I was sitting at my computer, poring over files my office had sequestered from a professor’s lab. We’d received an anonymous tip alleging the lab had published fraudulent data. As a research integrity officer, I was tasked with reviewing the data files, so I clicked on an image depicting the results of a Western blot. Sure enough, it appeared to have been digitally manipulated: Parts had been cropped and moved around in a manner that obscured the true results. The file’s metadata held a record of who generated the altered image and when, a key clue in what ended up being a massive case of research misconduct. These weren’t the tasks I would have ever imagined doing when I started graduate school. But it’s the right career for me, and I owe it to a chance assignment during a seminar class.
This is a good story and exactly the kind of scholarly leadership that should be acknowledged and celebrated. Efforts that contribute to the integrity of science are far more important than ‘sausage factory’ metrics.
I Googled “what to do if I suspect research misconduct” and landed on a web page that suggested I reach out to a trusted mentor or to my institution’s research integrity officer—a completely foreign job title to me at the time. I decided to start with the professor teaching the seminar. I stumbled over my words as I tried to explain my concerns. He reassured me that my suspicions were justified, adding that he’d report them to the journal. A few months later the journal posted a corrigendum, with new figures in place of the old, suspicious ones.
