This article is from WeChat public account:Interface News (ID:wowjiemian), author: cattle Qichang, from the cover: vision China
In response to the question, Cao Xuetao responded as a “communication author” and still has confidence in the validity, advantages and repeatability of the scientific conclusions.
Cao Xuetao, the president of Nankai University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has recently been exposed to many papers for fraud. As of now, there are more than 40 papers on the PubPeer website that have been searched for abnormal images and authors including Cao Xuetao. In the early morning of November 18, 2019, Cao Xuetao sent a reply to PubPeer’s question in response to some of his papers, saying that he still had confidence in the validity, advantages and repeatability of the scientific conclusions he obtained.
On November 18th, the paper involved the research unit–the medical staff of the Second Military Medical University responded to the interface news. It is not clear about the specific situation at present, and it is also known about the situation through the network this morning. Notice.
On November 13th, US local time, an assistant researcher named Elisabeth Bik, who was a member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, publicly stated on social media that one is famous in China and serves as a top university. Judging from the many papers of the principal’s scholars, it is suspected that it is common in the biomedical field to use “PS instead of doing experiments” data fraud.
Elisabeth Bik then pointed out two papers on the PubPeer website that alleged data fraud, and concluded that the similarity ratio of the papers involved in the paper is higher than the general probability. However, some researchers responded to the questioning. “The cells in each row are the same cells under different exposure conditions. They should be the same. Questioning needs to be more careful.”
In the early morning of November 18, Cao Xuetao sent a reply to PubPeer’s question in response to some of his papers. “After receiving the inquiry, I listed it as our top priority and immediately took measures to investigate your proposal with the team and collaborators. The problem and carefully re-examine our manuscripts, raw data and laboratory records. If our investigation reveals any risk of the highest accuracy of the published records, we will immediately work with the relevant journal editorial department.”
Cao Xuetao said that according to the current analysis (still in progress) and other feedback from colleagues and colleagues, he still The validity, strength and repeatability of scientific conclusions derived from publications are full of confidence. He also stressed that there is no excuse for any mistakes in supervision and laboratory leadership, which also reminds him of the importance and deficiencies of his role as a mentor, and apologizes for the inconvenience caused by his negligence.
It is understood that the PubPeer website was established in 2012. It is a website that encourages researchers to anonymously comment on published papers. As long as scholars have an account with PubPeer, they can comment on published papers. It is criticism, questioning, suggestions for improvement, etc. The website exposes a large number of such fraudulent papers, many of which are published by Chinese researchers, including 7 papers by the former Academician Fan Daiming team of the Fourth Military Medical University and 17 papers by the Martin Academician Team of Tongji Hospital of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
It is worth mentioning that two papers referred to by Elisabeth Bik are CaMKII promotes TLR-triggered proinflammatory cytokine and type I interFeron production by directly binding and activating TAK1 and IRF3 in macrophages and “CD69+CD4+CD25− T Cells, a New Subset of Regulatory T Cells, Suppress T Cell Proliferation through Membrane-Bound TGF-β1” in 2008 and 2009 respectively Published in “blood” and “The Journal of Immunology”, Cao Xuetao is “communication author (correspondence), involving research units are State Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology and Institute of Immunology, Second Military Medical University. In this regard, Cao Xuetao confirmed in the above response.
Interface news reporters noted that there is no clear definition of “communication authors” in China, which often refers to the general manager of the project, responsible for the funding, design, writing and checking of the articles, and is the contact person for the articles and research materials. Responsible for the reliability of the article, in addition to all communications with the editorial department and accepting readers’ advice.
According to industry insiders, the author of the communication is also one of the main beneficiaries of the paper. It can be said that the first author of the paper is the main contributor to this research achievement, and the author of the paper is the responsible person and benefit of this achievement. people. For students, the correspondent is generally his mentor; for research institutions, the correspondent is generally the project leader.
According to the experts in the domestic medical profession who did not want to be named, Cao Xuetao is a very good strength immunologist currently rare in China. The “communication author” is generally the direct person in charge of the subject, but most of them are only registered in the country and do not directly participate in the subject, so it is easy to have the above problems.
Public information shows that Cao Xuetao was born in 1964. He is mainly engaged in basic research on natural immunity and inflammation, and applied research on tumor immunotherapy. He studied at the Second Military Medical University and was awarded a doctoral degree when he was 26 years old. The youngest medical professor in China. At the age of 32, he was promoted to be a doctoral tutor. At the age of 33, he served as the director of the National Key Laboratory of Immunization and Gene Therapy. At the age of 41, he became the youngest academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Cao Xuetao has been the president of Nankai University since 2017 and is responsible for the school’s teaching, research and other administrative management. On November 16, he has just been elected as an academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences.