Stanford Investigates Its President Over Allegations of Past Research Misconduct (msn.com) 22
Marc Tessier-Lavigne is president of Stanford University. He's also "the subject of a university investigation," reports SFGate, "following a report from the school's newspaper, the Stanford Daily, that he committed scientific research misconduct" in papers he co-authored years ago which may contain altered images.
More from the Washington Post: The university launched the inquiry after the Stanford Daily, a campus newspaper, reported that a well-known research journal was looking into concerns raised about a 2008 paper co-authored by Marc Tessier-Lavigne. The Daily reported that in addition to the paper in the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal, there were questions about other published research.
Some of those complaints were first made many years ago, and Tessier-Lavigne had tried to correct papers at one journal in 2015, according to its editor.... Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement that he supports the inquiry. "Scientific integrity is of the utmost importance both to the university and to me personally," Tessier-Lavigne said. "I support this process and will fully cooperate with it, and I appreciate the oversight by the Board of Trustees...."
Elisabeth Bik, who had been a staff scientist at Stanford doing postdoctoral microbiology research until 2016 and is now a well-known research integrity consultant who specializes in photographic images, said she heard about the questions about some papers of which Tessier-Lavigne is one of the authors a few years after they were first raised, and identified additional possible problems.
Most appeared to be minor concerns, and they could have been honest mistakes, she said. This week, Bik said, she spotted a more troubling instance in a paper from 1999 with multiple authors where it appeared photos had been altered, which she said was suggestive of copying and pasting.
The Los Angeles Times describes Tessier-Lavigne as "a neuroscientist and biotech entrepreneur widely known for his Alzheimer's research" who "has authored or co-authored about 300 scientific papers."
More from the Washington Post: The university launched the inquiry after the Stanford Daily, a campus newspaper, reported that a well-known research journal was looking into concerns raised about a 2008 paper co-authored by Marc Tessier-Lavigne. The Daily reported that in addition to the paper in the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal, there were questions about other published research.
Some of those complaints were first made many years ago, and Tessier-Lavigne had tried to correct papers at one journal in 2015, according to its editor.... Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement that he supports the inquiry. "Scientific integrity is of the utmost importance both to the university and to me personally," Tessier-Lavigne said. "I support this process and will fully cooperate with it, and I appreciate the oversight by the Board of Trustees...."
Elisabeth Bik, who had been a staff scientist at Stanford doing postdoctoral microbiology research until 2016 and is now a well-known research integrity consultant who specializes in photographic images, said she heard about the questions about some papers of which Tessier-Lavigne is one of the authors a few years after they were first raised, and identified additional possible problems.
Most appeared to be minor concerns, and they could have been honest mistakes, she said. This week, Bik said, she spotted a more troubling instance in a paper from 1999 with multiple authors where it appeared photos had been altered, which she said was suggestive of copying and pasting.
The Los Angeles Times describes Tessier-Lavigne as "a neuroscientist and biotech entrepreneur widely known for his Alzheimer's research" who "has authored or co-authored about 300 scientific papers."
Alzheimers fraud (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The potential market for treatments is huge and generally untapped, so there is incentive to get something out there.
Re: Alzheimers fraud (Score:3)
Yawn, get new jokes.
The dementia guy has more legislative accomplishments in two then the last guy got in four, doesn't really help your case...
Re: Alzheimers fraud (Score:4, Insightful)
Did he claim a simulated wormhole was a wormhole? (Score:1)
Cos no idiot would believe that.
cuthroat (Score:1)
Biology research is the most cutthroat pursuit on the planet. It would not surprise me if 50% of papers have fabricated results.
Re: (Score:3)
"It would not surprise me if 50% of papers have fabricated results."
Are you a biologist? Only someone who regularly reads the primary literature and understands the details could make the claim you did. Otherwise, you would at least have to be quoting someone who does follow scientific research closely. If you wanted to be accurate, you could have said that a significant portion of the drug and medical device research may have problems because those researchers have non-scientific motivations (e.g., intelle
Re: (Score:1)
I've been involved in medical research, including commercial research and pure research. There is a *lot* of fraud. We seriously pissed off our funding agency by discrediting papers from labs we worked with.
Wonder who he pissed off. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
He wanted his name on there so he shares responsibility for accuracy. As simple as that.
5th Listed Author. (Score:3)
Note he is the 5th listed author and he has authored or co-authored 300 papers. In other words he probably had very little to do with the article and received co-authorship status for very little contribution because that it how the academic world now works.
Re: (Score:3)
Note he is the 5th listed author and he has authored or co-authored 300 papers. In other words he probably had very little to do with the article and received co-authorship status for very little contribution because that it how the academic world now works.
Uh, hold on. If the 5th listed author somehow did a lot of work on the paper, then they would be higher than 5th author. Because that's the way the academic world is supposed to work: the earlier you are in the author list, the larger your contribution. So 5th author? Didn't do a lot of work on the project. In fact, given that he was a UCSF faculty member at the time, his contribution might well have been limited to guiding the line of inquiry, securing funding and providing laboratory space. People l
Re: (Score:2)
That is really bullshit. If your name is on the paper then you share responsibility for it being accurate. Period.
Otherwise your name has absolutely no business being on that paper. Being listed as an author but not having verified the contents is publication fraud, plain and simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is the only exception I see. And I have experienced that personally when I was told only after acceptance for publication that they added mo as author. The paper was fine though (the first thing I did was read it). But I told them to next time ask me in advance.
Now, this guy is on 300 papers. Which means this is very likely not an accident. If it was in this specific case, there should be a way to prove it.
Re: (Score:2)
That is really bullshit. If your name is on the paper then you share responsibility for it being accurate. Period.
Otherwise your name has absolutely no business being on that paper. Being listed as an author but not having verified the contents is publication fraud, plain and simple.
He was listed because he contributed something to the paper. It doesn't mean he was the one writing most of (any of) the text or adding images. Like is he supposed to start grilling the authors that they didn't manipulate the images?
He has some responsibility since by adding his name he was vouching for the other authors, but I'm not sure why he would have any more reason to realize the images were manipulated than one of the reviewers or the other researchers who've cited it in the 20+ years since.
Re: (Score:2)
If your name is on it, you have a special responsibility. If you cite it, you just have ordinary responsibility. Of course, if he invested reasonable effort in verifying the overall paper contents and it was hard to detect the fraud, then he may be off the hook. That is why there is an investigation now.
Important area of research (Score:3)
It is important to check prior work for the absence of signs of short cuts, or even fraud.
One example is the glowing Ivermectin study [baheyeldin.com] that later proved to be fraudulent based on closer inspection of the spreadsheet data.
The difference is that the Ivermectin study was done in a small provincial university (Benha) in a developing country (Egypt), while in this case, it is the current president of a prestigious top university in the USA.
Crap swims to the top (Score:2)
Just another example of that.