The University of Kentucky has started termination proceedings against a pair of scientists found guilty of “significant departures from accepted practices of research,” according to the institution.
The scientists, Xianglin Shi, who up until now had held the William A. Marquard Chair in Cancer Research and served as associate dean for research integration in the UK College of Medicine, and Zhuo Zhang in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the College of Medicine, have lost access to their laboratories, which are shuttered, and other university equipment, UK said in a statement. A third researcher, Donghern Kim, who worked under Zhang, already has been fired in the scandal.
In October, the university told us that it was aware of the retractions but “not able to provide more information at this time.” The ongoing investigation was first reported in April by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
According to the UK’s announcement today, the inquiry, which began in June 2018, into Shi, Zhang and Kim found that:
From seven grant proposals submitted to the NIH and 60 manuscripts published from 2012-2018 by Shi, Zhang and Kim, the committee identified patterns of potential data inconsistencies. This served as the basis for further review of data for a selection of 19 items (seven grants and 12 manuscripts), plus three manuscripts which were retracted during the investigation.
Overall, nine distinct classes of significant departures from accepted practices of research were detected, the investigation found.
Very little of the original data requested was provided, which the committee concluded was inconsistent with NIH or UK expectations and resulted in an inability to validate the mode in which it was represented in the publications and grants.
A lack of organization and oversight in the research allowed for unsupported falsified and fabricated data to be presented in grants and publications.
The committee found some instances of an intentional effort to deceive, and in other instances, careless and reckless handling of experimental data and figure construction for grants and publications.
In two instances, the committee found that one or more of the respondents generated and provided falsified and fabricated documents to the committee to justify their responses to committee inquiries.
As we reported last October, Shi and colleagues lost three papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry to retraction stemming from manipulation of images. That work was conducted using funding from the National Institutes of Health, and Shi is principal investigator of a 5-year, $7.4 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to establish the UK Center for Appalachian Research in Environmental Sciences (UK-CARES).
The UK says it has turned over the results of its inquiry to the Office of Research Integrity, which investigates misconduct involving federally-funded science.
Update, 1900 UTC, 8/26/19: The UK has released its report of the investigation. (When downloading, be aware that it is a very large file.)
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Can you provide a link to UK’s announcement?
They posted this after we had already published.
Campus wide email send this morning:
Dear Campus Community,
After a more than year-long, internal investigation, the University has concluded that two professors and a staff research scientist are responsible for significant research misconduct.
In 2018, we received concerns from outside of UK about research being conducted at the University, later identified as involving Xianglin Shi and Zhuo Zhang, professors in our Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology within the College of Medicine, and Donghern Kim, a staff research scientist who worked with them.
This matter involves a serious breach of ethics, fundamental to who we are as members of an academic community. We want to share with our campus community what happened and the steps we are taking in response.
Per the University’s regulations and federal guidelines, we immediately empaneled an inquiry committee of expert scientists to assess whether there were sufficient grounds to proceed to a more thorough investigation. Upon determining that sufficient grounds existed, the investigation committee conducted a detailed examination of a selection of the researchers’ grants and scholarly papers authored by one or more of Shi, Zhang and Kim.
In a more than 1,000-page report, the committee determined conclusively that there were numerous occurrences of research misconduct, including falsified or fabricated data as part of several publications and grant proposals. This week we turned that report over to the federal Office of Research Integrity, which will further review our findings.
Per University regulations, UK President Eli Capilouto consulted with the Senate Advisory Committee on Privilege and Tenure (SACPT) prior to informing the faculty members that they were going to be removed from campus. Shi and Zhang were then informed that absent their agreement to resign, we will begin the process to terminate their employment at UK, given the seriousness of these findings. Unless resolved by resignation, a detailed summary of charges will be prepared. Those charges – containing a recommendation to terminate their employment – will be presented to the SACPT.
According to UK’s Governing Regulations, at least one other faculty committee, empaneled by the University Senate Council, could also review charges and make a recommendation to President Capilouto regarding termination of employment. Ultimately, the UK Board of Trustees would decide whether to accept a termination recommendation.
Kim, who was a UK staff member, also has had his employment terminated. We also are seeking to retract the papers in question, the faculty members’ laboratories have been shut down, and without University Legal Office approval, the three researchers are not permitted to contact members of the University community or come on campus except for medical care. Their access to University equipment also has been discontinued.
UK will work with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the labs in question to minimize disruption of their studies. With the closure of the two labs, the positions of an additional five staff members will be eliminated because they are supported by research grants that must be terminated. UK Human Resources is working with those impacted on a transition from the University and appropriate assistance packages.
Because College of Medicine Dean Robert DiPaola is a co-author on a paper with Shi, Zhang and Kim that was examined by the investigation committee, he recused himself from the process. DiPaola was not a respondent in the investigation, and the committee found that he was not responsible for direct oversight of the research in the paper. However, that paper will be retracted.
As the University of Kentucky supports outstanding research to address Kentucky’s most significant and protracted challenges, we are committed to a continual examination of our processes, policies, and procedures to protect against research misconduct. Our research must be conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, consistent with our published policies and standards. In the rare instances when researchers violate our expectations and standards, the University will act forcefully and without hesitation to investigate the misconduct, correct it, and take steps to prevent any recurrence.
We will update the campus as the situation evolves. Thank you for all you do for our University and those we serve.
David Blackwell Lisa Cassis
Provost Vice President for Research
An Equal Opportunity University
I have often seen labs in the U.S. staffed by compatriots of the boss, who would be beholden to the boss for visas, citizenship. I wonder if diversity would help. People with other connections, less likely to be intimidated.
Breaks my heart. Glad they got them. I got the same email today. I’m a researcher in energy and engineering at the same university, and this turns my stomach.
These two faulty are pulling close to 1/2 million a year in salary, and they are dragging this out to get as much as they can, I suppose.
My guess if you removed all of the faculty that are deadwood, along with the serious cheaters, about 1/2 the faculty would be gone.
Lets see… 1/2 million in salary for almost 10 years, the school paid out 5 million to these two faculty for a lot of crappy, er, I mean unreproducible work. I would hope that there is some kind of financial retribution to the NIH from the school (ala Piero Anversa), so maybe the school will think twice about the kind of people they hire to run labs.
Of course it won’t be the administrators that made the decisions to hire these two (eg dept chair of their dept (toxicology (?)) and higher deans) that will have to pay. Just less money to support for people lower down the ranks.
I don’t expect anything to change. As long as the school gets its grant money and the administrative system is not enacted to check for problems, everything is “fine”.
http://retractionwatch.com/2017/04/27/harvard-teaching-hospital-pay-10-million-settle-research-misconduct-allegations/
And then the punishment for them will certainly not merit the crime, but those rich folks trying to get their kids into college will be “severly punished”, what is wrong with this picture!
I wonder how much papers like this 2006 one from Virginia Commonwealth University contributed to the University of Kentucky’s decision to hire Xianglin Shi.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/44B6D474252DFE3DB80F01B555C4E7
Thank you for your diligence and efforts in that PP thread.
I read the report from UK in detail. The very last section notes:
“Due to the large volume of material, the committee was only able to examine a representative sample of the publications and grants from Drs. Zhang and Shi’s group. However, given the high frequency of issues detected in that representative sample, the committee recommends that further, more extensive examination of all of the Respondents’ work should be considered.”
I will be interested to know how NIH/ORI respond to that statement in their final report.
There are more than 80 co authored publications for Drs Shi and Zhang in PubMed so looking at all of these will be a lot of work.
Their next most frequent co author is Jia Luo with more than 50 entries in PubMed.
https://pharmns.med.uky.edu/users/jnlu222
Dr Luo already has some entries on pubpeer including this:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/0886375FC733A50E2F122FCF90A6BF
Dr Shi has also published with Drs Chengfeng Yang and Zhishan Wang who were recruited to the University to work in Dr Shi’s Center:
https://med.uky.edu/users/cya237#profileTab1
https://toxicology.med.uky.edu/users/zwa259
In the interest of completeness, Dr Shi has about 20 PubMed entries (including some of the retracted papers and papers that have been identified on pubpeer) with another University of Kentucky faculty member, Dr Gang Chen
https://pharmns.med.uky.edu/users/gch222#profileTab4
I also read the report.
The review committee did a very thorough job. This must have been a huge time commitment. Although this is effectively a required public service the University and/or NIH should do something to compensate them for this thankless task. How about continuous submission if they don’t already have that? I can’t imagine it would be easy to get another panel interested in delving further into the Shi/Zhang work.
From the report and news stories, Dr Shi was a Center Director, holder of an endowed chair in what is a well-regarded cancer center and he was also an associate dean. Some of the research the committee identified as fraudulent involved students and post docs where the University should have some oversight mechanisms for their training. Its as if nobody was paying any attention to his research or that as discussed by someone else here perhaps normally objective processes were clouded by the sheer volume of grant funding being brought into the university.
The committee’s final statement about the dean of the college of medicine’s associations with Drs Shi and Zhang identifies possible source of inadequate oversight of Drs Shi and Zhang’s research.
“Notwithstanding that direct oversight of Dr. Wang was found not to be within Dr. DiPaola’s purview, the committee feels that Dr. DiPaola failed to adequately assure himself that the research and presentation of data and findings in the Wang et al. (Prostate, 2018) paper was conducted as properly as he could reasonably control. He should retract the Wang et al. paper in Prostate, which contained many of the issues noted by the committee.”
As a permadoc, I can tell you that almost all advisors (at least the ones that I have worked for, so Ive assuming what Ive seen is general) just don’t care how the data is generated as long as its positive results in a form of a narrative are created for the PI’s to publish and for grants. As long as the results are coming in they (the PI’s) are not going to ask questions. Of course there is no oversight, because there never is!
IMO, clearly, the data generators (grad students, post-docs) are as important to the system as the administrators (PI’s on up) of the data generators. If the administrators are not going to give oversight to insure quality data, then why are they paid so much, and the data generators so little? This is a very unethical system, and will continue creating a lot of crappy data and over and over again, to the point where researchers in industry cannot trust academic data. Oh wait, we are already there..
Its a coercive environment so until universities start rewarding careful conscientious scientists instead of linking job security and income directly to grant funding this will never go away. While u of k was paying shi and zhang their collective $0.5m/ year how many assistant professors didn’t make it because they couldn’t get enough grant funding?
I was interested in understanding the relationship between Dean DiPaola and Drs Shi and Zhang, particularly their roles in the retracted publication and the relinquished R01 grant discussed in the earlier thread here.
The letter linked to below was obtained from university spokesperson Jay Blanton
https://file.io/rHQI3c
It is extremely strange that the circumstances leading to the relinquishment of the DiPaola/Zhang MPI grant are not discussed at all in the report. From the timeline in the report, the letter was written the week that the Shi/Zhang investigation moved past the “initial inquiry stage”. Was it a coincidence that after accepting the grant and starting work on the research Dean DiPaola suddenly decided he was “too busy” to be PI of the grant at that time? Wouldn’t the circumstances and reasons for relinquishment of the grant be highly relevant to the investigation? Why did Dr Zhang agree to sign the letter? It is also surprising that the University permitted this to happen once the investigation had started. As noted by others, this just makes you wonder if anyone is paying attention to research oversight at the University of Kentucky.
Although dean Dipaola tries to downplay his role in oversight of the apparently fraudulent research in his two depositions that accompany the report his position that he had a secondary role in oversight of the research is not consistent with the information in the funded proposal which states that he has equal responsibility for the research with Dr Zhang.
PERSONNEL JUSTIFICATION
Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. (PI, 1.2 calendar months), is a Professor of Medicine and Dean, University of
Kentucky College of Medicine. He is an expert in translational research with a focus on the experimental
therapeutics and drug resistance of prostate cancer. Dr. DiPaola is one of the earliest investigators to target
the degradation of Bcl-2 and autophagy/cancer metabolism in both the laboratory and clinic to restore drug
sensitivity in treatment of prostate cancer, and to conduct phase I to III clinical studies. Although the two PIs
will assume equal responsibility for the overall project, Dr. DiPaola will play a major role in overall project
design and all aspects related to development of p62 as a drug target, therapy of verteporfin, and its
combination with other standard therapeutics against prostate cancer.
MULTIPLE PI/PD LEADERSHIP PLAN
Dr. Robert S. DiPaola (PI) is a Professor and Dean, University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He is a
physician scientist with training in therapeutics and drug resistance of prostate cancer. Dr. DiPaola’s research
focuses on drug resistance in cancer therapy and on preclinical studies of drug resistance mechanisms,
supporting clinical trials. Although the two PIs will assume equal responsibility for the overall project, Dr.
DiPaola will play a major role in overall experimental design, data interpretation, and the studies related to
therapies of verteporfin and its combination with other standard therapeutics, and bridge these results to create
new investigator initiated studies.
As an occasional reviewer of their grants and papers I have also been following Dr Shi and his colleagues for a while.
At least from the addresses on their papers, Drs Shi, Zhang, Luo, Yang, Wang and Chen all work in the same building, possibly on the same floor. UofK’s directory is password protected so I was unable to find their individual lab and office addresses.
Collectively this group has a substantial number (now ~20) of coauthored publications that are retracted, slated to be retracted or have concerns identified on pubpeer.
They have an equally substantial amount of NIH funding for research that is clearly broadly related to the studies of metal ion carcinogenesis and oxidative stress that are the subjects of the above papers. I count 8 active R01 awards and a VA Merit Award to Dr Luo. Publications from the group and the research supported by these grants clearly involve shared approaches, model systems and reagents.
I hope someone will look at the applications that led to these awards. If Drs Luo, Yang, Wang and Chen are all responsible ethical researchers then its troubling that they didn’t identify the issues with their collaborative research with Drs Shi and Zhang. The alternative possibility that UofK has been harboring a viper’s nest of research misconduct is even more troubling.
As someone who worked right next to them (different Lab), they, at the time of the investigation and before, occupied two floors of the same building, so yes, their labs were right next to each other, although one of them has recently left for a different building.
I really don’t expect things to change very much. In the end, the only thing the school worries about is getting its money, and nothing will happen unless something is triggered through the ORI office. In the case of Zhang/Shi, it was the appearance of a “black box” (instead of a neg control from a confocal picture) in a NIH update that triggered the investigation. So unless there is some kind of “triggering event” where the system is required to investigate, nothing will happen.
Lets say the others lose grant funding because of what happened, and are thought to be guilty by association. Then the school is stuck with inactive faculty that they are paying six figures a year for.
Three more instances of possible figure manipulation in papers authored by Drs Shi, Zhang, Gang Chen and Jia Luo have appeared on Pubpeer in the past 12 hours. The University and ORI need to start looking at all of the research output from this group of close collaborators.
For this to happen, you would need a serious triggering event or a whistleblower.
Based on my reading of the report of Zhang/Shi, what was going on was that many people in these labs were, along with probably some honest generation of data, were filling in the gaps with forgery to complete a narrative, or a “story”, of positive results that would be attractive to reviewers so that it could be published. My suspicion is that all of these individuals who acted in this way had some kind of ambition to not be a “post-doc for life”, and knew to escape that dubious fate required publishing frequently (with Young-Ok Son, who worked for Shi and has now three retractions, that was once a year in a good journal such as JBC).
Sadly, it all makes logical sense to me why this happens, even though its wrong. As long as the system of academic research remains what it is, you either need more oversight from authorities (which isn’t going to happen in US labs–most advisors are too busy or irresponsible to carefully look at all of the work being done in the lab, and this goes against the entrepreneurial spirit of honest work without oversight in people raised in the US), or very honest post-docs who can tolerate the life of being in the precariat class (like me!).
I certainly could not advise anybody to go into scientific research for this reason. To succeed enough to have a decent middle class lifestyle (tenured faculty at the level of associate professor), you either need to 1.) be brilliant, 2.) be lucky (your projects actually generate positive results that can be place in a narrative), or 3.) cheat. These days, my suspicion is that each of these groups is equally represented in the tenured faculty ranks. Just my (dystopian) opinion.
Two recently posted beauties from Xianglin Shi and co-workers at the early years at UK:
https://pubpeer.com/publications7495B0504DAB9A340C3EDADB8B0F00
https://pubpeer.com/publications/E0892176CA8D34995B8B8FE8472396
First link should be https://pubpeer.com/publications/7495B0504DAB9A340C3EDADB8B0F00
You beat me to it Morty. The fantastic four (Shi, Zhang, Chen and Luo) strike again! How many more problematic papers remain to be identified? What an awful situation for the University of Kentucky.
http://www.jbc.org/content/294/42/15558
The first university initiated retraction. Score another one for Drs Shi, Zhang and last but not least Dr Luo who seems to crop up on many of these problematic papers.
Dr Luo also has a flagged paper on pubpeer with what looks like a duplicated set of western blot bands that he has apparently been “looking into” for over a month now.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/0886375FC733A50E2F122FCF90A6BF
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pros.23915
Another one. Unfortunately the retraction notice doesn’t identify any of the specific problems with the paper.
2019 retraction for
Sci Rep. 2016 Nov 23;6:37227. doi: 10.1038/srep37227.
1 comment on PubPeer (by: Indigofera Tanganyikensis)
Oncogenic transformation of human lung bronchial epithelial cells induced by arsenic involves ROS-dependent activation of STAT3-miR-21-PDCD4 mechanism.
Pratheeshkumar P1,2, Son YO1,2, Divya SP1,2, Wang L1,2, Zhang Z2, Shi X1,2.
2019 retraction notice.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53858-z
The editors are retracting this article.
During an investigation into an allegation of research misconduct at the University of Kentucky, where the research was conducted, it was determined that the article contains fabricated and/or falsified data1.
Specifically, in Figure 2D pSTAT3 control image contains no pixel data. The raw data and metadata for this figure are not available. Figure 3E contains inappropriate scale bars, which use incorrect unit. No scale bars were recorded in the original data; as such the veracity of the scale bars shown cannot be confirmed. pSTAT3 control images in this figure contain no pixel data. Metadata and raw data for figure components in panel 3E are not available.
Since these data are critical to certain main conclusions of the study, the editors retract this article.
Poyil Pratheeshkumar, Lei Wang, and Xianglin Shi do not agree with the retraction. Young-Ok Son, Sasidharan Padmaja Divya, and Zhuo Zhang could not be reached.
Reference
1.
Results of Official Investigation into Research Misconduct at University of Kentucky. https://www.uky.edu/prmarketing/statement-research-misconduct (2019).
2020 retraction of:
PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e31783. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031783. Epub 2012 Feb 21.
3,3′-Diindolylmethane exhibits antileukemic activity in vitro and in vivo through a Akt-dependent process.
Gao N1, Cheng S, Budhraja A, Liu EH, Chen J, Chen D, Yang Z, Luo J, Shi X, Zhang Z.
Author information
1
Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, 3rd Military Medical University, Chongqing, China. [email protected]
2020 retraction.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229164
The University of Kentucky requested retraction of this article based on the findings of an institutional investigation. The institutional committee concluded that the article contains results that could not be validated with original data, and noted concerns about how experiments and results were documented in the laboratory’s records.
In our editorial review of this case, concerns were raised about the uniformity and lack of visible image details in the background areas of blot fragments reported in the western blot figures. In response to journal queries the authors provided cropped versions of the reported images with gray rather than white background and with improved visibility of faint bands in some cases. However, the images provided did not fully resolve the concerns about the integrity of these results.
In addition, similarities were noted between β-actin data reported in the following figure panels:
Fig 1b, c, d
Fig 3b, c, d
Fig 4b, c
Fig 4e, f
Fig 5b, c
The authors commented that the experiments in each set of figure panels used the same samples and the same experimental conditions, and so the same control blots were relevant for the indicated panels.
In light of the above concerns and the recommendation by the University of Kentucky, the PLOS ONE Editors retract this article.
NG disagrees with the retraction and stands by the integrity of the data and the validity of the reported results. ZZ did not agree with retraction. The other authors either did not reply or could not be reached.
Reference
1.Gao N, Cheng S, Budhraja A, Liu E- H, Chen J, Chen D, et al. (2012) 3, 3′-Diindolylmethane Exhibits Antileukemic Activity In Vitro and In Vivo through a Akt-Dependent Process. PLoS ONE 7(2): e31783. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031783
Two 2020 Expressions of Concern.
Toxicol Sci. 2020 Feb 17. pii: kfaa011. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfaa011. [Epub ahead of print]Expression of Concern: “Cadmium Induces Intracellular Ca2+- and H2O2-Dependent Apoptosis through JNK- and p53-Mediated Pathways in Skin Epidermal Cell line”.Son YO, Lee JC, Hitron JA, Pan J, Zhang Z, Shi X.PMID: 32065645 DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfaa011The Editorial Board of Toxicological Sciences has been alerted by a reader to concerns regarding the data underlying this paper. Until further notice, this Expression of Concern should be taken to indicate that the data presented in the article named above may not be reliable.
Duplicate facs.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/C609AF94E9FD5CD3790924400CCAB3 Toxicol Sci. 2020 Feb 17. pii: kfaa012. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfaa012. [Epub ahead of print]Expression of Concern: “The Dual Roles of c-Jun NH2-Terminal Kinase Signaling in Cr(VI)-Induced Apoptosis in JB6 Cells”.Son YO, Hitron JA, Cheng S, Budhraja A, Zhang Z, Guo NL, Lee JC, Shi X.PMID: 32065643 DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfaa012The Editorial Board of Toxicological Sciences has been alerted by a reader to concerns regarding the data underlying this paper. Until further notice, this Expression of Concern should be taken to indicate that the data presented in the article named above may not be reliable.
Duplicate facs and westerns. https://pubpeer.com/publications/E44161E510F3B2EBC98096EDD1C865