Evan Bush
Updated Fri, January 26, 2024
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has requested the retraction of six studies and corrections in another 31 papers after a scathing critique drew attention to alleged errors a blogger and biologist said range from sloppiness to “really serious concerns.”
The allegations — against top scientists at the prestigious Boston-based institute, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School — put the institute at the center of a roiling debate about research misconduct, how to police scientific integrity and whether the organizational structure of academic science incentivizes shortcuts or cheating.
The criticism also spotlights how artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in catching sloppy or dubious science.
The allegations, which concern image duplications and manipulations in biomedical research, are similar to concerns aired last year against former Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who stepped down after an investigation.
A biologist and blogger, Sholto David centered attention on Dana-Farber after he highlighted problems in a slew of studies from top researchers.
In early January, David detailed duplications and potentially misleading image edits across dozens of papers produced primarily by Dana-Farber researchers, writing in a blog post that research from top scientists at the institute “appears to be hopelessly corrupt with errors that are obvious from just a cursory reading.”
After the publication of David’s blog, Dr. Barrett Rollins, the institute’s integrity research officer, said in a statement emailed Wednesday that Dana-Farber scientists had requested that six manuscripts be retracted, that 31 manuscripts were in the process of being corrected and that one manuscript remained under examination.
Rollins added that some of the papers flagged by David had already come up in “ongoing reviews” conducted previously by the institute.
“The presence of image discrepancies in a paper is not evidence of an author’s intent to deceive,” Rollins said. “That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful, fact-based examination which is an integral part of our response. Our experience is that errors are often unintentional and do not rise to the level of misconduct.”
Ellen Berlin, a communications director at Dana-Farber, wrote in an email that the allegations all concerned pure, or basic, science, as opposed to studies that led to cancer drug approvals.
“Cancer treatment is not impacted in any way in the review of the Dana-Farber research papers,” Berlin wrote.
David is one of several sleuth scientists who read journal articles to seek out errors or fabrications. He compared his hobby to playing a game like “spot the difference” or completing a crossword.
“It’s a puzzle,” David said in an interview, adding that he enjoys looking at figures that show results of common biology experiments, like those involving cells, mice and western blots, a laboratory method that identifies proteins.
“Of course, I do care about getting the science right,” he said.
Scientific errors in published work has been a focal point in the scientific community in recent years. The website Retraction Watch, a website that tracks withdrawn papers, counts more than 46,000 papers recorded in its database. The organization’s record of withdrawn work stretches back into the 1970s. A 2016 Nature article said more than 1 million papers in the biomedical field are published each year.
The website PubPeer, which allows outside researchers to post critiques of research that has been peer-reviewed and printed in journals, is a popular forum for scientists to flag problems. David said he has written more than 1,000 anonymous critiques on the website.
David said a trail of questionable science led him to Dana-Farber. In a prior investigation, David scrutinized the work of a Columbia University surgeon. He found flaws in the work of collaborators of the surgeon, which ultimately drew his attention toward the leadership team at Dana-Farber.
David said he went through the leadership page of Dana-Farber’s website, checking the work of its top scientists and leaders.
He found a slew of image errors, many of which could be explained by sloppy copy-paste work or a mix-up, but also others where images are stretched or rotated, which is more difficult to explain. Some errors were previously identified on PubPeer by other users. David combined those previous concerns with his own findings in a blog post taking aim at the institute. The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, was first to publish a news story about the accusations.
David said images of mice in one paper looked like they had been digitally altered in ways that appeared intentional and could skew takeaways from the paper.
“I don’t understand how that would come as an accident,” David said.
Most of the errors are “less serious” and might have been accidents, he said. Still, the rash of mistakes, to David, indicates a broken research and review process if no one caught them before publication.
“When you spot a duplication, that’s a symptom of a problem,” David said.
Elisabeth Bik, a scientist who investigates image manipulation and research misconduct, said David’s work was credible.
“The allegations he’s raising are exactly the same thing I would raise. They’re spot on,” Bik said.
Bik, who has been doing this type of sleuthing for about 10 years, said she is often frustrated by the lack of response from academic institutions when she flags errors. She said she was glad to see that Dana-Farber responded and had already taken proactive steps to correct the scientific record.
“I’m very pleasantly surprised that the institute is taking action. I hope they will follow through with publishers,” Bik said. “I’ve reported many of these cases where nothing happened.”
In scientific communities, image manipulations have been under close watch, particularly after Stanford University’s Tessier-Lavigne stepped down from his post as the institution’s president after criticism of his past work in neuroscience.
Tessier-Lavigne said he was cleared of fraud or falsifying data himself, but a probe found that members of his lab had inappropriately manipulated research data or engaged in “deficient scientific practices,” according to a report from a panel of outside researchers who evaluated the case.
The report said Tessier-Lavigne’s lab culture rewarded junior scientists whose work produced favorable results and marginalized those who did not, a dynamic that could have caused young scientists to manipulate results and chase favor.
Outside researchers said that type of culture is not uncommon at top institutions, where ambitious professors can lead sprawling laboratories with dozens of graduate students who are eager to please their superiors and who know publishing a splashy paper could rapidly advance their careers.
Some scientists have grown increasingly concerned that limited opportunities for young scientists and a problematic system for publishing scientific work has incentivized corner-cutting for careerism.
“There’s lots of incentive to produce mounds of research and publish in these high impact journals to make your name,” said Dr. Ferric Fang, a microbiologist and professor at the University of Washington. “We’re incentivizing this kind of behavior.”
Problems with images published in research are widespread.
In a 2016 article published in the American Society of Microbiology, Bik and Fang evaluated images from more than 20,600 articles in 40 biomedical journals from 1995 to 2014. They found that about 3.8% of the journal articles contained “problematic figures” and that at least half of those had elements that were “suggestive of deliberate manipulation.”
New tools are helping institutions and sleuths alike root out mistakes and potential misconduct. David used a program called ImageTwin to identify some of the questionable figures from Dana-Farber researchers.
The artificial-intelligence-powered software can ingest a study, analyze its images and in about 15 seconds compare them against one another and also against about 50 million scientific images in its database, according to the ImageTwin’s co-founder Patrick Starke.
The software has been commercially available since 2021. Starke, who is based in Vienna, said a few hundred academic organizations are using the tool to identify problems before publication.
“It’s great if it’s caught and retracted, and it’s even better if it’s not published,” said Starke, who envisions the program used in academics with the same frequency as plagiarism checking tools that analyze text.
But Starke said it will be a challenge to stay ahead of those who cut corners or cheat. Studies have already shown that AI programs can generate realistic looking figures of common experiments like western blots, Starke said. His company is developing tools to look for AI-generated patterns in research images.
“If photos of faces can be realistically made by AI, it’s probably happening already in scientific literature,” Bik said. “That’s the next level of cheating. I’m not sure if we’re even ready for that.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Science sleuths are using technology to find fakery and plagiarism in published research
CARLA K. JOHNSON
Updated Sun, January 28, 2024
Sleuthing Scientist Sholto David
A sign hangs from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Aug. 18, 2022, in Boston. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute announced it’s requesting six retractions and 31 corrections of scientific papers after a British blogger flagged problems in early January 2024.
(AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Allegations of research fakery at a leading cancer center have turned a spotlight on scientific integrity and the amateur sleuths uncovering image manipulation in published research.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, announced Jan. 22 it's requesting retractions and corrections of scientific papers after a British blogger flagged problems in early January.
The blogger, 32-year-old Sholto David, of Pontypridd, Wales, is a scientist-sleuth who detects cut-and-paste image manipulation in published scientific papers.
He's not the only hobbyist poking through pixels. Other champions of scientific integrity are keeping researchers and science journals on their toes. They use special software, oversize computer monitors and their eagle eyes to find flipped, duplicated and stretched images, along with potential plagiarism.
A look at the situation at Dana-Farber and the sleuths hunting sloppy errors and outright fabrications:
WHAT HAPPENED AT DANA-FARBER?
In a Jan. 2 blog post, Sholto David presented suspicious images from more than 30 published papers by four Dana-Farber scientists, including CEO Laurie Glimcher and COO William Hahn.
Many images appeared to have duplicated segments that would make the scientists' results look stronger. The papers under scrutiny involve lab research on the workings of cells. One involved samples from bone marrow from human volunteers.
The blog post included problems spotted by David and others previously exposed by sleuths on PubPeer, a site that allows anonymous comments on scientific papers.
Student journalists at The Harvard Crimson covered the story on Jan. 12, followed by reports in other news media. Sharpening the attention was the recent plagiarism investigation involving former Harvard president Claudine Gay, who resigned early this year.
HOW DID DANA-FARBER RESPOND?
Dana-Farber said it already had been looking into some of the problems before the blog post. By Jan. 22, the institution said it was in the process of requesting six retractions of published research and that another 31 papers warranted corrections.
Retractions are serious. When a journal retracts an article that usually means the research is so severely flawed that the findings are no longer reliable.
Dr. Barrett Rollins, research integrity officer at Dana-Farber, said in a statement: “Following the usual practice at Dana-Farber to review any potential data error and make corrections when warranted, the institution and its scientists already have taken prompt and decisive action in 97 percent of the cases that had been flagged by blogger Sholto David."
WHO ARE THE SLEUTHS?
California microbiologist Elisabeth Bik, 57, has been sleuthing for a decade. Based on her work, scientific journals have retracted 1,133 articles, corrected 1,017 others and printed 153 expressions of concern, according to a spreadsheet where she tracks what happens after she reports problems.
She has found doctored images of bacteria, cell cultures and western blots, a lab technique for detecting proteins.
“Science should be about finding the truth,” Bik told The Associated Press. She published an analysis in the American Society for Microbiology in 2016: Of more than 20,000 peer-reviewed papers, nearly 4% had image problems, about half where the manipulation seemed intentional.
Bik's work brings donations from Patreon subscribers of about $2,300 per month and occasional honoraria from speaking engagements. David told AP his Patreon income recently picked up to $216 per month.
Technology has made it easier to root out image manipulation and plagiarism, said Ivan Oransky, who teaches medical journalism at New York University and co-founded the Retraction Watch blog. The sleuths download scientific papers and use software tools to help find problems.
Others doing the investigative work remain anonymous and post their findings under pseudonyms. Together, they have “changed the equation” in scientific publication, Oransky said.
“They want science to be and do better,” Oransky said. “And they are frustrated by how uninterested most people in academia — and certainly in publishing — are in correcting the record.” They're also concerned about the erosion of public trust in science.
WHAT MOTIVATES MISCONDUCT?
Bik said some mistakes could be sloppy errors where images were mislabeled or “somebody just grabbed the wrong photo.”
But some images are obviously altered with sections duplicated or rotated or flipped. Scientists building their careers or seeking tenure face pressure to get published. Some may intentionally falsify data, knowing that the process of peer review — when a journal sends a manuscript to experts for comments — is unlikely to catch fakery.
“At the end of the day, the motivation is to get published,” Oransky said. “When the images don’t match the story you’re trying to tell, you beautify them.”
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Scientific journals investigate errors brought to their attention but usually keep their processes confidential until they take action with a retraction or correction.
Some journals told the AP they are aware of the concerns raised by David's blog post and were looking into the matter.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Allegations of research fakery at a leading cancer center have turned a spotlight on scientific integrity and the amateur sleuths uncovering image manipulation in published research.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, announced Jan. 22 it's requesting retractions and corrections of scientific papers after a British blogger flagged problems in early January.
The blogger, 32-year-old Sholto David, of Pontypridd, Wales, is a scientist-sleuth who detects cut-and-paste image manipulation in published scientific papers.
He's not the only hobbyist poking through pixels. Other champions of scientific integrity are keeping researchers and science journals on their toes. They use special software, oversize computer monitors and their eagle eyes to find flipped, duplicated and stretched images, along with potential plagiarism.
A look at the situation at Dana-Farber and the sleuths hunting sloppy errors and outright fabrications:
WHAT HAPPENED AT DANA-FARBER?
In a Jan. 2 blog post, Sholto David presented suspicious images from more than 30 published papers by four Dana-Farber scientists, including CEO Laurie Glimcher and COO William Hahn.
Many images appeared to have duplicated segments that would make the scientists' results look stronger. The papers under scrutiny involve lab research on the workings of cells. One involved samples from bone marrow from human volunteers.
The blog post included problems spotted by David and others previously exposed by sleuths on PubPeer, a site that allows anonymous comments on scientific papers.
Student journalists at The Harvard Crimson covered the story on Jan. 12, followed by reports in other news media. Sharpening the attention was the recent plagiarism investigation involving former Harvard president Claudine Gay, who resigned early this year.
HOW DID DANA-FARBER RESPOND?
Dana-Farber said it already had been looking into some of the problems before the blog post. By Jan. 22, the institution said it was in the process of requesting six retractions of published research and that another 31 papers warranted corrections.
Retractions are serious. When a journal retracts an article that usually means the research is so severely flawed that the findings are no longer reliable.
Dr. Barrett Rollins, research integrity officer at Dana-Farber, said in a statement: “Following the usual practice at Dana-Farber to review any potential data error and make corrections when warranted, the institution and its scientists already have taken prompt and decisive action in 97 percent of the cases that had been flagged by blogger Sholto David."
WHO ARE THE SLEUTHS?
California microbiologist Elisabeth Bik, 57, has been sleuthing for a decade. Based on her work, scientific journals have retracted 1,133 articles, corrected 1,017 others and printed 153 expressions of concern, according to a spreadsheet where she tracks what happens after she reports problems.
She has found doctored images of bacteria, cell cultures and western blots, a lab technique for detecting proteins.
“Science should be about finding the truth,” Bik told The Associated Press. She published an analysis in the American Society for Microbiology in 2016: Of more than 20,000 peer-reviewed papers, nearly 4% had image problems, about half where the manipulation seemed intentional.
Bik's work brings donations from Patreon subscribers of about $2,300 per month and occasional honoraria from speaking engagements. David told AP his Patreon income recently picked up to $216 per month.
Technology has made it easier to root out image manipulation and plagiarism, said Ivan Oransky, who teaches medical journalism at New York University and co-founded the Retraction Watch blog. The sleuths download scientific papers and use software tools to help find problems.
Others doing the investigative work remain anonymous and post their findings under pseudonyms. Together, they have “changed the equation” in scientific publication, Oransky said.
“They want science to be and do better,” Oransky said. “And they are frustrated by how uninterested most people in academia — and certainly in publishing — are in correcting the record.” They're also concerned about the erosion of public trust in science.
WHAT MOTIVATES MISCONDUCT?
Bik said some mistakes could be sloppy errors where images were mislabeled or “somebody just grabbed the wrong photo.”
But some images are obviously altered with sections duplicated or rotated or flipped. Scientists building their careers or seeking tenure face pressure to get published. Some may intentionally falsify data, knowing that the process of peer review — when a journal sends a manuscript to experts for comments — is unlikely to catch fakery.
“At the end of the day, the motivation is to get published,” Oransky said. “When the images don’t match the story you’re trying to tell, you beautify them.”
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Scientific journals investigate errors brought to their attention but usually keep their processes confidential until they take action with a retraction or correction.
Some journals told the AP they are aware of the concerns raised by David's blog post and were looking into the matter.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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