Recently, a scandal involving academic misconduct has swept through the fields of neuroscience and cancer research.
At the heart of this controversy is Laurie Glimcher, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. On April 19th, Science journal retracted a paper published on April 28th, 2006, with Laurie Glimcher being the corresponding author of the paper.
The retraction by Science was attributed to numerous problematic images found in the article, as revealed by an internal investigation and analysis initiated in February 2021. The authors concluded that these data no longer supported the original research findings, prompting the retraction of the paper.
As the saying goes, "pulling out a radish brings out the mud." This retraction incident has unearthed further cases of academic misconduct, exposing the unethical conduct of several prominent academic figures.
On April 19th, Science journal retracted a paper authored by Glimcher. Image Source: Science
The first character in this retracted paper's story is "star neuroscientist" Claudio Hetz, the lead author.
Eighteen years ago, when the paper was published, Hetz was a postdoc at Harvard University, with Glimcher, a Harvard professor of immunology and medicine, as his mentor. Hetz's research at the time mainly focused on apoptosis.
Apoptosis, one of the ways cells die, is crucial for maintaining tissue homeostasis and embryonic development, regulated by various signaling molecules. The Bcl-2 family members BAX and BAK play significant roles in apoptosis.
Hetz's study revealed the mechanism by which BAX and BAK regulate the unfolded protein response by interacting with the endoplasmic reticulum stress sensor IRE1α. The paper garnered widespread attention upon publication, seen as a significant discovery in the fields of apoptosis and protein homeostasis research.
The following year, Hetz joined the University of Chile, continuing his research on these proteins and achieving great success. Today, Hetz is the director of the Biomedical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Chile, a part-time professor at Harvard University, and a leading figure in international neuroscience and cell biology.
However, questions arose about the images used in the paper. Hetz had previously responded to these concerns on PubPeer, stating that the image issues were unintentional and providing some original data related to the research. However, this response has since been removed from his webpage.
Academic sleuth Elisabeth Bik suggested retracting the paper, noting that the images provided in the response seemed unrelated to the duplicates found in the study. Despite this, Hetz did not respond further.
On January 13, 2021, Hetz was accused of misconduct, specifically altering photos in some published research papers he authored or co-authored.
In January of this year, academic detective and molecular biologist Sholto David emphasized the issues with the paper in a blog post. David highlighted that Hetz's university had conducted an investigation and issued a damning report, citing Hetz's "gross negligence and lack of rigor." Hetz, however, merely expressed regret for not using a better version of Photoshop to handle the images.
In a September 2021 interview, Hetz admitted to making mistakes but clarified that they were never intentional or fraudulent. He stated that this experience led his team to adopt new image processing tools to prevent such errors in the future. Corrections were sent to the publishing journal and accepted.
One scholar noted that Hetz's corrections were insufficient to restore confidence in the reliability of the data. The retraction notice in Science also indicated that the authors no longer believed the data supported the conclusions of the study.
This paper holds significant importance for Hetz, being his only publication in Science to date. Meagan Phelan, spokesperson for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), revealed that Hetz opposed the decision to retract the paper, as he "stands by the conclusions of the paper, partially based on additional experiments conducted in his lab."
Four renowned scholars, one top-tier research institution
As Hetz's mentor, Glimcher's academic achievements and stature are highly esteemed.
In 1976, Glimcher graduated with distinction from Harvard Medical School, making significant contributions to immunology and osteoporosis research. In the late 1990s, she pioneered the understanding of how white blood cells assist the immune system in combating infections and diseases, revolutionizing immunology and laying the groundwork for later cancer immunotherapy.
She serves as the dean of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), a leading institution in cancer treatment globally, with Nobel laureates among its ranks. Drugs developed at DFCI constitute a significant portion of FDA-approved cancer therapies.
It's surprising that such a prominent academic figure as Glimcher would face retraction. Not only Glimcher, but the DFCI, under her leadership, also became embroiled in academic misconduct controversies. Three other senior researchers from DFCI, William Hahn, Irene Ghobrial, and Kenneth Anderson, were also accused of academic misconduct.
In January of this year, David pointed out in a blog post that he used a combination of artificial intelligence image analysis software ImageTwin and manual detection to find errors in several papers authored by these four scholars. Complaints were made against 57 papers published between 1999 and 2017, covering cancer basic research and published in journals such as Cell, Nature Medicine, and Science. The primary issue was the manipulation of images to fabricate data, with evidence of duplication and even direct copying and pasting found in multiple images. In a group of four, William Hahn's academic integrity issues are the most severe, with over 40 papers under scrutiny on PubPeer, 18 of which are related to image problems. One notable case is a paper published in Cancer Research in 2005, exhibiting numerous instances of splicing and duplication. This paper was retracted on March 15th of this year.
The concentration of such misconduct within a single research institution has left the academic community astonished. Over the past few weeks, DFCI (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) has retracted six papers and issued data corrections for another 31 papers, with 16 more under investigation. The investigation could last up to a year, prolonging the fallout from this falsification scandal.
Instances of academic misconduct continue to surface, indicating a worsening situation.
In recent years, academic dishonesty has become increasingly prevalent, sparing not even prestigious institutions.
A recent case involves Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University, accused of manipulating images and paper data. The Stanford Daily first exposed his academic misconduct, leading to his resignation last summer following an eight-month review.
Around the same time, Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, faced allegations of data fabrication, prompting the university to initiate a formal tenure review.
In December of last year, Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University, was accused of dozens of instances of plagiarism throughout her academic career. Her response to anti-Semitic issues on college campuses during a congressional hearing sparked controversy, and the plagiarism allegations further fueled calls for her resignation. She announced her resignation in January, with a tenure of only six months, making her the shortest-serving president in Harvard University's history.
The increasing number of academic fraud cases has had a detrimental impact on the academic ecosystem, eroding public trust in scientific research and impeding research progress.
Retracting papers proves that the findings presented are not valid. Invalid research results imply that the funds invested in related studies become meaningless. DFCI, with 57 papers suspected of data fabrication in this instance, receives substantial research funding annually. Last year, the National Institutes of Health provided DFCI with over $160 million in research funding.
David has previously pointed out that the United States invests billions of dollars in cancer research, yet progress is slow, with academic misconduct playing a role in hindering advancement.
Furthermore, other research efforts that cite these retracted studies will be misled. The paper retracted by Science is a highly renowned study, cited over 800 times to date, with its impact incalculable, potentially dealing a significant blow to research in this field.
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