipour , Sohrab Rohani , Mohammad Reza Saeb Tunable Zn-MOF-74 nanocarriers coated with sodium alginate as versatile drug carriers Polymer Bulletin (2024) doi: 10.1007/s00289-024-05426-3 

“After careful investigation, we realized that there is a need for citation and permission note in some figures. The synthesis of nanostructure was previously published by Springer, which was conducted by the same research group. However, this correction does not affect the results and significant outcomes of the present study, which is unique and completely different from previous work [1]. This correction is hereby noted for clarity and completeness, following an error that occurred during proof-reading (Figs. 2, 4, 5, 6).”

Correction 31 August 2024

There were many more issues in that corrected paper, also this was found, showing how primitive Saeb’s Iranian papermill is:

Now, meet Rohani’s colleague, William Andrew Goddard III. Not, he is not a king, but the 88 year old director of the Materials and Process Simulation Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in USA. Goddard is so important that (as Wikipedia mentions), ACS celebrated his 70th birthday in 2007 with a 5-day symposium titled, “Bold predictions in theoretical chemistry.”

Well, here are some bold predictions from Iranian papermills by Goddard and Rohani with his student Kazemi:

• Amir Kazemi , Mohammad Mohammadi , Mahyar Ashourzadeh Pordsari , Mohsen Tamtaji, Hasan Baesmat , Saber Keshavarz , Fateme Zeinali , Faranak Manteghi , Mohammad Fasihi, Ahad Ghaemi, Sohrab Rohani , William A. Goddard Eco-friendly mixed-metal MOF embedded in PVA-based packaging films for ethylene adsorption and enhancing fresh produce shelf-life Food Packaging and Shelf Life (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.fpsl.2025.101517 
• Amir Kazemi , Mahyar Ashourzadeh Pordsari , Mohsen Tamtaji, Faranak Manteghi, Ahad Ghaemi, Sohrab Rohani, William A. Goddard Environmentally friendly synthesis and morphology engineering of mixed-metal MOF for outstanding CO2 capture efficiency Chemical Engineering Journal (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2024.158951 
• Amir Kazemi , Mahyar Ashourzadeh Pordsari , Mohsen Tamtaji, Fatemeh Zainali , Saber Keshavarz , Hasan Baesmat , Faranak Manteghi , Ahad Ghaemi , Sohrab Rohani , William A. Goddard III Eco-Friendly Synthesis and Morphology Control of MOF-74 for Exceptional CO2 Capture Performance with DFT Validation Separation and Purification Technology (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.seppur.2024.131328 

More by Goddard on PubPeer. As for Rohani: he didn’t reply to my emails, and his university neither. They don’t care that their research is run by papermillers who probably are agents of Iranian regime. National security, shmecurity.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Validity and reliability remain uncompromised

Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves is a physiotherapist and associate professor at the Federal University of Viçosa In Brazil, and she decided that cabbage can help with wound healing. Her first author is a fellow professor, Mariáurea Matias Sarandy, they both previously worked as postdocs at North Carolina State University in USA. This retracted study appeared in Wiley’s quackery journal dedicated to TCM and Ayurveda:

Mariáurea Matias Sarandy , Rômulo Dias Novaes , Sérgio Luiz Pinto Da Matta , Jose Mario Da Silveira Mezencio , Marcelo Barreto Da Silva , José Cola Zanuncio , Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves Ointment of Brassica oleracea var.capitata Matures the Extracellular Matrix in Skin Wounds of Wistar Rats Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2015) doi: 10.1155/2015/919342 

The retraction arrived on 14 November 2025, and it credited the sleuth:

“The retraction has been agreed due to figure concerns, raised by Fabian Wittmers, as well as on PubPeer [1]. On further investigation, the below concerns have been identified:

• In the Day 4 column of Figure 1, the Sunflower and Ointment panels appear to contain repetitive elements.
• In Figure 1, the Control panel for Day 4 appears identical to the Sal panel for Day 7 (F1) in Figure 3 of [2].
• In Figure 1, the Sunflower panel for Day 4 appears identical to the LE10 panel for Day 7 (F1) in Figure 3 of [2].
• In Figure 1, the Ointment panel for Day 4 appears identical to the LE5 panel for Day 7 (F1) in Figure 3 of [2].
• In Figure 1, the Day 0 panels appear identical to the Day 0 panels of [3], despite representing different conditions.
• In Figure 1, the Day 8 panels appear identical to the Day 8 panels of [3], despite representing different conditions.
• In Figure 1, the Day 16 panels appear identical to the Day 16 panels of [3], despite representing diffferent conditions.
• In Figure 1, the Day 20 panels appear identical to the Day 20 panels of [3], despite representing different conditions.
• Figure 2(a) appears similar, when rotated and resized, to the L30/Day 7 and L90/Day 14 panels in Figure 2 of [4].
• In the Day 4 column of Figure 3, the control and Balsam panels appear to contain repetitive elements.
• In the Day 20 column of Figure 3, the Sunflower and Balsam panels are identical.

After assessment of the author’s response and the concerns, the results are no longer reliable and the article is retracted.

The authors did not respond to the retraction notice.”

Reference 1 is:

1. Belfragei A., Ointment of Brassica oleracea var. capitata Matures the Extracellular Matrix in Skin Wounds of Wistar Rats, PubPeer. (2025) https://pubpeer.com/publications/6711F0C92E5A931DFBC2E8968B183A.

Both other papers are authored by Sarandy and Gonçalves, the latter holds patents on baldness treatment with cabbage and rosemary, and (apparently important for racists in Brazil) for skin lightening with cabbage. Both of them have much more on PubPeer.

One of the papers mentioned above (Goncalves et al. PRP 2013), shares data with another paper about wound healing, with cabbage and lasers! Flagged again by Fabian:

Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves, Mariáurea Matias Sarandy , Sérgio Luis Pinto Da Matta , Rômulo Dias Novaes , Marcus Vinicius De Mello Pinto Comparative study of the effects of laser photobiomodulation and extract of Brassica oleracea on skin wounds in wistar rats: A histomorphometric study Pathology – Research and Practice (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.prp.2013.07.006 

The data from Figure 4 of Concalves et al PRP 2013 appeared in this paper from 2021, which also shares data with the retracted Sarandy et al 2015:

Laíla Pereira Silva , Eliziária Cardoso Santos , Bruno Arantes Borges , Marcia Paranho Veloso , Daniela Aparecida Chagas-Paula , Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves , Rômulo Dias Novaes Tagitinin F has anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and anti-matrix metalloproteinase properties: An in silico, in vitro and in vivo study Pharmacological research (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2020.105303 

The third (or second, depending on how you count) reincarnation of that figure happened in that other study mentioned in the retraction for Sarandy et al 2015. It was also about lasers, but without cabbage, and had more issues:

Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves , Rômulo Dias Novaes, Marli Do Carmo Do Carmo Cupertino , Bruna Moraes , João Paulo Viana Leite , Maria Do Carmo Gouveia Do Carmo Gouveia Peluzio , Marcus Vinicius De Mello De Mello Pinto , Sérgio Luis Pinto Da Matta Time-dependent effects of low-level laser therapy on the morphology and oxidative response in the skin wound healing in rats Lasers in Medical Science (2013) doi: 10.1007/s10103-012-1066-7 

Also, the data from the retracted paper Sarandy et al 2015 appeared in a PLOS One study where a different plant was used:

Mariáurea Matias Sarandy , Lyvia Lopes Miranda , Luciana Schulthais Altoé , Rômulo Dias Novaes , Virgínia Vinha Zanuncio , João Paulo Viana Leite , Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves Strychnos pseudoquina modulates the morphological reorganization of the scar tissue of second intention cutaneous wounds in rats PLOS One (2018) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195786 

That however was also retracted, already on 30 September 2025:

“After this article [1] was published, concerns were raised regarding results presented in Figs 1-3.

Specifically:

• The following panels appear similar:
  • Fig 3 SAL Day 7 (F1) in [1] and Fig 1 Control Day 4 in [2]
  • Fig 3 OV Day 7 (F1) in [1], Fig 3 OV Day 14 (F2) in [1], and Fig 1 Balsam Day 4 in [2]
  • Fig 3 SS Day 21 (F3) and Fig 3 LE10 Day 0 (F0)
• The following panels appear to fully or partially overlap:
  • Fig 3 SAL Day 0 (F0) and Fig 3 OV Day 0 (F0)
  • Fig 3 LE5 Day 7 (F1) in [1], Fig 3 LE10 Day 7 (F1) in [1], Fig 1 Sunflower Day 4 in [2], Fig 1 Ointment Day 4 in [2]
  • Fig 3 LE5 Day 21 (F3) and Fig 3 LE10 Day 21 (F3)
• Fig 2 appears to show the quantification results of Fig 3.
• Figs 1B and 1C in [1] appear similar to Figs 1E and 1F in [3, corrected in 4] respectively.

Co-first author MMS stated that the results in Fig 3 are incorrect and that the original image data underlying Figs 1B and 1C are no longer available. They provided the original underlying data for Fig 3 as well as the individual-level quantitative data underlying the remainder of the figures in [1]. Upon editorial review, these underlying data were insufficient to resolve the above concerns, and raised further concerns for the reliability and validity of the published results.

In light of the above concerns, the PLOS One Editors retract this article.

RVG did not agree with the retraction. […]”

The notice also mentioned concerns about humane animal research issues, but I hope that in reality no rats or mice were tortured for this and other completely fabricated studies by Concalves and Sarandy. The alternative, namely scientists torturing animals just for fun, because they trash all data and fake all results at the end, is honestly too unsettling to consider.

Now, the data from that PLOS One paper was later reused in another study by our heroes, which is again about good old cabbage:

Lyvia Lopes Miranda , Mariáurea Matias Sarandy, Luciana Schulthais Altoé , Daniel Silva Sena Bastos , Fabiana Cristina Silveira Alves Melo , Rômulo Dias Novaes, Debora Araújo Esposito, Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Potential of Brassica oleracea Accelerates Third-Degree Burn Healing in Rats Cosmetics (2024) doi: 10.3390/cosmetics11010027 

Sarandy educated the sleuth on PubPeer that “The image used in the manuscript is representative” and that “the validity and reliability of the results remain uncompromised“. The publisher MDPI agreed and issued this Correction on 26 May 2025:

“In the original publication [1], there was an error in Figure 1E,F, where an incorrect image was inserted. […] The authors state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. This correction has been approved by the Academic Editor, and the original publication has been updated accordingly.”

Here is more for Concalves and Sarandy to correct:

Mariáurea Matias Sarandy , Silvânia Mól Pelinsari , Lorena Miranda De Souza , Rômulo Dias Novaes , Virginia Vinha Zanuncio , Reggiani Vilela Gonçalves l-arginine and l-citrulline supplementation accelerates second intention wound healing in iNOS knockout mice Journal of Functional Foods (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.jff.2022.105395 

This is the Sarandy paper, reusing data from Rosa et al 2018 and from Sarandy et al 2022, and there is no Conclaves on it:

Mariáurea Matias Sarandy, Leandro José Gusmão , Gislaine Aparecida Purgato, Mayra Soares Píccolo, Sérgio Luis Pinto Da Matta, Virgínia Ramos Pizziolo , Gaspar Diaz-Munoz , Marisa Alves Nogueira Diaz Hydroalcoholic extract of Remijia ferruginea accelerates the closure of skin wounds by modulating tissue morphology and antioxidant profile: An in vitro and in vivo study Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2022.115464 

In February 2025, Sarandy replied on PubPeer with:

“We acknowledge that there was an error in the published figure, where the same image was inadvertently used for two different groups. This was likely a mistake made during the process of selecting and inserting the representative wound images.
However, we want to emphasize that this figure was included solely for illustrative purposes to demonstrate the wound healing progression. […] The results and conclusions presented in the study remain valid.”

Sarandy then announced to “reach out to the journal editor to discuss the possibility of issuing an erratum, if deemed necessary.”

To be fair, Concalves has fake many papers without Sarandy:

Jamili D.B. Santos , Andréa A.S. Mendonça , Rafaela C. Sousa , Thaiany G.S. Silva , Solange M. Bigonha , Eliziária C. Santos , Reggiani V. Gonçalves , Rômulo D. Novaes Food-drug interaction: Anabolic steroids aggravate hepatic lipotoxicity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease induced by trans fatty acids Food and Chemical Toxicology (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2018.04.056 

There’s much more on PubPeer for Concalves. We started with a Wiley retraction, let’s end with a Wiley correction:

Rômulo D. Novaes , Reggiani V. Gonçalves, Marli C. Cupertino , Bruna M. Araújo , Rafael M. Rezende , Eliziária C. Santos , João Paulo V. Leite , Sérgio Luis P. Matta The energy density of laser light differentially modulates the skin morphological reorganization in a murine model of healing by secondary intention International Journal of Experimental Pathology (2014) doi: 10.1111/iep.12063 

The Correction from 18 October 2025 was an extercise in piss-taking:

“…the authors acknowledged an image compilation error in Figure 3, where duplicate histological subpanels were mistakenly included. They provided the original images and identified the cause of the error: certain subpanels (SAL Day 7 and 14, L3 Day 7, 14 and 21) were initially in the background but were inadvertently moved to the foreground during the final layout arrangement. The authors confirm that all experimental results and conclusions remain unchanged.”

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According to the legislation anonymous reports are not considered

The curtains are about to fall for the French mega-cheater Sabine Szunerits and her charming husband Rabah Boukherroub, both professors at the University of Lille. The investigation by their university and CNRS was prompted by this article:

The now retracted MDPI paper was, like several others from Szunerits’s lab, done in collaboration with colleagues from Ukraine. The first author Rostyslav Bilyy is professor at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, where other Ukrainian coauthors are also from, Galyna Bila is almost certainly his wife:

Rostyslav Bilyy , Quentin Pagneux , Nathan François , Galyna Bila , Roman Grytsko , Yuri Lebedin , Alexandre Barras , Jean Dubuisson, Sandrine Belouzard , Karin Séron , Rabah Boukherroub, Sabine Szunerits Rapid Generation of Coronaviral Immunity Using Recombinant Peptide Modified Nanodiamonds Pathogens (2021) doi: 10.3390/pathogens10070861 

In fact, this nanodiamond picture was used in 5 papers, Maarten van Kampen made a summary for Turcheniuk et al 2016, and a list:

1. 2014-12 Antimicrobial activity of menthol modified nanodiamond particles
2. 2015-03 Toward Multifunctional “Clickable” Diamond Nanoparticles
3. 2015-11 Unprecedented inhibition of glycosidase-catalyzed substrate hydrolysis by nanodiamond-grafted glycosides
4. 2016-08 Affinity of Glycan-Modified Nanodiamonds towards Lectins and Uropathogenic Escherichia Coli
5. 2021-06 Rapid Generation of Coronaviral Immunity Using Recombinant Peptide Modified Nanodiamonds

Now, the joke is that MDPI previously fixed that paper with a stealth correction, as PubPeer users reported in November 2023. Only on 30 November 2023, the publisher MDPI issued this Correction notice:

“In the original publication [1], there was a mistake in Figure 2a as published. The TEM image of a modified ND rather than an ND itself is shown. The TEM image of the ND has been reported before and a link to the reference is provided. […] The authors apologize for any inconvenience caused and state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. The original publication has also been updated.“

The correction was fraudulent:

More image reuse was found:

Also, it turned out other data was reused from an earlier paper by Szunerits, Boukherroub and Bilyy, which used nanoparticles functionalised with fluorescent dye CF790:

S. Ya. Paryzhak , T. I. Dumych , S. M. Peshkova , E. E. Bila , A. D. Lutsyk , A. Barras , R. Boukherroub , S. Szunerits , R. O. Bilyy Interaction of 4 allotropic modifications of carbon nanoparticles with living tissues The Ukrainian Biochemical Journal (2019) doi: 10.15407/ubj91.02.041 

I previously communicated with Bilyy, here is his message to me again:

“These aspects do not reflect aspects of my work or my group. But, rather, it looks invented and directed against my co-author. Prof. Szuneritz is a sincere scientist whose contribution to science is much envied. And in many cases, the criticism seems to have been pulled out from thin air, […]The problems solved by Prof. Szuneritz and her group are of great scientific interest and have practical value, because they are embodied in sensors and diagnostic devices that really help people. […]
As for reasonable criticism – I’m always for it, but according to the legislation in force in my (and probably your) country – anonymous reports are not considered (those times have already passed).“

Yes, Bilyy equalled PubPeer critics to Stalin’s henchmen.

On 19 November 2025, MDPI published this Retraction notice, where we were told that only Bilyy and Szunerits disagreed to it:

“Following the publication of a correction to this article [2], further concerns were brought to the attention of the Editorial Office regarding the integrity of a number of images presented in this publication [1].

Adhering to our standard procedure, the Editorial Office and Editorial Board conducted an investigation that confirmed an overlap between Figure 2A published in [1] and Figure 2B published in [3], as well as between Figure 6C in [1] and Figure 5 published in [4] later corrected in [5]; and identified overlap between Figure S2D published in [1] and Figure 2B in [6] previously published by a similar authorship group, being the same material however. While the authors fully collaborated within this process, supporting material and explanations provided did not meet Editorial Board expectations in order to resolve the issues raised. As a result, the Editorial Board has lost confidence in the integrity of the findings and decided to retract this publication”

I don’t believe for a second that MDPI investigated anything, remember they were happy with a stealth correction even. Rather, the CNRS investigation of Szunerits and her husband must be coming to an end, and retraction requests are being sent to the publishers.

The only retraction Szunerits had so far happened due to her collaboration with ther French colleague Jolanda Spadavecchia, who also lost papers after CNRS found her guilty of research misconduct:

Update 21.11.2025: as a reader pointed out, I missed out several other retractions by Szunerits and Boukherroub!

Lionel Marcon, Corentin Spriet , Yannick Coffinier, Elisabeth Galopin, Claire Rosnoblet , Sabine Szunerits, Laurent Héliot, Pierre-Olivier Angrand , Rabah Boukherroub Cell Adhesion Properties on Chemically Micropatterned Boron-Doped Diamond Surfaces Langmuir (2010) doi: 10.1021/la101757f 

Lionel Marcon , Mei Wang , Yannick Coffinier , Francois Le Normand , Oleg Melnyk , Rabah Boukherroub, Sabine Szunerits Photochemical immobilization of proteins and peptides on benzophenone-terminated boron-doped diamond surfaces Langmuir (2010) doi: 10.1021/la903012v 

Manakamana Khanal , Volodymyr Turcheniuk , Alexandre Barras, Elodie Rosay , Omprakash Bande , Aloysius Siriwardena , Vladimir Zaitsev , Guo-Hui Pan , Rabah Boukherroub, Sabine Szunerits Toward Multifunctional “Clickable” Diamond Nanoparticles Langmuir (2015) doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b00643 

Izabela Kaminska , Wang Qi , Alexandre Barras , Janusz Sobczak , Joanna Niedziolka‐Jonsson , Patrice Woisel , Joel Lyskawa , William Laure , Marcin Opallo , Musen Li , Rabah Boukherroub, Sabine Szunerits Thiol–Yne Click Reactions on Alkynyl–Dopamine‐Modified Reduced Graphene Oxide Chemistry – A European Journal (2013) doi: 10.1002/chem.201300225 

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Validity and authenticity

We started with MOFs, we will end with MOFs. Congratulation to the Danish ecology professor Christian Sonne, his papermilling starts to pay off, because he now earned his second retraction.

All because Sonne’s Aarhus University wastes the time of their lawyers on threatening me (read in September 2025 Shorts and October 2025 Shorts), instead of the much more important task of threatening journals to prevent such retractions as this one:

Rajit Sikka , Pawan Kumar , Jechan Lee , Christian Sonne Aqueous-phase biofunctionalized NH2-MIL-53(Al) MOF for biosensing applications Journal of Porous Materials (2022) doi: 10.1007/s10934-021-01192-z 

Inquiring minds might wonder how did Sonne, an Arctic wildlife ecologist specialising on marine mammals, evolved the capacity to write papers on metal-organic frameworks. The paper was not flagged on PubPeer before, and still Springer Nature issued this Retraction on 12 November 2025:

“The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. After publication, concerns were raised regarding the physical validity and authenticity of the data presented in Figs. 1B and 7. Furthermore, the reported crystal size for synthesized NH2-MIL-53(Al) MOF is smaller than the average size for the individual atoms of the material’s constitutive elements, which is not physically possible. The authors provided some source data on request from the Publisher, but this was insufficient to address the concerns raised. The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions reported in this article.

The authors disagree with this retraction.”

I made an illustration:

Still waiting for the Aarhus University to sue me as they promised.

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