Memories from Milan

Between 2008 and 2012, I worked as postdoc in Milan, Italy, at IFOM (Firc Institute of Molecular Oncology) of the narrowly packed IFOM-IEO campus, which also includes IEO (European Institute of Oncology).

Recently I worked on a case from Lund University in Sweden, about the cancer researcher Henrik Thorlacius. I was searching for the relevant investigative report of the Swedish National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct (NPOF), and then suddenly I stumbled upon another case from Lund, and recognised the guilty principal investigator. A guy from Denmark I knew personally, as a fellow postdoc in the same large-space lab at IFOM I worked in.

It’s time to write about IFOM-IEO again.

Chapter 1: Chris

This former colleague was Chris Madsen, who left IFOM for London and Copenhagen, and eventually arrived to Lund University in 2016, then made it to associate professor there in 2020. In 2021, he published this paper in a fancy journal, but then suddenly it was flagged right after publication by Elisabeth Bik, who was tipped-off by a whistleblower (“not all blots look uncropped, and the samples selected for the figures in papers appear very random“):

Shan Wang , Emelie Englund , Pontus Kjellman , Zhen Li , Johannes Kumra Ahnlide , Carmen Rodriguez-Cupello , Mattia Saggioro , Ryu Kanzaki , Kristian Pietras , David Lindgren , Håkan Axelson , Christelle N. Prinz , Vinay Swaminathan, Chris D. Madsen CCM3 is a gatekeeper in focal adhesions regulating mechanotransduction and YAP/TAZ signalling Nature Cell Biology (2021) doi: 10.1038/s41556-021-00702-0 

Madsen replied on PubPeer in July 2021 with a lenghty explanation and detailed images, starting with:

“Yes, we know that the order of the samples are not always consecutive, as we had to run many blots over the last 5 years including additional blots during the revision.”

The debate between Madsen and PubPeer users became very long, but it seems not everyone was convinced by his arguments: in September 2021, someone reported Madsen to Lund University for suspected research misconduct. In March 2022, he and his first author Shan Wang were found “guilty of research misconduct“. The other authors were acquitted. I obtained the unredacted NPOF report:

NPOF recruited the Malmö University professor Anette Gjörloff Wingren as expert, she confirmed “that the article contains a mixture of falsification and fabrication regarding a large proportion of the Western blot results” and decided “that Shan Wang and Chris Madsen bear equal responsibility for the deviations from good research practice that the reported Western blot results constitute“.

Madsen, who in his PubPeer replies never saw any problems with his western blots, suddenly changed his view, and submitted a written statement declaring “that Shan Wang is solely responsible for the Western blot figures shown in the manuscript” and that “as research leader, he can be seen as partly responsible for the deviations from good research practice, but that his responsibility is not as great as Shan Wang’s“.

NPOF disagreed. It decided “that the errors affect such a large part of the Western blot results reported in the article that it must be considered gross negligence not to have noticed the errors before the article was sent for publication“, and while Wang was “primarily responsible for the experiments“, also that Madsen “had a responsibility to carefully check the results before the article was submitted for publication“.

Shan Wang was at that time Madsen’s postdoc, she defended herself with “severe stress in her personal life and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on her work as the reasons for the errors.” both she and her mentor Madsen were found guilty. The paper was retracted on 23 September 2024:

“The authors have retracted this article because it has come to their attention that numerous errors have been identified in the immunoblotting (western blotting) experiments shown in the main Figures 1c, 3a, 4f, 5b and 6b, and the supplementary Figures 1b, 1c, 2d, 3a, 3c, 7f, 8b and 9b. The authors have conducted an internal investigation of these immunoblotting experiments, and concluded that, although they believe that their overall findings are still valid, given the extent of the corrections required the article should be retracted. A subsequent investigation by the National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct (NPOF) at the request of Lund University concluded that the errors in the western blot results reported in the article represent a serious breach of good research practice. The authors deeply regret these circumstances and apologize to the scientific community. Shan Wang, Emelie Englund, Pontus Kjellman, Zhen Li, Johannes Kumra Ahnlide, Carmen Rodriguez-Cupello, Mattia Saggioro, Ryu Kanzaki, Kristian Pietras, David Lindgren, Håkan Axelson, Christelle N. Prinz, Vinay Swaminathan and Chris D. Madsen agree with this retraction.”

Before coming to Sweden, Madsen worked as postdoc in his home country Denmark, at the University of Copenhagen. There, he met the infamous Janine Erler, here is the result.

Alejandro E Mayorca-Guiliani, Chris D Madsen, Thomas R Cox , Edward R Horton , Freja A Venning , Janine T Erler ISDoT: in situ decellularization of tissues for high-resolution imaging and proteomic analysis of native extracellular matrix Nature Medicine (2017) doi: 10.1038/nm.4352 

That paper was not retracted, because the University of Copenhagen fully supports their professor Erler, and unlike Sweden, Denmark doesn’t have an independent national authority for research integrity. Despite her university fighting tooth and nail, Erler however did eventually lose another paper, in Nature, from her own postdoc time in USA with Amato Giaccia. Read here:

Maybe Madsen regrets choosing Sweden. For sure he would have been perfectly safe had he returned to Italy.

Chapter 2: Francesco

Back at the IFOM-IEO campus in Via Adamello in Milan, Madsen used to be member of the research group of Francesco Blasi (now 88 years old), founder and deputy director of IFOM, professor at University of Milan, EMBO Member and Fellow of Academia Europaea and Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.

Blasi has 29 papers on PubPeer, IFOM’s leadership is aware about that for some years. No action was taken. I used to know several coauthors on these dodgy papers personally, since we worked in the same large-space lab. Blasi’s research was mostly about two genes, Prep1 and uPAR.

I previously wrote about some bad papers Blasi coauthored with his colleague in Naples (where Blasi used to be professor), Francesco Beguinot:

One common paper by Blasi and Beguinot, Oriente et al 2011, was retracted in 2019, it was utterly fraudulent. There was a number of other awful fabrications from these two men, like Oriente et al 2013 or Oriente et al 2008, best described as an orgy of fake gels. Coauthors on those papers were Blasi’s lab members I personally knew: Luis Cesar Fernandez Diaz (now professor at Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain), Dmitry Penkov (eternal postdoc in Milan), Elena Longobardi (another eternal postdoc in Milan).

In 2019, Blasi and his Austrian collaborators retracted this paper:

Nishamol Geetha , Judit Mihaly , Alexander Stockenhuber , Francesco Blasi , Pavel Uhrin , Bernd R. Binder , Michael Freissmuth, Johannes M. Breuss Signal integration and coincidence detection in the mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) cascade: concomitant activation of receptor tyrosine kinases and of LRP-1 leads to sustained ERK phosphorylation via down-regulation of dual specificity phosphatases (DUSP1 and -6) Journal of Biological Chemistry (2011) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m111.221903 

It seems the authors tried to negotiate a correction, but back then JBC was tough on fake science (until Elsevier took over!). The retraction from August 2019 went:

“This article has been withdrawn by Nishamol Geetha, Judit Mihaly, Alexander Stockenhuber, Francesco Blasi, Pavel Uhrin, Michael Freissmuth, and Johannes M. Breuss. The withdrawing authors regret that Bernd R. Binder passed away. In Fig. 3A, The EGF/LF lanes did not accurately represent the experimental results. The tERK lanes were duplicated in Fig. 3C. The LF lanes were derived from a different immunoblot in Fig. 3D. The pERK and tERK immunoblots from PDGF/LF treatment in Fig. 4B were reused in Fig. 4C for EGF/LF treatment. The DUSP1 and actin immunoblots from untreated cells in Fig. 7A were reused in Fig. 8C. The DUSP6 immunoblot from untreated cells in Fig. 7B was reused in Fig. 8D. In addition, the actin immunoblot from untreated cells in Fig. 7B was reused in Figs. 7C and 8D for the untreated samples. The corrected blots are available upon request.”

Maybe this from Blasi’s lab also isn’t just innocent gel splicing?

Elisabetta Ferretti , J. Carlos Villaescusa , Patrizia Di Rosa , Luis C. Fernandez-Diaz , Elena Longobardi , Roberta Mazzieri , Annarita Miccio , Nicola Micali , Licia Selleri , Giuliana Ferrari , Francesco Blasi Hypomorphic mutation of the TALE gene Prep1 (pKnox1) causes a major reduction of Pbx and Meis proteins and a pleiotropic embryonic phenotype Molecular and Cellular Biology (2006) doi: 10.1128/mcb.00313-06

Did the following happen by mistake?

Nicola Micali , Carmelo Ferrai , Luis C. Fernandez-Diaz , Francesco Blasi, Massimo P. Crippa Prep1 directly regulates the intrinsic apoptotic pathway by controlling Bcl-XL levels Molecular and Cellular Biology (2009) doi: 10.1128/mcb.01273-08 

I knew several people on this paper also, even if only in passing. Who faked this gel?

Elisa Bernardi , Gianluca Deflorian , Federica Pezzimenti , Victor M Diaz , Marina Mione , Francesco Blasi Characterization of the regulatory region of the zebrafish Prep1.1 gene: analogies to the promoter of the human PREP1 PLOS One (2010) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015047

I don’t recall anyone on the following paper, except for Blasi of course. The evidence is on PubPeer since 2014:

Roberta Mazzieri , Silvia D’Alessio , Richard Kamgang Kenmoe , Liliana Ossowski , Francesco Blasi An uncleavable uPAR mutant allows dissection of signaling pathways in uPA-dependent cell migration Molecular Biology of the Cell (2006) doi: 10.1091/mbc.e05-07-0635 

Another very old paper by Blasi and his protege Massimo Crippa. These gels are very suspiciously spliced, the lower gel is definitely not trustworthy.

Inés Ibañez-Tallon , Carmelo Ferrai , Elena Longobardi , Ileana Facetti , Francesco Blasi, Massimo P. Crippa Binding of Sp1 to the proximal promoter links constitutive expression of the human uPA gene and invasive potential of PC3 cells Blood (2002) doi: 10.1182/blood.v100.9.3325 

Here some more spliced gels, why would people put so much effort to digitally hide these gel splices so well if they either believed it was allowed to splice, or didn’t know the rules?

Truth is: peer reviewers may disappove, but after the paper is published, nobody cares about spliced gel bands.

Chapter 3: Pier Paolo

But the stuff Blasi’s lab has on PubPeer is nothing compared to the outrageous fabrications published by other bigwigs of the same IFOM-IEO-Campus, specifically the current IEO president Pier Giuseppe Pelicci and Pier Paolo Di Fiore, former IFOM director. Both men are professors at University of Milan, Fellows of Academia Europea, EMBO Members, both are directors of the PhD program SEMM (European School of Molecular Medicine). I wrote about them in this August 2019 article.

Also, both men have massive PubPeer records (cf Di Fiore and cf Pelicci). Di Fiore is also a notorious bully, a skill he may have learned as postdoc in Stuart Aaronson‘s lab in USA.

Here a paper by Di Fiore, with several people I personally knew, some of them group leaders at IFOM: Giorgio Scita and Andrea Ciliberto:

Andrea Disanza , Sara Mantoani , Maud Hertzog , Silke Gerboth , Emanuela Frittoli , Anika Steffen , Kerstin Berhoerster , Hans-Juergen Kreienkamp , Francesca Milanesi , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Andrea Ciliberto , Theresia E. B. Stradal , Giorgio Scita Regulation of cell shape by Cdc42 is mediated by the synergic actin-bundling activity of the Eps8–IRSp53 complex NatureJobs (2006) doi: 10.1038/ncb1502 

Scita was quite often mentioned on this website, not just as Di Fiore’s coauthor. He also had a retraction with his Milanese colleague Maria Alfonsina Desiderio (read June 2022 Shorts), and he featured in this article, for his problematic papers with Alexandre Arcaro, former group leader at the University of Bern in Switzerland:

Di Fiore installed his loyal minions everywhere, Scita is just one of them. As I wrote in November 2023 Shorts, Sara Sigismund made it from Di Fiore’s postdoc to associate professor at the University of Milan and group leader at IFOM-IEO Campus. Sigismund’s PhD mentor, Simona Polo, used to be Di Fiore’s postdoc. I knew them also, in passing, here they all are on one paper:

Sara Sigismund, Elisabetta Argenzio , Daniela Tosoni, Elena Cavallaro , Simona Polo, Pier Paolo Di Fiore Clathrin-mediated internalization is essential for sustained EGFR signaling but dispensable for degradation Developmental Cell (2008) doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2008.06.012 

Here a paper by Di Fiore with another aforementioned mentee of his – Daniela Tosoni, now a member of the IEO lab led by a Pelicci protege, Salvatore Pece:

Daniela Tosoni, Claudia Puri , Stefano Confalonieri , Anna Elisabetta Salcini , Pietro De Camilli, Carlo Tacchetti, Pier Paolo Di Fiore TTP specifically regulates the internalization of the transferrin receptor Cell (2005) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2005.10.021

Totally fraudulent gels, and now think of the many people who did NOT succeed in Di Fiore’s Milanese fiefdom, and why. Allow me here to briefly mention that Pece used to be a mentee of a known cheater at UC San Diego, J. Silvio Gutkind, here a common paper:

Salvatore Pece , J. Silvio Gutkind Signaling from E-cadherins to the MAPK pathway by the recruitment and activation of epidermal growth factor receptors upon cell-cell contact formation Journal of Biological Chemistry (2000) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m006578200 

Returning to Di Fiore’s “golden girls”, of course there is more on PubPeer for Sigismund and for Polo. Starting with this Nature classic, which paved the way to their professorships:

Simona Polo, Sara Sigismund, Mario Faretta, Monica Guidi , Maria Rosaria Capua , Giovanna Bossi , Hong Chen , Pietro De Camilli, Pier Paolo Di Fiore A single motif responsible for ubiquitin recognition and monoubiquitination in endocytic proteins Nature (2002) doi: 10.1038/416451a 

One can’t really correct this, so Nature didn’t. Another stepping-stone to professorships, again I keep recognising other names of people I used to know…

Sara Sigismund, Tanja Woelk , Claudia Puri , Elena Maspero, Carlo Tacchetti , Pietro Transidico , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Simona Polo Clathrin-independent endocytosis of ubiquitinated cargos Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2005) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0409817102 

The next study is rather new, done long after I left IFOM-IEO. What luck for authors that Cell Press won’t bother anyway, also because Di Fiore’s two co-authors, Harvard’s Tom Kirchhausen in USA and Leibniz Institute director Volker Haucke in Germany, bring enough weight to this study to make it untouchable:

Roberta Pascolutti, Veronica Algisi , Alexia Conte , Andrea Raimondi , Mithun Pasham , Srigokul Upadhyayula , Raphael Gaudin , Tanja Maritzen , Elisa Barbieri , Giusi Caldieri , Chiara Tordonato , Stefano Confalonieri , Stefano Freddi , Maria Grazia Malabarba , Elena Maspero , Simona Polo , Carlo Tacchetti , Volker Haucke , Tom Kirchhausen , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Sara Sigismund Molecularly Distinct Clathrin-Coated Pits Differentially Impact EGFR Fate and Signaling Cell Reports (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.05.017 

The next paper corrected in 2015, after the pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis notified the journal:

Maria De Luca, Laura Cogli, Cinzia Progida, Veronica Nisi, Roberta Pascolutti, Sara Sigismund, Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Cecilia Bucci RILP regulates vacuolar ATPase through interaction with the V1G1 subunit Journal of Cell Science (2014) doi: 10.1242/jcs.142604

The Correction from July 2015 stated:

“In Fig. 2, the V1C1 western blot was inadvertently duplicated in panels A and B. The V1C1 western blot has been replaced with the correct image in panel B in the figure shown below. There are no changes to the figure legend, which is accurate. This error does not affect the conclusions of the study.”

On the following two papers, I knew the second author very well. I’d however rather blame Polo, but I don’t expect her (or MDPI for that matter) to issue a correction:

• Carlos A. Niño, Nadine Wollscheid, Giovanni Giangreco, Elena Maspero, Simona Polo USP25 Regulates EGFR Fate by Modulating EGF-Induced Ubiquitylation Dynamics Biomolecules (2020) doi: 10.3390/biom10111548
• Michol Giovanna Savio , Nadine Wollscheid , Elena Cavallaro , Veronica Algisi , Pier Paolo Di Fiore, Sara Sigismund, Elena Maspero, Simona Polo USP9X Controls EGFR Fate by Deubiquitinating the Endocytic Adaptor Eps15 Current Biology (2016) doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.11.050 

Chapter 4: Pier Giuseppe

Also Pelicci’s PubPeer record grew significantly since I wrote about him in 2019. Here are two papers with Pelicci’s former lab members – Myriam Alcalay, now IEO group leader and professor at University of Milan, and Jean-Christophe Marine, now professor at KU Leuven in Belgium (his PubPeer record is impressive also):

• Gilles Doumont , Alain Martoriati , Chantal Beekman , Sven Bogaerts , Patrick J Mee , Fabrice Bureau , Emanuela Colombo , Myriam Alcalay , Eric Bellefroid , Francesco Marchesi , Eugenio Scanziani , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci , Jean-Christophe Marine G1 checkpoint failure and increased tumor susceptibility in mice lacking the novel p53 target Ptprv The EMBO Journal (2005) doi: 10.1038/sj.emboj.7600769 
• Alain Martoriati , Gilles Doumont , Myriam Alcalay , Eric Bellefroid , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci , Jean-Christophe Marine dapk1, encoding an activator of a p19ARF-p53-mediated apoptotic checkpoint, is a transcription target of p53 Oncogene (2005) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1208256 

Pelicci’s name is just everywhere. Here he is with a protege of Swiss cardiologist Thomas  Lüscher – Francesco Cosentino, then at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, now professor at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden:

Another updated thread for Pelicci with his Neapolitan colleagues, who assured on PubPeer that all this “does not affect the results and the conclusion of the article“:

Giuliana Napolitano , Stefano Amente , Miriam Lubrano Lavadera , Giacomo Di Palo , Susanna Ambrosio , Luigi Lania , Gaetano Ivan Dellino , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, Barbara Majello Sequence-specific double strand breaks trigger P-TEFb-dependent Rpb1-CTD hyperphosphorylation Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.mrfmmm.2013.07.005 

This study is rotting on PubPeer since 2015, Pelicci is accompanied by University of Milan professor Nicoletta Landsberger (who has 10 very rotten papers on PubPeer) and Saverio Minucci, professor and group leader at IEO:

Simona Segalla , Laura Rinaldi , Charlotte Kilstrup-Nielsen , Gianfranco Badaracco , Saverio Minucci , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, Nicoletta Landsberger Retinoic acid receptor alpha fusion to PML affects its transcriptional and chromatin-remodeling properties Molecular and Cellular Biology (2003) doi: 10.1128/mcb.23.23.8795-8808.2003 

Minucci also has a long PubPeer record, including with professional cheater Kristian Helin, the Dane whom used to run a lab at IEO. Read about Helin here:

Here another work by Pelicci and Minucci, in Cell, the first author Marco Giorgio made it with Pelicci’s patronage to associate professor at University of Padua:

Marco Giorgio, Enrica Migliaccio , Francesca Orsini , Demis Paolucci , Maurizio Moroni , Cristina Contursi , Giovanni Pelliccia , Lucilla Luzi , Saverio Minucci , Massimo Marcaccio , Paolo Pinton , Rosario Rizzuto , Paolo Bernardi , Francesco Paolucci , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci Electron transfer between cytochrome c and p66Shc generates reactive oxygen species that trigger mitochondrial apoptosis Cell (2005) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2005.05.011

Here are Pelicci and Minucci with a Belgian colleague, Francois Fuks (read about him in December 2023 Shorts) and with Sir Tony Kouzarides, professor at University of Cambridge and Deputy Director of the Gurdon Institute in UK, who also has a number of bad papers on PubPeer. This is Science, you know:

Luciano Di Croce , Veronica A. Raker , Massimo Corsaro , Francesco Fazi , Mirco Fanelli , Mario Faretta , Francois Fuks , Francesco Lo Lo Coco , Tony Kouzarides , Clara Nervi , Saverio Minucci , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci Methyltransferase recruitment and DNA hypermethylation of target promoters by an oncogenic transcription factor Science (2002) doi: 10.1126/science.1065173 

Pelicci, Fuks, Kouzarides and IEO group leader and SEMM director Bruno Amati:

Carmen Brenner , Rachel Deplus , Celine Didelot , Axelle Loriot , Emmanuelle Viré , Charles De Smet , Arantxa Gutierrez , Davide Danovi , David Bernard , Thierry Boon , Pier Giuseppe Pelicci , Bruno Amati , Tony Kouzarides , Yvan De Launoit , Luciano Di Croce , Francois Fuks Myc represses transcription through recruitment of DNA methyltransferase corepressor The EMBO Journal (2005) doi: 10.1038/sj.emboj.7600509

Amati apologised for the “confusion” in this paper (I knew the middle author very well):

Arianna Sabò, Mirko Doni , Bruno Amati SUMOylation of Myc-family proteins PLOS One (2014) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091072 

In December 2024, Amati explained on PubPeer that “some of the items in panels 5D and 5F had been inadvertently substituted“, assured that those were “editing mistakes, which affect none of the interpretations and conclusions in our paper“, and then buried the case.

Returning to Minucci: his postdoc Mohamed Elgendy is now curing cancer as ERC-funded group leader at Technische Universität (TU) Dresden in Germany (read January 2026 Shorts).

Mohamed Elgendy , Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz , Salvatore Lorenzo Renne , Viviana Bornaghi , Giuseppe Procopio , Maurizio Colecchia , Ravindran Kanesvaran , Chee Keong Toh , Daniela Bossi , Isabella Pallavicini , Jose Luis Perez-Gracia , Maria Dolores Lozano , Valeria Giandomenico , Ciro Mercurio , Luisa Lanfrancone , Nicola Fazio , Franco Nole , Bin Tean Teh , Giuseppe Renne , Saverio Minucci Dual modulation of MCL-1 and mTOR determines the response to sunitinib Journal of Clinical Investigation (2016) doi: 10.1172/jci84386 

You may think there’s no Pelicci on that paper, but this is not true: Luisa Lanfrancone is Pelicci’s wife, and group leader at IEO. Also here is a family member, Giuliana Pelicci, who is Pier Giuseppe’s sister, and also a group leader at IEO:

Valentina De Falco , Valentina Guarino , Luca Malorni , Anna Maria Cirafici , Flavia Troglio , Marco Erreni , Giuliana Pelicci, Massimo Santoro , Rosa Marina Melillo RAI(ShcC/N-Shc)-dependent recruitment of GAB1 to RET oncoproteins potentiates PI3-K signalling in thyroid tumors Oncogene (2005) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1208776 

These superscientists at IFOM-IEO Campus still haven’t succeeded curing cancer, in fact I wonder what objectively did they deliver, if anything, for all the many millions of Euros spent. Sure sure, these important men produce papers in fancy journals like you saw above, and using those papers, they got personally very rich and very powerful, and provided some of their family members and many of their past and current lovers with permanent jobs in academia.

How does that help cancer patients though?

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