Compiled by | Susanne
Recently, the medical field witnessed a publication frenzy unlike any other.
Meet Nabil A. Alhakamy, the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at King AbdulAziz University in Saudi Arabia. This prolific scholar published an astonishing 219 papers over four years, averaging more than one paper per week.
Such an intense publication pace is virtually unheard of on a global scale.
However, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Over the past two years, Alhakamy has seen a total of 21 papers retracted by various journals due to significant issues like repeated images in his research.
This might just be the beginning.
Nabil A. Alhakamy: Image Source: Abdulaziz King Saud University College of Pharmacy Website
Impressive Track Record, Holding Multiple Positions
According to the resume information publicly available on the Abdulaziz King Saud University website, Alhakamy obtained his Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy from the university's College of Pharmacy in 2008. He then pursued further studies in the United States at the University of Kansas, where he obtained Master's and PhD degrees in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2012 and 2016 respectively.
After completing his PhD, Alhakamy returned to Abdulaziz King Saud University and has been working there since. He currently serves as the Vice Dean of the College of Pharmacy, overseeing graduate studies and scientific research at the college.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Alhakamy established the Center for Drug Research and Pharmaceutical Industry at Abdulaziz King Saud University in 2020 and assumed the roles of Senior Advisor, CEO, and Chairman of Teriaq Pharma, a Saudi pharmaceutical company, in 2022. Teriaq Pharma is a subsidiary of Wadi Jeddah Valley, the university's investment arm.
Since 2020, this Saudi scientist has been publishing at a rate of over 1 paper per week, with a total of 219 papers published in 4 years.
According to data from Elsevier and the Scopus Preview citation database, Alhakamy reached his peak publication output in 2021 with 73 papers published within the year. The citation count for his publications has shown a clear upward trend, reaching 1227 citations in 2023.
The trend of publications and citation numbers for Alhakamy's papers showed a change. Source: Scopus Preview
However, after users on PubPeer began commenting on Alhakamy's articles, from November 2022, his publications started facing a series of retractions. Many of his articles had significant overlap with previously published research or contained duplicated photos and graphs.
In the weeks that followed, a blog site called For Better Science, run by German science journalist and molecular cell biologist Leonid Schneider, published an article about fraudulent researchers, mentioning Alhakamy and his frequent publication of a large number of academic papers.
The blog post highlighted that a reader wrote to Schneider saying, “Nabil A. Alhakamy published 172 papers in 3 years! That's at a rate of 2 papers per week! I doubt even Einstein could achieve that. Alhakamy is just a multi-tasking, research-free fake scientist.”
A commenter on Retraction Watch stated, “When someone with a demanding job like a university dean manages to publish 50 papers in a year, it should raise eyebrows.”
Tracking down, academic misconduct
The database of Retraction Watch reveals that at least 21 papers published by Alhakamy were retracted in the past two years. The most recent one, retracted on January 30, 2024, was originally published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, authored by Alhakamy and Usama A. Fahmy.
Fahmy is a colleague of Alhakamy, one of his long-time co-authors, with a history of having multiple papers retracted.
Retraction Notice from Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. Image source: Elsevier
The retraction notice for the paper reveals that the journal identified three figures in the article that had been published in other papers through an analysis of the images and data presented.
In response to this, the Faculty of Pharmacy at King Abdulaziz University formed a committee to investigate. The investigation found that the flow cytometry experiments reported in the paper had been outsourced to an external laboratory. The authors stated during the inquiry that they had received the original data files from this external lab, which acknowledged that it had mistakenly sent images from other work it had conducted.
The editorial team of the journal evaluated the case and concluded that the issues had not been satisfactorily resolved, deeming the paper's results unreliable. Consequently, the Editor-in-Chief decided to retract the article.
Retraction Statement from Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. Image source: Elsevier
Three out of four articles published by Alhakamy in the AAPS PharmSciTech journal have been retracted due to issues with the images. AAPS PharmSciTech is the official journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), and its Editor-in-Chief, Robert Williams III, has declined to comment on whether the journal will publish articles by Alhakamy in the future.
Retraction Watch has made multiple attempts to contact Alhakamy for a comment, but he has not responded.
Paying for a Higher Ranking
Indeed, Alhakamy is not alone in this battle. In recent years, several universities in Saudi Arabia have seen a meteoric rise in global university rankings, with his institution being one of the most notable examples.
According to a report by the Times Higher Education website in the UK, data from 2022 shows that universities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are surpassing Chinese universities as the fastest climbing higher education institutions in world rankings.
The 2023 World University Rankings revealed that King Abdulaziz University is just one step away from entering the top 100 elite universities worldwide. The university's global ranking leaped from 190th in 2022 to 101st in the 2023 rankings, tying with the University of Basel in Switzerland and setting a record for Middle Eastern universities in these rankings.
Moreover, King Abdulaziz University also ranks at the top among universities in the Arab region.
Here are the top 10 universities in the Arab region according to the 2023 Times Higher Education World University Rankings:
