Tag: Helin Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg

Karolinska embarrasses itself to save two professors

Karolinska embarrasses itself to save two professors

The Swedish Karolinska Institutet (KI) is going through turbulent times. The Paolo Macchiarini scandal sensitised the European elite biomedical research centre and home of the Nobel Prize not just to patient abuse, but also to research misconduct and data manipulations, which its past professor Macchiarini was found guilty of. The misconduct and patient abuse investigations are ongoing. In parallel, several non-clinical KI professors were or still are under KI investigation, because of PubPeer evidence against their publications, as I reported before on my site. Two of them, as I wrote in a separate article, were the autophagy researcher Helin Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg and her former PhD supervisor, the apoptosis specialist  Boris Zhivotovsky. Both are now finally and irrevocably acquitted by KI of all suspicions of data manipulations in their common publications. The case is closed, there will be no external investigation.

In a previous decision regarding 9 of her papers, KI performed an amazing show of contortionism to absolve Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg from all suspicions of data manipulation (see this report). In one case, manipulated data was declared as non-existent because the paper containing it (Shen et al, Oncogene 2008) was retracted, and hence non-existent itself. No papers from Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg’s postdoctoral period in the US in the lab of Junying Yuan in Harvard were scrutinised by KI, despite the fact that KI originally based their decision to recruit Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg as assistant professor in no small part on these very publications. For example, western blot images from Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg et al, Genes & Dev 2013 were apparently re-used in her new lab’s paper in KI, Xia et al JCB 2015, see this PubPeer evidence: Continue reading “Karolinska embarrasses itself to save two professors” →

Data manipulation evidence in Helin Vakifahmetoglu papers “warrants no further consideration”

Data manipulation evidence in Helin Vakifahmetoglu papers “warrants no further consideration”

The Swedish Karolinska Institutet (KI) has investigated its own cell biologist and well-funded autophagy researcher Helin Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg, following my publishing of a dossier with evidence for data manipulations in her papers. Also PubPeer evidence was considered. This was a second investigation of Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg, who was fully acquitted by KI already in 2016. While the new KI investigation progressed, one of Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg’s publications was retracted (Shen et al, Oncogene 2008), due to image duplications and unavailability of original data. With their second decision, KI again exonerated  Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg from all suspicions. One of the reasons was: since the Shen et al 2008 is retracted, it ceases to exist. Hence, all image duplications it shares with other Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg papers cease existing also. Other arguments were the author’s assertions to have reproduced more than 10 year old results faithfully (since the original data was unavailable), or her presenting evidence that similar looking images were in fact dissimilar. Unfortunately, where such original data could be recovered, it was shown only to internal investigators at KI, noone else. The case is closed, no appeal is possible. There will be no corrections even, unless journals do the unlikely thing and decide not to accept the KI decision.

Another Vakifahmetoglu paper (Imreh et al, J Cell Biol. 2011) is still under KI investigation but she has officially nothing to do with it. KI announced to follow this through with her former boss and the paper’s last author, Boris Zhivotovsky. He is under another KI investigation already, together with several of his colleagues including the  department’s prefect Ulla Stenius (see my report here), who received the KI letter about  Vakifahmetoglu whitewashing in cc.  Continue reading “Data manipulation evidence in Helin Vakifahmetoglu papers “warrants no further consideration”” →

Mass investigation of 9 senior scientists at Karolinska Institutet

Mass investigation of 9 senior scientists at Karolinska Institutet

The scandal-shaken Swedish Karolinska Institutet (KI) invited nine of their research group leaders and professors to explain themselves about data integrity concerns raised in regard to their publications. They have time until November 24th 2016 to address of the suspicions of image duplications which were posted on PubPeer by anonymous watchdogs and subsequently reported to Karolinska by a whistleblower. This was the email the 9 scientists received on November 10th from Lisen Samuelsson of KI’s legal department:

“Karolinska Institutet (KI) has been notified about inaccuracies in one or more scientific articles according to comments on the website PubPeer. You are named as the main author of the article (s) in question.

KI therefore requests that you provide a statement regarding whether the alleged inaccuracies are correct or not. If there are inaccuracies in the article (s), KI requests that you specify whether they have been corrected, or if they will be corrected, and if so, how. Please submit your statement to KI at registrator@ki.se regarding this matter by November 24, 2016”.

dear-scientist

The email was complemented by a list of these scientists’ respective PubPeer-flagged publications. Most of these 9 addressees are very senior KI researchers, like Ulla Stenius and Boris Zhivotovsky. Here is the list, with some background information:

Continue reading “Mass investigation of 9 senior scientists at Karolinska Institutet” →

Helin Vakifahmetoglu and Nobel-prized autophagy research of Karolinska

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Sweden awarded this week the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 to the Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi “for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy”. Autophagy is a physiologically highly relevant intracellular process of protein and organelle recycling, when these are misfolded or damaged or when the cell lacks nutrients. Possibly, KI Nobel Assembly’s decision might have been inspired by the success of their own excellent young autophagy researcher: Helin Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg, see also this press release. The following is to raise concerns about hers and KI’s achievements in the Nobel-awarded research field of autophagy, which are somewhat marred by recurrent image duplications. The copious new evidence I was given by a certain sleuth team suggests a possibly bigger problem than KI previously decreed.

The young group leader started her career in the field of apoptosis (cell death) research and authored many publications in highly respectable journals, both as PhD student of Karolinska in the lab of cell biologist Boris Zhivotovsky, as well as postdoctoral scientist in Harvard, with another apoptosis specialist, Junying Yian.  Vakifahmetoglu-Norberg then returned to KI to start her own cell biology research group, not on apoptosis, but on autophagy. At her institutional website she lists research funding from top-sources like the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, the Swedish Society for Medical Research and several others.  “Highly enthusiastic and hardworking postdocs and undergraduate students” are invited to join the “protein degradation pathways“ lab, while also discretely asked to bring their own financial support. Funding money plays a big role at KI, as we all recently learned during the Paolo Macchiarini scandal.

Continue reading “Helin Vakifahmetoglu and Nobel-prized autophagy research of Karolinska” →