Macquarie University is considering whether to investigate allegations of research misconduct after concerns were raised about more than 40 papers published by researchers at the Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research that appeared to contain manipulated or duplicate images.
Another case where image manipulation super-sleuth Elisabeth Bik spotted problems with published research, These depressing Australian cases highlight a few matters: 1) Are we arriving at a place where institutions will need to review some research outputs prior to submission. 2) If a researcher manipulates an image once, there is a real risk of recidivism. 3) There appears to be a mounting argument for an independent investigative body. We have included links to eleven related items.
They include neuroscientist Gilles Guillemin, whose name is attached to 25 articles that have been red-flagged for containing potentially doctored images on a research discussion website, scientist Bingyang Shi, who was a co-author of five papers where the journal has acknowledged errors post-publication, and neuroscientist Julie Atkin, who was the first author of two papers subsequently retracted by the journal.
Questions about his published research were initially asked by Dutch microbiologist Elisabeth Bik, a world leader in spotting duplicated images in scientific literature, who found unexpected similarities among the western blots, an analytical technique used in molecular biology. It appeared that the same images had been used to illustrate different findings.
