Photo Credits From left to right:
Schematic showing how in Eliezer Masliah's 2015 study of an Alzheimer treatment, merged images of a young healthy mouse and an older treated mutant mouse appear to be disquietingly similar. Image credit: C. Bickel/SCIENCE; (DATA) E. Rockenstein Et Al. BMC Neuroscience 16:85 (2015)/CC By; DOI 10.1186/S12868-015-1218-7
Francesca Gino, courtesy of Francesca Gino. From Harvard Crimson article: Harvard Business School Prof. Gino Accused of Plagiarism Following Data Fraud Allegations
Hydroxychloroquine, photo by Zhukovsky from Open Access Government article: Study finds hydroxychloroquine most likely toxic to human genome
Piller, C. (2024). Picture Imperfect: Scores of papers by Eliezer Masliah, prominent neuroscientist and top NIH official, fall under suspicion. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.z2o7c3k
This case of fraud involves a large body of work spanning from 1997 until 2023, and is deeply troubling regarding foundational research on neurodegenerative diseases.
“A single nonreplicable finding is in itself not worrisome,” Okun says. But it raises greater concern in light of “convincing evidence of spliced and cloned images which appeared frequently in the decades following.” He calls it “deeply troubling” that FDA greenlighted human trials of prasinezumab based largely on suspect papers from Masliah’s lab.
Note: Prasinezumab has since moved into Phase III of clinical trials, and still shows promise for treating Parksinson's.
Harvard Professor Who Studies Dishonesty is Accused of Falsifying Data
Kim, J. (2023). Harvard professor who studies dishonesty is accused of falsifying data. NPR.
"After examining a number of Gino's works, the team said they found evidence of fraud spanning over a decade, most recently in 2020."
""Specifically, we wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud. We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens," DataColada wrote."
Find the retracted paper here!
Controversial COVID Study that Promoted Unproven Treatment Retracted After Four-Year Saga
Van Noorden, R. (2024). Controversial COVID study that promoted unproven treatment retracted after four-year saga. Nature (London). https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-04014-9
This paper is the the second most cited retracted paper ever, according to Web of Science. Almost 5 years after publication, the article was retracted due to data quality and ethics-approval concerns. Van Noorden notes that “the most important unintended effect of this study was to partially side-track and slow down the development of anti-COVID-19 drugs at a time when the need for effective treatments was critical”, says Ole Søgaard"
Find the retracted article here!