Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
Irina Stancheva was investigated in Edinburgh for fraud at least twice, in 2009 and 2017, yet retraction and correction decisions were not implemented. Apparently to protect the reputation of Nobel Prize candidate Sir Adrian Bird and his male mentees, primarily Richard Meehan. One wonders: how much of Bird research in past two decades was actually fabricated by Stancheva?
A UCLA dentistry student writes in a leaked letter: ” I was having disagreements with my research mentor, and thought that Dr. Tetradis could help. Instead, he distorted the issues to attack my mentor, and sexually harassed me. When I filed the Title IX complaint, his powerful colleagues discouraged me from filing.”
A former Karolinska researcher is subject of research misconduct investigation, for forwarding to university OA publishing bills for her past research there. To save €3k, no trick is too dirty for Karolinska Institutet.
Dentistry professors at UCLA published manipulated data in top-level journals. When a colleague reported them, the university retaliated against the whistleblower.
A cancer research professor in China runs a paper mill, sources claim he sells first authorships for a bribe. Problem for his customers: the peer-reviewed papers they pay for, contain fake data.
I obtained the full report on the case of Karin Dahlman-Wright, Vice-Rector of the Karolinska Institutet. The investigation by Danish researcher Nils Billestrup for CEPN found 6 out of 8 papers contained data manipulations, but only in 2 cases serious enough to affect the conclusions.
Bremen rector Bernd Scholz-Reiter previously explained his predatory publishing and self-plagiarism as a personal crusade for Open Access. Now a closed access conference paper he coauthored was declared by his university as definitely not plagiarised.
Karolinska rector Ottersen was criticised for suspicious figure in an old paper. Now his collaborators at Institut Pasteur provide outlandish explanations for a manipulated gel Ottersen’s former lab provided. The original data, allegedly recovered, is not available to anyone, even KI.
In yet another investigation, UCL whitewashed Martin Birchall of all responsibilities. I publish here the confidential report and excerpts from a secret PhD thesis, which the UCL committee carefully avoided to read.
Carlos Lopez-Otin was forced to retract EIGHT papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, right after he retracted a very important paper in Nature Cell Biology. Spanish elites cry foul, a letter signed by 50 Spanish researchers was sent to JBC to prevent retractions. The ringleader is Juan Valcarcel of CRG in Barcelona, and I release 3 incompetent investigative reports Valcarcel commissioned in 2015 to whitewash his CRG colleague Maria Pia Cosma.
