This is my first post of the year and I would like to start this New Year reflecting on some concerning habits in science. I will just focus on only three recent articles that undermine the trustfulness of science, but there are many others out there in the jungle of scientific journals.
In a Comment published in Nature last November, Mina Bissell justifies the non-reproducibility of some in vitro experiments1`. Nowadays, “the techniques and reagents are sophisticated, time-consuming and difficult to master”, challenging the ability to reproduce complicated experiments in different laboratories. The solution, for Dr Bissell, “is to consult the original authors thoughtfully […] ask either to go to the original lab to reproduce the data together, or invite someone from their lab to come to yours.” However, this can be true for in vitro assays that are already an artifact, but I hope that it isn’t for in vivo studies used for preclinical studies. This article has opened an intense discussion on scientific reproducibility, as you can read in the comments published this month by Nature2. You can either agree or disagree with her statements, but we are spending words and time on a topic, experimental reproducibility, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Last December, Nature has reported the news regarding duplicated images used on different journals from the same group3. Professor Fusco at the University of Naples (Italy) and an associate professor from the Academia of Lincei (Italy) are now under investigation by the police and the university. The misconduct has been revealed by Enrico Bucci, a molecular biologist founder of a small startup (BioDigitalValley) aimed at creating a database of all images from Italian papers published since 2000. Running all images on his gel-checking software, he found that out of 300 papers published from Fusco, 53 contained duplicated or cut and paste images, even one from 1985. Some of the papers have already been retracted; one of them was published on Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2007. It is highly possible that Fusco is only the first target of this operation that is going to reveal other misconducts. This is quite concerning not only because it is not a right practice, but also because it comes from a country, Italy, where scientific research is well behind and the funding situation is not good; this circumstance is not going to help Italian science. However, fortunately, this fraud has been unmasked.
An article published last November on Science describes a concerning practice in the Chinese scientific community4. Some intermediary agencies sell authorships on papers that have already been accepted for publication, sometimes without the consent or the knowledge of the actual authors. The price for this service varies based on the position in the author’s list. Thus someone can publish a paper not only without doing anything, but also without even knowing the authors. These practices worry the same Chinese scientific community because “hinder China’s growth in original science, damage the reputation of Chinese academics, and dampen the impact of science developed in China”, as asserted by the president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Wei Yang in the Editorial published on the same number of Science5.
These are just three examples of the present scientific world. Every month there is at least one retraction, at every meeting there is someone who mistrusts other’s experiments. Unfortunately we are in a system that gives rewards and funding to sexy science and high Impact Factors publications at the expenses of the truth, the real science, made by simple and reproducible experiments and not artifactual and sexy assays.
Where is science going?
1 Bissell M. Reproducibility: The risks of the replication drive. Nature. 2013 Nov 21;503(7476):333-4.
2 NATURE ’S READERS COMMENT ONLINE.Nature. 2014 Jan 2;505:27.
3 Abbott A. Image search triggers Italian police probe. Nature. 2013 Dec 5;504(7478):18.
4 Hvistendahl M. China’s publication bazaar. Science. 2013 Nov 29;342(6162):1035-9.
5 Yang W. Research Integrity in China. Science. 2013 Nov 29;342(6162):
Hi Laura!
Thank you for your accurate report of the Fusco case. However, I would like to make one point very clear: Italy is not worst of other countries, the manipulation of scientific images is spreading at a disturbingly high rate in other countries too – e.g. England, Germany, U.S.
I started my work looking for Italian authors only because I wanted to focus on our country before accusing others.
Enrico Bucci
Having read this I believed it was rather informative.
I appreciate you spending some time and energy
to put this short article together. I once again find myself spending a significant amount of
time both reading and commenting. But so what, it was still worth it!