By Leonid Schneider, on research integrity, biomedical ethics and academic publishing
Elite journal Nature Cell Biology (NCB) requests deposition of raw data, in particular original scans of western blots and other gel analyses. Spanish star cancer researcher Carlos López-Otín, winner of 2017 Nature Mentoring Award, instead deposited whatever odd gel picture his lab had available, counting that nobody will bother to check. Yet readers did.
Karin Dahlman-Wright, Vice-Rector of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, is under misconduct investigation, initiated externally by University of Gothenburg. None of her papers under scrutiny is older than 10 years, yet the raw data does not seem to be available to all of them. Where it was provided, it doesn’t always match the published figures.
Janine Erler is a star of Danish cancer research, funded by ERC. Her earlier research led to the discovery of the key role of the enzyme lysyl oxidase in cancer metastasis and brought the scientist and businesswoman very close to curing cancer. Until some sad envious bad-wishers found duplicated gel bands in Erler papers.
The Paolo Macchiarini investigation was initiated in 2016 by the interim Karolinska Rector Karin Dahlman-Wright, finalised this year by the newly installed Ole Petter Ottersen. The irony is that several Dahlman-Wright papers were now scrutinised data integrity sleuths with the result that one wonders if Dahlman-Wright was the right person to supervise any research misconduct investigations. Also Ottersen himself might be tainted: he is co-author on an old paper with image duplication.
Russian officials found an ingenious way to cure cancer and to impress their autocratic president Putin: they simply rig statistics.Continue Reading
The Rector of University of Ferrara, Giorgio Zauli, reacted to my reporting by announcing legal retaliation of both criminal and civil prosecution. He reported me to Italian State prosecutor and issued this threat in this official capacity, acting for his Italian university.
Cardiff university declared their oncology professor and TCM peddler Wen Jiang innocent of any data manipulation. It then issued then a press release accusing me personally of having slandered Jiang with false allegations of misconduct.
Giorgio Zauli is Italian clinical haematologist and cancer researcher, Rector of the respected University of Ferrara. In this position he might soon be investigating his own papers for suspected data manipulation.
Cancer researcher Carlos López-Otín published the same Northern blot no less than 23 times in 23 publications, between 1994 and 2006. Eventually Lopez-Otin et al even stopped caring what order of samples that original loading control had.
Sonia Melo is back, and not to be messed with. The Portuguese zombie scientist is responsible for a number ofContinue Reading
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