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Recently, Professor Cao Xuetao, the president of Nankai University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was questioned about the existence of pictures in his laboratory.
Cao Xuetao | Oriental IC
From November 14th, Elizabeth Bick Who questioned who?
Cao Xuetao is an immunology expert, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is currently the president of Nankai University. He was the president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the president of Peking Union Medical College.Engaged in the basic research of immune recognition and immune regulation, and the application of immunotherapy transformation for major diseases such as tumors. Cao Xuetao published more than 250 papers in SCI as a communication author, including “Nature” (2), “Science” (2 papers, 2 reviews), “Cell” (4), and SCI cited more than 10,000 papers. Times.
Elisabeth Bick is an independent scientific consultant. She has worked for Stanford University School of Medicine for 15 years. She has expertise in microbial research and academic misconduct, and is currently working on falsifying academic fraud and other academic fraud issues. In 2016, she and two other researchers published papers in the journal mBio, reporting image anomalies in more than 700 papers, and dozens of papers were retracted.
The PubPeer website was founded in 2012. It is a website for researchers and other groups to discuss and evaluate scientific research. Researchers can conduct peer review of published research results on the website to express comments and questions. After the publication of the STAP Cell Fraud Paper by Xiao Baofang Haruko in 2014, PubPeer first appeared on the discussion of counterfeit data.
What is questioned?
There are about 50 articles currently being questioned, and the time has been extended from 2003 to 2019. In most articles, Cao Xuetao is a correspondence author. Corresponding authors often refer to the general manager of the project, responsible for the funding, design, writing and checking of the subject, and are the contacts of the article and research materials. Of course, the correspondent is also responsible for ensuring the reliability of the article.
At present, in more than 50 articles, the questions that are questioned mainly include several aspects:
1) Among the different experiments or different indicators, the resulting graphs are too similar and are questioned for repeated use of the same image.
Published in 2008In the paper “Molecular Immunology”, in two different protein immunoblotting experiments, the Actin band, which serves as a standard reference, is similarly similar after being rotated 180 degrees (shown in red)
In the paper published in Cellular and Molecular Immunology in 2019, the results of slice staining were similar in two theoretically different tissues (red) As shown in the box)
2) The picture has traces that have been suspected of being altered.
A paper published in the Journal of Molecular Medicine in 2007, in the results of Western blotting, with traces of the cut | Reference Information
The paper published in the Journal of Immunology in 2009, in the results of flow cytometry, is questioned by multiple similarities. /p>
There have been 3 corrections and 1 retraction before
Before, there were 3 correspondence authors who were Cao Xuetao’s thesis, and their team has corrected it in academic journals—
The article published in Nature Immunology in 2004 incorrectly used two identical images. Since the raw data was no longer available, in the 2014 corrections, they replaced the data from the new experiment.
In the 2004 article, the two figures shown in the red box are incorrect
In 2005, published in Clinical Cancer Research, experimental data including Western blotting, cell flow, and reverse transcription PCR were wrong. They showed the correct data in the 2015 corrections; and said that these errors did not affect the data interpretation and the paper results.
In 2013, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the pictures were incorrect; they replaced the pictures in the 2014 errata.
In addition, another article published in the Journal of Biochemistry in 2014 has been previously retracted by researchers.
What did you respond to?
In the past day, Cao Xuetao and his team members have responded to several papers that have been questioned (but most of the questions have not yet been answered). Among the several articles that have been responded to, the most popular one is a paper published in the famous academic journal Science in 2014.
Questioner tableShown, in the supplementary results of this paper, there is a graph of the results of flow cytometry. Among them, the data on the leftmost “untransfected” and the rightmost “Inc-DC RNAi-1” are suspected to be similar.
The leftmost “untransfected” and the rightmost “Inc-DC RNAi-1” data are suspected to be similar
The challenger overlaps the two images and finds it quite consistent
Yes, Cao Xuetao personally responded that this may be because they misplaced the map; and in the response, showed the original data and apologized for this unintentional error.
Cao Xuetao posted the original data (left slide to see more)
Similar to “unintentional errors,” and an article published in Cellular and Molecular Immunology in 2018. The first author of the paper, Shuxun Liu, said that they mistakenly copied the same data, resulting in duplicate results; currently, corrections have been applied to the journal, and the errata will be published as soon as possible.
Bick questioned the two pictures as the same, the author responded that the copy was wrong.
Some responses say that it is not a problem with the paper.
For example, in the 2011 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the first author, Taoyong Chen, showed the original image in response, indicating that these images happen to be very similar, and there is no There is an error or intentional fraud.
A paper published in the Journal of Immunology in 2013, on images of several miRNA microarrays, said Li Lin, the first author, because the image changes from low to high. It is rather vague, and there are problems such as chromatic aberration; and the original data is attached.
The image on the left is the image that the challenger questioned; the left slide is the original data posted by the researcher
controversial challenge
But in the process of questioning, some posts have also been controversial.
For example, in an article published in Blood in 2008, Bick questioned that in the cellular immunofluorescence experiment, the visual field indicated by the red box was too similar. Subsequently, other netizens pointed out the right way. According to the content of the paper, the six small pictures here are the same piece of cells.
In this result graph, 6 small images represent the same cell under different conditions
That is under this post, Cao Xuetao responded to a statement.
Dear Dr. Bick:
I am here to respond to your recent questions about the National Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology and the Institute of Immunology of the Second Military Medical University, andI am the co-author of these research work.
I am grateful for your interest in our work and your efforts to ensure the accuracy of scientific records and the integrity of research and discovery. These are also extremely important to me. After receiving your questions, I see the resolution of the problem as our top priority, and immediately take action to investigate the issues you have raised with the research team and partners, and carefully re-examine our manuscripts, raw data and Experimental record. We will require the accuracy of the results of the experiment to the highest standards. If our investigation indicates any risk of error, we will immediately cooperate with the editorial department of the relevant journal.
Based on our analysis (and still in progress) and feedback received from colleagues, I would like to add that my validity, reliability and research on the scientific conclusions in these papers Repeatability still maintains confidence. However, there are no excuses for any mistakes in the supervision of scientific research results and laboratory leadership. Your concerns remind me once again that my role and responsibilities are so important as a mentor, supervisor and laboratory leader, and I may not be able to do enough in these areas. Therefore, my mood is very heavy, I am very sorry for my current and former students, employees and colleagues, and the wider academic community. I apologize for any omissions in my work and the inconvenience that may arise. I will regard this as a valuable learning opportunity. In the future, I will not only focus on promoting scientific development, but also make greater contributions to the accuracy and integrity of guarding science.
Your sincerity
曹雪涛
At present, there are still a lot of questions that have not been answered. The General Office of the Chinese Academy of Engineering stated that they have received relevant complaints and will investigate and handle this matter.
As for the more than 50 articles that have been questioned, where the data and image errors are unintentional, or intentional, they may have to wait for the final findings. Bick also said in his own tweets: I am not accusing anyone of academic misconduct; remember that many of these small problems may be just honest mistakes.
But whether the mistake is intentional or unintentional, the researcher should be responsible for the data he publishes and the consequences that follow. Determining the true and effective data should also be the basic principle of academic research.
References and image sources:
[1] Pubpeer.com
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elisabeth_Bik
[3] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/eye-for-manipulation–a-profile-of-elisabeth-bik-65839
[4] http://www.xuetaocao.org/
[5] http://graduate.nankai.edu.cn/cxt/list.htm
This article is from WeChat public account:Shell (ID:Guokr42)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Barley, matrix star