Karma Police, Arrest This Man

The University of Ulm, represented by its deputy chancellor and chief legal counsel Heidi Krolopp, had enough of my criticising their inaction, whitewashing and outright support of their former Vice-President Klaus-Michael Debatin and his former mentee Simone Fulda, who eventually became the Rector of the University of Kiel. Krolopp now reported me to the German police, for slandering her and her university. The state prosecutor already jumped into action and opened the proceedings.

The occasion was this article of mine:

This is the sentence from that article for which I am now under criminal investigation:

“The extra irony that his University of Ulm sees no problem in that same paper and their own cheating professors as innocent victims of racist persecution.”

To everyone it is obvious that this is satire. Two ethnic Germans cannot be victims of racist persecution, not even by me, a Ukrainian Jew who migrated to Germany in 1993. This is not how racism works. Unless the university has their own concept of it, and it seems they do.

I am also being criminally investigated for this statement in the above article, the slanderous bit in bold:

“I contacted Selivanova and the German professorial coauthors of this paper, as well as the leadership of the University of Ulm and their medicine faculty, the Ombudspeople and members of the research integrity commission. Despite my repeated inquiries, none of them denied that they see NPOF as a bunch of stupid foreigners who had no right to investigate this perfect study from Germany and to sully the names of German Gods of Medicine.”

Actually I presented this quote to University of Ulm weeks before publication, and asked them if they disagree with me making this statement, but that was another email they never replied to. Basically, they approved the quotes which they now feel slandered by. I mentioned this in my written statement to the police, and supplied my original emails.

What I did imply in my satirical take, was that University of Ulm may be protecting Fulda and Debatin for no other reason but them being fellow ethnic Germans. This accusation would not account as criminal slander even if it was wrong, but I think I can explain below why I may be right. And I will also show even more bad science published in Ulm by other ethnic German professors of medicine, which will never be investigated for certain reasons.

There is no logic in the immense support the former Vice-President Debatin receives from his university, despite his and Fulda’s being found guilty of research misconduct by the German Research Council (DFG). Not just the university’s aggressive whitewashing, not just their refusal to admit any of my evidence, also the Debatin-worshipping media reporting which the university clearly influenced, do not make any sense. Unless they think that Fulda and Debatin were indeed innocent victims of a conspiracy. A conspiracy of yours truly and foreigners like the pseudonymous Claire Francis posting on PubPeer.

I published the offending article from 14 April 2026 exactly because Ulm had zero interest to investigate Debatin’s paper Demir et al 2020, where the corresponding author is his former postdoc and lab head Lüder Hinrich Meyer. My colleague Claire Francis reported this study to the Swedish National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct (NPOF), because of its Swedish coauthor, Galina Selivanova. NPOF found Selivanova guilty and the paper fraudulent, and placed the main blame with the Germans in Ulm, whom NPOF however had no mandate to investigate. That’s why I again tried to notify the University of Ulm, and again hit a wall. Now this fraudulent paper can’t retracted because Ulm clearly thinks there’s nothing wrong with it and does not agree with NPOF’s decision (or their right to investigate in the first place).

I first wrote the Ombudspeople and the leadership of the University of Ulm about the Fulda and Debatin case on 28 December 2023. Then again on 19 January 2024. No reaction. Then I published this article, which was picked up by the German media, national and local.

Fulda was at that time Rector of the University of Kiel, and its board was very unhappy with her performance. So they “leaked” my article to journalists and pushed the state government for Fulda’s removal. The rector resigned, the scandal exploded. The University of Ulm still did not reply to my emails. I placed a notification of suspected research misconduct again, on 1 February 2024.

Facts are that the University of Ulm repeatedly breached their own rules when I tried reporting the suspected research misconduct by Debatin and Fulda. They simply never, not even once, replied to admit my notifications and evidence. And if you don’t acknowledge a notification of suspected research misconduct, this means you never actually received it, as the University of Ulm did once again in the case in the article above.

All I got from Ulm was a message from their then-Ombudsperson, Birte Glimm. who soon after became her university’s Vice President for Teaching and Internationalisation. She instructed me to never write to her and other Ombudspeople again, accused me of writing “polemical emails“, and educated me that I am not entitled to expect any replies or to “know whether the university is investigating or not“.

On 29 March 2024, I complained to the state government about the university’s refusal to acknowledge my emails and evidence. The State of Baden-Württemberg informed me that the university informed them that it was investigating the Fulda and Debatin affair.

In January 2025, the University of Frankfurt – where Fulda went after Ulm and before Kiel, and rose to Vice-Rector for Research – declared her innocent (read January 2025 Shorts). That was duly celebrated by the German magazine Der Spiegel, even with a hit-piece on yours truly, possibly on behalf of Fulda’s lawyers.

On 28 April 2025 another Spiegel masterpiece of investigative journalism triumphantly announced the outcome of the Ulm investigation (translated):

“In the case of the allegations of plagiarism against the former Kiel University president Fulda, another decision has been made: the University of Ulm terminated the investigations against her and another medical professor. A gross negligence is not detectable. However, the Senate Commission “Responsibility in Science” saw a violation of the principles of good scientific practice.

A science blogger had accused the former Ulm professor Fulda and the retired medical director of the Ulm Clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Klaus-Michael Debatin, at the end of 2023 to manipulate image data in their -partially jointly written- scientific publications. […]

Fulda admitted errors or mix-ups of representations and illustrations for her younger work, of which the original data is still available, the University of Ulm said. During her hearing, she was unable to clear the doubts about her scientific integrity. However, since scientific misconduct due to gross negligence by falsifying or manipulating representations and illustrations could not be demonstrated, the procedure was discontinued at the end of February, as the university now announced.”

The Spiegel article was then corrected with a notice: “In fact, the sub-procedure is not about image manipulation“. Also the higher education magazine Forschung und Lehre mentioned on 29 April 2025 that the Ulm university senate terminated the investigation against both Fulda and Debatin. Clearly they had to stop investigating papers like this one:

S Fulda, C Scaffidi , T Pietsch , P H Krammer , M E Peter , K M Debatin Activation of the CD95 (APO-1/Fas) pathway in drug- and gamma-irradiation-induced apoptosis of brain tumor cells Cell Death & Differentiation (1998) doi: 10.1038/sj.cdd.4400419

The University of Ulm had to pull the brake because they saw no way to save Fulda (and Debatin) otherwise. Since the obvious nature of data manipulation was not deniable, the usual excuse of absence of intent to deceive was deployed. The figures faked themselves, very unfortunate, but happens to important people sometimes.

The whitewashing from Frankfurt and Ulm didn’t help though. On 4 July 2025, DFG issued this decision (translated):

“The Joint Committee issued a written reprimand against both researchers. It also imposed a one-year ban on Fulda from submitting proposals to the DFG.

The decision concludes the DFG’s investigation into allegations that had attracted a great deal of media and public attention. Fulda and Debatin were accused of unauthorized duplication and other manipulation of images in a total of more than 25 publications since the 1990s, in which the physicians were involved jointly and in some cases with other researchers. The allegations were reported to the DFG around the turn of the year 2023/24.

In the publications with errors, figures had either been duplicated without permission or altered, for example by inserting individual parts, in order to substantiate scientific results. In three of the publications reviewed, however, the allegations were found to be unfounded on an objective level.

With regard to subjective reproachability, the committee found gross negligence on the part of Simone Fulda with regard to seven allegations in a total of five publications. Specifically, in accordance with the relevant DFG rules of procedure, the committee considered Fulda to have committed the offence of co-authorship of a falsified publication in four publications and the offence of manipulation of a representation or illustration in one publication. In the case of Klaus-Michael Debatin, the committee found gross negligence in three allegations in a total of two publications. As a result, he was found to have committed the offence of co-authorship of a falsified publication in two papers.

[…]

With regard to Simone Fulda, the investigation referred to eleven publications with DFG support from the period between 2001 and 2019, in which she was involved in a publication as a first author and ten publications as a co-author. The committee found that eight publications of them are objectively faulty. Klaus-Michael Debatin was involved in nine of the examined publications as a co-author. In six of these publications, the committee found errors on an objective level.

However, the committee came to the conclusion that in the constellations in which objective violations of scientific misconduct were found, it was incomprehensible how the duplicates could remain undetected. These were so obvious that Fulda and Debatin should have been able to recognize them even in their roles as senior or corresponding authors.

[…]

As a result, the Investigation Committee therefore proposed a written reprimand against Simone Fulda and a one-year exclusion from eligibility to submit proposals to the DFG as suitable and appropriate measures in accordance with the DFG’s rules of procedure. It proposed a written reprimand against Klaus-Michael Debatin. The Joint Committee has now complied with this decision.”

How can one defend Debatin after that? One can. Either because he is so irresistibly sexy, or because he is a fellow rich white German male professor.

That’s why my notification about Selivanova’s paper with Debatin and Meyer was not admitted. The fraudulent paper will never be retracted. Debatin has actually 40 bad papers on PubPeer, not 25.. This is indeed old, but the problems are beyond obvious, one doesn’t need to find ancient raw data to verify these duplications:

S Fulda , W Lutz , M Schwab , K M Debatin MycN sensitizes neuroblastoma cells for drug-induced apoptosis Oncogene (1999) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1202435

No action was taken by the University of Ulm on that or any other Debatin paper, aside of some ridiculous corrections. It is perfectly clear that the university opposes or rather prevents retractions. Only by accident did Fulda and Debatin suffer two retractions, for self-plagiarism and with the grey-zone publisher Bentham, and even there one of the retractions was de-retracted (read December 2025 Shorts).

The only other reaction I received from University of Ulm was from their ombudsman Paul Dietl, who complained about me in a public letter (read March 2024 Shorts). Dietl argued that only papers younger than 10 years can be subject to criticism, and even then only by selected people. Yet he later refused to consider Debatin’s six year old paper Demir et al 2020, exactly because of who reported it. In his lament, Dietl accused me of all possible things, including harassing senior citizens:

“There are now websites, such as Pubpeer ( https://pubpeer.com/static/about ), where authors in whose publications irregularities or similar are discovered, can be pilloried. Some of these are people are over 70 years old themselves and whose publications are over 30 years old.

We as ombudsmen/commissions must investigate these anonymous complaints. I can tell you from experience that whistleblowers are not just do-gooders who want to save the Occident. There are often old quarrels, desires for revenge, etc. behind it. People who have committed themselves to science all their lives are then mercilessly prejudged by certain science journalists (see e.g. https://forbetterscience.com/2019/11/05/opera-buffa-di-guido-kroemer-a-la -scala/ ).

This mischief would also probably be over if there was a statute of limitations.”

Dietl for some reason felt the need to specifically defend from my slander Debatin’s friend in France, Guido Kroemer. Why? Is it because Kroemer is German? More importantly: not that it was ever my goal to “save the Occident“, i.e. the western European heritage (which is a racially charged concept already), but why did the Ombudsman of the University of Ulm insist that unlike him, I would be the wrong person for this task? Because I am a Ukrainian Jew? Dietl and his university never replied to apologise for these nasty insinuations.

I was making jokes about victims of anti-German racism, but yes, I do feel the leadership of the University of Ulm promotes and defends people who look like them: ethnic German.

The university’s leadership consists of six people, only one of them has a migrant history (Greece). The equal opportunities office is run by a woman, but by an ethnically German one. The entire five-head strong leadership of the University Clinic Ulm is ethnically German, four men and one woman. The Ulm university medicine has 30 clinics with 32 directors, almost all have clearly German names which suggest they are ethnically German. Only four clinic directors (13%) are women, one has a Greek name. Only one other clinic director has migrant origin, a Persian man. Is this representative for the German medicine? Not at all. Do they really recruit and promote on merit only?

It’s even worse, because I can prove that University of Ulm has absolutely no sympathy with any minorities, ethnic, sexual or otherwise. Allow me once again to remind you about their former “Vice Presidents for Medicine, Gender and Diversity”: one was Debatin himself, after 2014 it was another white German heterosexual male, Hartmut Döhner. Yet Döhner was just briefly holding Debatin’s seat warm, because the latter became Vice-President of Medicine, Gender and Diversity again, and again in 2018.

The only diversity these guys provide is the colour of their ties, but then again: this is exactly the message the University of Ulm wanted to send to any women, People of Colour, Jews, Muslims, migrants, LGBTQ and other minorities who might think of complaining about discrimination. One look at Debatin’s face and you’ll know to better shut up and swallow everything.

In fairness, Debatin did take his job as Vice-president for Gender and Diversity seriously, I mea look what stellar career his protege Fulda enjoyed. Also Döhner did a lot to advance women. Again, one woman, but still: his wife, Frau Prof Dr med Konstanze Döhner, who became senior physician in the inner medicine clinic led by her husband. In 2021, the couple was jointly awarded the Johann Georg Zimmermann Medal by the Hannover Medical School (MHH) for “for their outstanding lifetime achievements in the service of cancer research.“

Frau Döhner is indeed a great scientist – she coauthored a study (Rummelt et al 2021) where a totally wrong antibody was used (PERK/EIF2AK3 instead of phospho-ERK, read Sholto David’s blog), and still miraculously produced a perfect phospho-ERK result:

Christoph Rummelt , Sivahari P. Gorantla, Manja Meggendorfer , Anne Charlet , Cornelia Endres , Konstanze Döhner , Florian H. Heidel , Thomas Fischer , Torsten Haferlach, Justus Duyster, Nikolas Von Bubnoff Activating JAK-mutations confer resistance to FLT3 kinase inhibitors in FLT3-ITD positive AML in vitro and in vivo Leukemia (2021) doi: 10.1038/s41375-020-01077-1

In the same year, the last author Nikolas von Bubnoff, clinic director at University of Lübeck, was awarded the German Cancer Prize. For stuff you can admire on PubPeer.

But I digress, back to Ulm, here is a Diversity Döhner for you:

Michael Schmitt, Anita Schmitt , Markus T Rojewski , Jinfei Chen , Krzysztof Giannopoulos , Fei Fei , Yingzhe Yu , Marlies Götz , Marta Heyduk , Gerd Ritter , Daniel E Speiser , Sacha Gnjatic , Philippe Guillaume , Mark Ringhoffer , Richard F Schlenk , Peter Liebisch , Donald Bunjes , Hiroshi Shiku , Hartmut Dohner , Jochen Greiner HAMM-R3 peptide vaccination in patients with acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, and multiple myeloma elicits immunologic and clinical responses Blood (2008) doi: 10.1182/blood-2007-07-099366

In March 2024, I tried twice to notify the University of Ulm about the problems in Döhner’s papers. Nobody ever replied. In my April 2026 article, for which the university now reported me to police, I presented some bad papers by Döhner, including Close et al 2019 with Debatin’s right-hand man in Ulm, Mike-Andrew Westhoff (see also March 2024 Shorts). Another coauthor was Stephan Stilgenbauer, director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Ulm and coauthor of aforementioned Demir et al 2020. The university of Ulm also had not itnerest to investigate a ridiculously fraudulent gel image of Döhner et al 1994, featuring Stilgenbauer.

If that was too old, here is a six year old paper by Westhoff with his patron and another Ulm professor, Georg Karpel-Massler, who has more on PubPeer:

Maximilian Pruss , Annika Dwucet , Mine Tanriover , Michal Hlavac , Richard Eric Kast , Klaus-Michael Debatin , Christian Rainer Wirtz , Marc-Eric Halatsch , Markus David Siegelin , Mike-Andrew Westhoff , Georg Karpel-Massler Dual metabolic reprogramming by ONC201/TIC10 and 2-Deoxyglucose induces energy depletion and synergistic anti-cancer activity in glioblastoma British Journal of Cancer (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41416-020-0759-0

Also Marc-Eric Halatsch was for 12 years deputy director of neurosurgery clinic in Ulm, but in 2021 he somehow abandoned this, left Germany and science behind, to work in a cantonal hospital in Switzerland. Here is his PubPeer record, and here are the boys again:

• Georg Karpel-Massler , Matei A. Banu , Chang Shu , Marc-Eric Halatsch , Mike-Andrew Westhoff , Jeffrey N. Bruce , Peter Canoll , Markus D. Siegelin Inhibition of deubiquitinases primes glioblastoma cells to apoptosis in vitro and in vivo Oncotarget (2016) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.7302
• Georg Karpel-Massler , Doruntina Ramani , Chang Shu , Marc-Eric Halatsch , Mike-Andrew Westhoff , Jeffrey N. Bruce , Peter Canoll , Markus D. Siegelin Metabolic reprogramming of glioblastoma cells by L-asparaginase sensitizes for apoptosis in vitro and in vivo Oncotarget (2016) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.9257

But nothing goes with Debatin, and we again meet the director of neurosurgery clinic in Ulm, Christian Wirtz:

Georg Karpel-Massler, M-Andrew Westhoff , Shaoxia Zhou , Lisa Nonnenmacher , Annika Dwucet , Richard E Kast , Max G Bachem , Christian R Wirtz , Klaus-Michael Debatin , Marc-Eric Halatsch Combined inhibition of HER1/EGFR and RAC1 results in a synergistic antiproliferative effect on established and primary cultured human glioblastoma cells Molecular Cancer Therapeutics (2013) doi: 10.1158/1535-7163.mct-13-0052

Look at this team, worth noting that for some reason the S6 protein data often gets manipulated in mTOR-related studies:

Lisa Nonnenmacher , Mike‐Andrew Westhoff , Simone Fulda , Georg Karpel‐Massler , Marc‐Eric Halatsch , Jens Engelke , Thomas Simmet , Selim Corbacioglu , Klaus‐Michael Debatin RIST: A potent new combination therapy for glioblastoma International Journal of Cancer (2015) doi: 10.1002/ijc.29138 

For fairness, I must say that Selim Corbacioglu is a mentee of Debatin’s, but he left Ulm for Regensburg, where he became clinic director:

Selim Corbacioglu, Mehtap Kilic , Mike-Andrew Westhoff , Dirk Reinhardt , Simone Fulda , Klaus-Michael Debatin Newly identified c-KIT receptor tyrosine kinase ITD in childhood AML induces ligand-independent growth and is responsive to a synergistic effect of imatinib and rapamycin Blood (2006) doi: 10.1182/blood-2006-05-021691

If you remember the Ulmian Gender & Diversity Triumvirate, our third diversity figure was the Dean of Medicine, Thomas Wirth, who still holds this office.

Wirth came to Ulm from Hannover, here he is with his doctorate mentor, Stefan Kubicka at Hannover Medical School (MHH):

Florian Kühnel , Engin Gürlevik , Thomas C Wirth , Nina Strüver , Nisar P Malek , Martina Müller-Schilling , Michael P Manns , Amancio Carnero , Lars Zender , Stefan Kubicka Targeting of p53-transcriptional dysfunction by conditionally replicating adenovirus is not limited by p53-homologues Molecular Therapy (2010) doi: 10.1038/mt.2009.298

With’s first author paper with Kubicka (Wirth et al 2003) had to be corrected in 2018 for image duplication. It was coauthored by the late MHH president Michael Manns and Manns’s disastrous protege K Lenhard Rudolph.

And so was this paper by Wirth:

Thomas Wirth , Florian Kühnel , Bettina Fleischmann-Mundt , Norman Woller , Meta Djojosubroto , Karl Lenhard Rudolph , Michael Manns , Lars Zender , Stefan Kubicka Telomerase-dependent virotherapy overcomes resistance of hepatocellular carcinomas against chemotherapy and tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand by elimination of Mcl-1 Cancer Research (2005) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-04-3664

Also that was corrected in 2018, “to explain the intentional display of the same images“. We now go to Wirth’s lab in Ulm, and also meet Stilgenbauer again:

Sandrine Sander , Lars Bullinger , Kay Klapproth , Katja Fiedler , Hans A. Kestler , Thomas F. E. Barth , Peter Möller , Stephan Stilgenbauer, Jonathan R. Pollack , Thomas Wirth MYC stimulates EZH2 expression by repression of its negative regulator miR-26a Blood (2008) doi: 10.1182/blood-2008-03-147645

Another set of duplicated western blots:

Michael J. Schmeisser , Bernd Baumann , Svenja Johannsen , Gry F. Vindedal , Vidar Jensen , Øivind C. Hvalby , Rolf Sprengel , Jochen Seither , Ayesha Maqbool , Alexander Magnutzki , Michael Lattke , Franz Oswald , Tobias M. Boeckers , Thomas Wirth IκB Kinase/Nuclear Factor κB-Dependent Insulin-Like Growth Factor 2 (Igf2) Expression Regulates Synapse Formation and Spine Maturation via Igf2 Receptor Signaling Journal of Neuroscience (2012) doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.0111-12.2012

Here another paper from Wirth’s institute at the University of Ulm, where he is director. The last author Alexey Ushmorov is his lab head, also on board is a German genius in Yale, Markus Müschen (who has a scary PubPeer record):

Franz Ketzer , Hend Abdelrasoul , Mona Vogel , Ralf Marienfeld , Markus Müschen , Hassan Jumaa , Thomas Wirth, Alexey Ushmorov CCND3 is indispensable for the maintenance of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia Oncogenesis (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41389-021-00377-0

More repeated blots, the key collaborator is Peter Möller, until his retirement head of pathology in Ulm, we already met him briefly above:

Linka Xie , Olga Ritz , Frank Leithäuser , Hanfeng Guan , Johanna Färbinger , Clarissa D. Weitzer , Franziska Gehringer , Silke Brüderlein , Karlheinz Holzmann , Marion J. Vogel , Peter Möller , Thomas Wirth , Alexey Ushmorov FOXO1 downregulation contributes to the oncogenic program of primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma Oncotarget (2014) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.2107

Ushmorov, a hot-blooded russian, angrily retorted on PubPeer: “Exactly, as we already commented on this, the same membrane was probed by FOXO1 antibody by O. Ritz who is co-author of both articles.” Well, maybe it is normal in Ulm to recycle same data for several papers, but why are the loading control blots different?

There’s a bit more on PubPeer for Wirth. And more on PubPeer for Möller. Like this, with Döhner and Stilgenbauer, plus Thomas Barth, whom we also briefly met above and who is now deputy director of Institute for Pathology in Ulm (Döhner brought both Stilgenbauer and Barth to Ulm):

Thomas F.E. Barth , Hartmut Döhner , Claudius A. Werner , Stephan Stilgenbauer , Magdalena Schlotter , Michael Pawlita , Peter Lichter, Peter Möller , Martin Bentz Characteristic Pattern of Chromosomal Gains and Losses in Primary Large B-Cell Lymphomas of the Gastrointestinal Tract Blood (1998) doi: 10.1182/blood.v91.11.4321 

And here is another Möller paper, do you recognise two of his coauthors?

C. Haag , D. Stadel , S. Zhou , M. G. Bachem , P. Moller , K.-M. Debatin , S. Fulda Identification of c-FLIPL and c-FLIPS as critical regulators of death receptor-induced apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells Gut (2011) doi: 10.1136/gut.2009.202325 

And here is another Barth paper, do you recognise his coauthors?

Md. Nabiul Hasan , Manon Queudeville , Luca Trentin , Sarah Mirjam Eckhoff , Ilaria Bronzini , Chiara Palmi , Thomas Barth , Giovanni Cazzaniga , Geertruy Te Kronnie , Klaus-Michael Debatin , Lüder Hinrich Meyer Targeting of hyperactivated mTOR signaling in high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia in a pre-clinical model Oncotarget (2015) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.2842

Debatin is really the face, the heart, the brain and also other body parts of the University of Ulm, certainly for its medical faculty.

No wonder the university wants me arrested. How could I do this to this holy man who saved thousands of children.

No, seriously. When Debatin retired on 15 April 2024 as Director of the Clinic for Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine at the Ulm University Hospital, aged 71 and after 27 years in this job, a hagiographic PR campaign into public media was unleashed by the University of Ulm, with reporting in local newspapers (e.g, here and here), or this bizarre interview in a regional newspaper from March 2024, titled “How this man managed to ensure that fewer children die of cancer“:

The Südwest Press interview about “cancer and Eureka moments in the lab” contained tough and inquisitive questions to Debatin like:

• “Professor Debatin, on 15 April you will retire at the age of 71. Prior to that, are you really going on a business trip?” (Debatin’s names a hemato-oncology course in Sorrento, Italy: “I’m helping to organize it and give a lecture there: “How to kill a leukemia cell?“
• “Have you achieved everything you wanted to achieve?” (Debatin: “I have a dream job. I get to do research and treatment, i.e. patient-oriented research. That is very satisfying. Of course, I wasn’t born with the idea to become a head physician and clinic director.”
• “Let’s start by talking about your research: What kind of study, which project are you particularly proud of?” (Debatin: “we then found out how to trigger programmed cell death in cancer – apoptosis.”
• “Thanks to your research results, can children with cancer be better helped today?” (Debatin doesn’t deny it)
• “Can you say how many children you healed?” (Debatin’s answer: “over a thousand“
• “Do you receive letters of gratitude from parents or children? (Debatin gives examples)
• “In addition to your medical work, you took over the management of the university hospital In 2013, during a difficult phase. How did this come about? Why did you do that?” (Debatin explains how he sacrificed himself to take responsibility)
• “What are your plans for retirement? Are there any projects?” (Debatin announces to continue taking care of his medical centre, but also of his children and grandchildren, and to play Beethoven on piano)
• “Not planning any extended trips with your wife?” (Debatin: “no. However, the idea of cell death antibodies came to me on the beach on vacation in Spain“

We were also informed that Debatin didn’t retire in full:

“Debatin will remain available for paediatric medicine in another function in Ulm for a while longer, he will set up the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Health”

That DZKJ center was announced by Debatin and his friends in a peer reviewed medical journal the next year (Debatin et al 2025), it has 7 sites in Germany, the one in Ulm is led by Debatin, its Vice-President is Martin Wabitsch, professor and center director at University of Ulm. Of course Wabisch has stuff on PubPeer. Here are the two friends together:

Pamela Fischer-Posovszky , Hans Tornqvist , Klaus-Michael Debatin , Martin Wabitsch Inhibition of death-receptor mediated apoptosis in human adipocytes by the insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I)/IGF-I receptor autocrine circuit Endocrinology (2004) doi: 10.1210/en.2003-0985

Here another Wabisch paper which is difficult to explain with an honest oversight:

Matthias Kraus , Thomas Greither , Carina Wenzel , Daniela Bräuer-Hartmann , Martin Wabitsch , Hermann M. Behre Inhibition of adipogenic differentiation of human SGBS preadipocytes by androgen-regulated microRNA miR-375 Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology (2015) doi: 10.1016/j.mce.2015.07.026

Let me now show you some other clinic directors from Ulm. Professor Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek is one of those rare women who made it the top in Ulm, she leads the dermatology clinic:

Abhijit Basu , Vida Farsam , Karmveer Singh , Diana Crisan , Nicolai Treiber , Lars Alexander Schneider , Margit Huber , Jennifer I. Engelmeyer , Björn Schumacher , Pallab Maity , Daniel Brandt , Martin Jastroch , Cornelia Mauch , Hartmut Geiger , Dimitris Kletsas , Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek Senescent Fibroblasts Drive Melanoma Progression Through GCP ‐2 Induced CREB Phosphorylation Enhancing Glycolysis Aging Cell (2025) doi: 10.1111/acel.70239

Here we have Thomas Seufferlein, director of the Clinic for Inner Medicine, accompanied by another Ulm professor, Uwe Knippschild, and a celebrity cheater from UK, Georgios Giamas:

J Von Blume , Uwe Knippschild, Franck Dequiedt , Georgios Giamas , Alexander Beck , Alexandra Auer , Johan Van Lint , Guido Adler, Thomas Seufferlein Phosphorylation at Ser244 by CK1 determines nuclear localization and substrate targeting of PKD2 The EMBO Journal (2007) doi: 10.1038/sj.emboj.7601891

Seufferlein and the first author Julia Von Blume (now in Yale) announced on PubPeer that this “error does not change the conclusions of the paper, and a corrigendum will be submitted to the publisher“. That was in April 2021, five and a half years ago. No corrigendum was published yet. There is a bit more for Seufferlein on PubPeer, here he also doesn’t seem to believe in corrections:

Ninel Azoitei, Kristina Diepold , Cornelia Brunner , Arefeh Rouhi , Felicitas Genze , Alexander Becher , Hans Kestler , Johan Van Lint , Gabriela Chiosis , John Koren , Stefan Frohling , Claudia Scholl , Thomas Seufferlein HSP90 supports tumor growth and angiogenesis through PRKD2 protein stabilization Cancer Research (2014) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-14-1017

To be honest, I did occasionally get replies from the University of Ulm, at least from their press office. For example, they did acknowledge that Debatin’s official CV on their website was outdated and that he wasn’t their Vice President anymore. Also, in October 2022, I contacted the University of Ulm because some papermillers invented fictional Germans as authors, to increase the chance of acceptance of their fabrications. These fictional Germans were “Susanne Klenk^” und “Ronald Glassen“, allegedly affiliated with “Research Institution of Clinical Biomedicine, Hospital University Medical Centre, 89000 Ulm, Germany“. There, the university did eventually reply with this one short sentence: “the people mentioned are not known here“. You can read about this case here:

I also tried contacting the University of Ulm in 2023, because they installed Christoph Thiemermann as guest professor, for a year. Thiemermann, a German with a professorship at Queen Mary University of London, had oodles of retractions since then.

I sent four emails about Thiemermann to Universiyt of Ulm in July/August 2023, and one in December 2023. Nobody ever replied. Not even about this paper with the Ulm professor and head of medical institute, Peter Radermacher:

Areeg I Khan, Sina M Coldewey , Nimesh S A Patel , Mara Rogazzo , Massimo Collino , Muhammed M Yaqoob , Peter Radermacher, Amar Kapoor , Christoph Thiemermann Erythropoietin attenuates cardiac dysfunction in experimental sepsis in mice via activation of the β-common receptor Disease Models & Mechanisms (2013) doi: 10.1242/dmm.011908

In July 2026, the publisher announced to be investigating this paper. University of Ulm does nothing.

By the way, I accidentally found out that University of Ulm does like to sue their critics and report them to police. Here a statement from 2018 by Erich Miltner, medical director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Ulm University Hospital, defending his colleague and lab head Claudia Friesen:

Miltner says that an court injunction was obtained against a Dr. Ulmer from Ludwigsburg for “lies, polemics and defamation of the person of Dr Friesen“. A criminal persecution was announced also. Threats of lawsuits were issued against all other critics of Friesen who dare to “spread these or other lies“.

Uh-uh. Am I next, Erich?

Mareike Roscher, Inis Hormann , Oliver Leib , Sebastian Marx , Josue Moreno , Erich Miltner , Claudia Friesen Targeted alpha-therapy using [Bi-213]anti-CD20 as novel treatment option for radio- and chemoresistant non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells Oncotarget (2013) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.817

Friesen has much more on PubPeer, some if it with Miltner. But guess who mentored Friesen before she worked for Miltner. Yes, Debatin!

Claudia Friesen, Gerhard Glatting , Bernd Koop , Klaus Schwarz , Alfred Morgenstern , Christos Apostolidis , Klaus-Michael Debatin , Sven N. Reske Breaking chemoresistance and radioresistance with [213Bi]anti-CD45 antibodies in leukemia cells Cancer Research (2007) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-06-3569

The fact that the only reaction I ever saw from that university’s leadership was their reporting me to police for crimes of racism (of all things!), supports my fears that they do not accept my right to make accusations their colleagues. Because of who they are and because of who I am.

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