Bharat Aggarwal, an influential MD Anderson researcher who has been accused in the blogosphere of manipulating images in a slew of published studies, acknowledged to Retraction Watch that the Houston institution is investigating the matter. Reached by Retraction Watch by phone at his office, Aggarwal said MD Anderson
has been looking into it and I think that they will tell everybody what it is all about. I think that somebody out there is putting this whole thing together and their mind is made up.
However, Aggarwal, chief of the center’s cytokine research section, denied that any retractions of his papers were forthcoming. He refused to comment on whether officials had confiscated his computer, as a commenter to this blog has claimed.
Allegations of misconduct by Aggarwal have surfaced recently on at least two blogs. One, devoted to the subject, lists 14 papers. Abnormal Science also been on the trail and has posted images for evaluation.
Aggarwal’s papers are highly cited. One, published in Science when he was still at Genentech in 1985, has been cited more than 1,700 times. according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Another, about the potential anti-cancer effects of curcumin, has been cited 700 times.
He has also published on resveratrol, the component in red wine that some researchers claim has anti-aging and other healthy properties. One of his papers on the subject has been cited 370 times. He also edited a book on the topic that included a contribution from Dipak Das, the UConn researcher found to have committed 145 counts of scientific misconduct.
Aggarwal’s bio is worth a look:
Dr. Aggarwal has published more than 600 papers in peer-reviewed international journals (including Science, Nature, Cancer Cell, PNAS, Journal of Exp. Medicine, JBC, Cancer Research, Journal of Immunology), invited reviews and book chapters. He has been listed as one of the most highly cited scientist by ISI since 2001; and has been included in ISI Highly Cited among most highly cited authors in Immunology category. He has also been listed as top 25 researchers in apoptosis area in the World. His papers exhibit high-citation index (over 1000 for some).
Dr. Aggarwal is inventor/coinventor on over 33 patents.
Dr. Aggarwal has received numerous awards including World Congress Science Prize from Oxygen Club of California 2010, Excellance in Research Award of McCormick Research Institute from the American Association of Nutrition, 2008, Outstanding Scientist Award from the American Association of Indian Scientists in Cancer Research, 2006, Ranbaxy Award for Outstanding Scientist of the year, 2004.
Needless to say, we’ll be following this case closely.
Please see our follow-up posts. Also, while we appreciate the free flow of ideas, we have had to unapprove several very abusive comments. Please refrain from ad hominem attacks, as they undermine this community’s attempts to improve our understanding of the scientific process.
Is it the first time Retraction Watch has taken up a story before the retraction? This posting will be hotly debated – i can foresee…..let us wait, watch and see how it unravels. Another herbal medicine case.
Just goes to show that retraction watch is simply a vehicle for aggrandisement of the journalistic careers of the blog moderators, nothing else.
The whole purpose of journalism is to sensationalize some event to attract readership. Without readership there would be no journalists.
I agree to some extent. It seems if you were really interested in a particular event, you would actually read the papers as opposed to someone’s summary which it seems many of the respondents do.
PubMed ID 16219905 Fig 4A/5A, re-use of beta-actin control blots for different conditions.
PubMed ID 22265847 Figs 2A/2E, re-use of beta actin control blots for different conditions.
Same deal, 6 years apart, totally different sets of co-authors. Heaven knows what lies in between these two examples. Only 250 papers to seive through. Holy cow, 250 papers in 6 years, for a non-clinical author! Why was that not a red flag to the authorities?
I had checked his publications 3-4 years back … kind of record minimum 3 publications per month for more than 3 yrs! A careful look at some of the publications showed that they are assembly line publications where the order/ nature of data is predetermined with only the chemical entity he was working with changing.
That sort of thing may count as redundant publication, if the overlap is major, or “salami” publication if the overlap is minor.
Here is a flowchart of what to do:
http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/01B_Redundant_Published.pdf
Aren’t his papers like the three copies of credit card receipt?
So if he was a clinical author that was ok ?
No, 600 publications for anyone is odd, but less odd for a clinician. Often MDs churn out a lot of publications that are simply case-studies; details on a single patient or an oddity, so they can claim precedence if the disease or condition becomes widespread. A lot of MDs live for the day that the odd case they first published as a 1/2 page letter in JAMA in the 1990s becomes the next AIDS or other such epidemic. In the old days, this led to “naming rights”, hence Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease etc., all based on first-in-class reports by otherwise not particularly talented doctors. It is not unusual to see 300+ publications on the CV of a mid career (late 40s) MD. Such a number for a PhD would be a red flag.
Interestingly I saw a Japanese blog where the abnormal science founder Prof.Jörg Zwirner also done some manipulation. One of them is The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 3306-3314 where he is showing presumably similar beta actin bands (fig 1D). There is some discrepancy in some of his flow cytometry data.
I had a look at fig 1D The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 3306-3314.
There are 2 lanes with beta-actin bands. They look similar in shape, but the distribution of intensity does not look the same. Too little to go on.
The thread is about MD Anderson, where there seems to be a case with many irregularities.
@aktfamily Can you provide the link to the Japanese blog? Was unable to find it.
http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/
Aggarwal’s student, Prof Gautam Sethi who co-authored >50 papers with him, is also under investigation for cientific misconduct.
How do you know Sethi is under investigation ?
That is the exact kind of crap institutions do. Everything is shown in the posts. All evidence is now public. WHAT IS THERE TO INVESTIGATE?
This is just a maneuver with a double goal: show some reaction and remedy the scandal. They will pose a lot and say “the guy didnt exactly know about the manipulations”…
I do not agree with you … these are only a few papers from a very long list of publications. So there is a lot to investigate. I am not trying to justify or defend … when there are frequent incidents then doubt is there but lets not crucify before there is conclusive evidence. The evidence presented in the 2 blogs is primarily duplication of the same figure which could also be a honest error when one is publishing as many or may be even fewer papers. The exception is Biochem Pharmcol 2010 paper where apoptotic cells have been added in. That for sure is intended manipulation. As for the blots and same loading control … I have myself probed a single blot for 5-6 proteins using a combination of cutting the blot into strips and stripping and reprobing but it was all noted on the films. There are no clear accepted norms and you will find several papers with multiple proteins being probed and only a single loading control blot though ideally it should not be so. As long as they can show that for each blot they did a loading control and they were similar and have therefore shown only one .. i think they would be fine.
I do agree with your concerns regarding cover up by the institutes … they tend to go all out to save their name. Let’s hope that MD Anderson will be more like SUNY in recent times
@expostdoc: have you worked in that laboratory? Yes, it could be honest error – but too many of them though.
Halo honest error what do you mean in 50 papers?
I agree with you Rafa
oi oi, rafa…there should be proper investigation done. Here is the funny thing (for me at least). This professor and his postdocs send emails to many people (I don’t know how they got emails of so many people) they publish a paper….It also states that prof so.so. would like to share his recent publication (pdf files of a bunch of articles – as someone calculated 3 articles per month)….as if we don’t search pubmed for interested papers or we don’t know how to get papers downloaded. Of course it will be useful for people who donot have journal access..last sentence, please promote them….
Dear Colleague,
First, I would like to wish you and your dear ones a very happy and prosperous New Year 2012.
Second, I am enclosing some of our recent articles that may be of use for your work.
Third, I hope that you will enjoy reading these articles and will further promote them.
Regards,
Subash C. Gupta,
For-
Bharat B. Aggarwal, Ph.D.
Ransom Horne, Jr., Professor of Cancer Research
Professor of Cancer Medicine (Biochemistry) and
Chief, Cytokine Research Laboratory,
Department of Experimental Therapeutics,
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center,
1901 East Road, Unit # 1950
Houston, TX 77054, USA
Phone:713-794-1817
Email:[email protected]
For Emergency, please contact my assistant:
Christina Gonzalez
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 713-792-8141
For curcumin information, please visit:
http://www.curcuminresearch.org
For past and future conferences on
Translational Cancer Research organized by us,
Please visit: http://www.tcr2011.in
Sarve bhavantu sukhinah (May all be happy);
Sarve santu niramayah (May all be healthy);
Sarve bhadrani pasyantu (May I see goodness in everybody);
Ma kascid dukhabhag bhavet (May misfortune never ever befall).
Subash C. Gupta, Ph.D.
Post Doctoral Fellow,
Cytokine Research Laboratory,
Department of Experimental Therapeutics
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
1901 East Road, 4SCR2.1336, Unit 1950
Houston, Texas, 77054-3005, USA
Alternate Email: [email protected]
Phone: 713-792-6459 (office)
Right or wrong aside, that is a somewhat cringeworthy email, in my opinion.
this email was sent before the retraction watch posting – sometime during the first week of January….
hahahaha .. that explains the number of citations his papers managed!! No wonder he has record number of citations
Shame on you Dr gupta for sending out the news about these fraudulent creations on the eve of new year.
Sounds funny
@Clare
I am not sure that it would classify as redundant publication as each one of them investigates the anti-cancer/ cytotoxic activity of a different phyto-chemical but goes along the same lines … cytotoxicity assay, markers of apoptosis, EMSA for NFkB ….
A figure published in Nature under supplemental figures and then again the same blot is being used as a main figure in JEM paper by the same group – is it permitted?
Papers differing in details on the same system may very well count as “salami” publications. You can see adding a different chemical as a detail and could merrily go through the catalogue of chemicals. Usually editors ask if you have anything similar published, or to be published. In the end we have to be adult and decide if the next paper is simply another “sprinkling on” experiment.
If you have grounds then you can complain.
Can we please keep some level on integrity to the blogs posted ? it is perfectly reasonable to use the same systems to study different molecules.
this is a factory – what ever the compound you use, it would affect NFkB pathway. I feel that NFkB is so sensitive to exogenous chemicals and is important in protecting the genome.
@expostodoc: Nature and JEM paper you are mentioning are also from the same group?
No its a different group
you should report it to the journals (nature and JEM case)…this should be exposed, i guess.
In reply to another post you had asked if I ever worked for BBA .. the answer is no. I knew some one who did post doc in his lab and had close to 6 papers in a year (he could not stay for longer due to working conditions). When i started looking for post doc position that was one lab suggested to me and that was when i looked at his papers and realized it was a factory line production unit and therefore never applied there. Feel good about it today .. not that my other choice turned out to be right!!!
“he could not stay for longer due to working conditions”?? Can you elaborate?
@ Public
According to him he had to work from 8 in the morning to at least 10 pm with a 10-15 minute lunch break .. if he exceeded the break time by 5-10 minutes then he had to answer as to why it took him long .. weekends didn’t mean anything. So it was tough for him being an immigrant in US with a family that had 2 small kids. This was his story … I have no first hand knowledge of how things were actually in that lab
PI must have been travelling all around – who is in charge of the laboratory in his absence – it may not be the PI who insists this in this case. May be I am wrong.
6 papers a year? Are you kidding?
@ Jane’s addiction
Don’t believe me … search pubmed for Sandur SK and Aggarwal BB. Now 12 papers come up but in 2006 there are 6!! Santosh S Kumar (Sandur SK) is currently working at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India and he was in BBA’s lab for only one year.
Figure duplications and manipulations are far more easier to spot but the data credibility..
Sandur SK et al Free Radic Biol Med. 2007 – “we conclude that curcumin mediates its apoptotic and anti-inflammatory activities through modulation of the redox status of the cell.”
Sandur SK et al Carcinogenesis. 2007 – “curcumin present in turmeric exhibit variable anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activities, which do not correlate with their ability to modulate the ROS status”
Havent read the entire papers but these are the conclusions presented in the abstract for 2 papers published in the same year, same author, same group, same compound!! Science is really funny isn’t it??
@expostdoc I wonder if the evaluation of people based on their total publication number per year, instead of some more realistic measure of the quality and significance of the work, is contributing to the paper mill phenomenon where labs publish papers that are nearly identical or with only slightly different findings which really amount to the same thing. Why would you essentially republish something if you actually cared about science, about discovery? I think some people do science because they love science and others look at science as a means to advance their careers.
@ Jane
I completely agree with you that it is the problem of the system .. its really a very sad thing that BBA will not be remembered as the person who discovered TNF but as someone who just added random natural products to cells, looked at NFkB and published papers that had no value or had questionable data. He is not the only one .. there are many more like him. Whether BBA fell into this trap of quick publications by choice or funding compulsions .. the system encouraged it for so long despite the red flags being there. Either way its a loss to science …
One thing worries me is that the ORI chief of MDACC Dr.Plunket belongs to same department as Dr.Aggarwal. One of our reader already mentioned this somewhere. But both of them didnot publish any paper together
I have a fundamental worry about an institution investigating its own people. There is too much conflict of interest – embarrassment, grant funding, intellectual property – and so on.
I don’t know what a good solution would be. If there is a concern which is found to be unwarranted by an internal inquiry, there should be an external inquiry. If that also finds things to be OK, the matter can end. However, if the external inquiry finds problems, the institution should be held accountable for incompetence in conducting the inquiry and/or attempted cover-up.
I agree … the institutes do have a conflict of interest to fairly investigate the concerns. Since it has been mandatory for any institute to have research integrity office if they are receiving federal funding, they do have one but I have personal experience of records being changed to protect the faculty.
Right from the beginning the investigation should be done by a third party though with the way academia functions as a close tight knit community there will still be scope for friendly investigations but would probably be better than internal investigations.
This is why there is government oversight of all investigations if government funds are involved.
This is also why most of government funding work leads to nothing.
I know some people who worked this lab before. The postdocs works for 16-18hrs per day even in weekends.. This lab also publishes lot of reviews on natural products. I agree with the comments of @ Jayesh Mehta and @expostdoc. Let’s wait and see the out come of ORI investigation. In a different note Does any one know what is happening to Melendez papers at NUS?
Do the labor laws apply to labs? I hope that Toby White reads this and can give an answer.
No labor laws apply to labs … even the institutional laws do not apply to labs!!
In this lab I assume, post docs are mainly from outside USA on J1 visa … they are without any rights. Its no joke .. in a country where people get sued over most trivial issues, if you are on J1 visa and a legitimate wrong has been committed you have no rights except to bring it to the notice of Department of State which has in so many years never taken any action against any university (a reprimand is the max) … the PIs take advantage of that.
The postdocs are the most qualified cheap labor force of US. NIH every year announces postdoctoral salary based on post Ph.D experience. However more than 70% of the universities and institutions never follow that. Always there is a difference of 8000-10000USD difference. Postdoc never get good insurance, very few PIs support family insurance. No body there to think about them. They are working force of research in US. Most of them are in J1 visa. I hope that some will take up the issue to get a better treatment for postdocs
There is a lot of discussion on this blog about post docs. Has anyone thought they have a responsibility towards science too. If they feel they cannot work as many hours that their superiors are demanding they should not start compromising their science. It does not mean, they should make careless mistakes and let the Professor take all of the blame. They are suppose to be independent thinkers also and know what is scientific integrity. After all they are Ph.D. and the Professor who has many many of other responsibility cannot micro manage their projects. Does the Professor has to suspect every little aspect of their experiments? Also if they are feeling so uncomfortable, they can resign and leave. There is no such thing as slavery in US. A lot of ones who are complaining came from India which is democracy too, you do not have fear of political prosecution, so you can easily go back. Truth is, they do want to come to US but if they cannot work hard (American work the hardest), rather than leave the lab, they end of compromising science, blame others and constantly complain.
I am appalled by the work routine of this group. This is not healthy, plain fact, nothing truly good can come out of it. OK Linnaeus is famous for having spent most of his life diligently organizing and expanding his Systema Naturae, but that is the way he was and his main passion. Such an environment is bound to lead to fraud and mistake — both of which bound to get exposed in a healthy, self-correcting Science field.
@expostdoc, @ressci – OK I agree that some investigation has to be done, but I think this should really be made by real scientists from outside the university. And that is actually what apparently what is already done. I am sure that if there is more to surface, the same accusing party will be glad to bring it up. As you two noticed, there has been some clearly intentional fraud — no more needs to be said, let them get punished. If more come up, there be more punishment, then!
What an institution will do is try to detect everything before the accusers do, sum it all up, try to explain and diminish the thing, and in the end say something to “The guy did not know of it all, and let`s agree that in comparison with all good they did, that was not much. Buuuuut, now conceeeerning the reckless ACCUSER…” — and then they get strict. I think we all know the chords.
Science is really to be judged and led by scientists. Let the accusers yell, let us hear theis yells, let us judge and decide. Retract any suspicious papers and not citing any of the others is probably the best they can have.
@Aktfamily: what is it about Melendez and NUS case?
So, I emailed the Research Integrity Officer at MD Anderson on Monday, before this post was made on RW. I asked about why MDACC has not gone public in the face of these blogs accusing one of their most noted faculty of fraud. No response so far.
On Tuesday night (after the RW post surfaced) I also emailed DePinho (President of MD Anderson) to bring to his attention the fact that the online accusations against Aggarwal are sending the reputation of his institution down the tubes. Again, no response so far.
Are these guys are asleep at the wheel? Either that or they’re wide awake and hoping it will all go away if they ignore it. Good luck with that approach!
“Those who speak of what they know…. find to late that prudent silence is wise….” — PO
What would have them say?
r3sanon; you are really brave. As i wrote earlier, DePinho has a bigger headache. If you look at the papers on japanese blog – it involves more than one laboratory from the same institute. Some clinical labs collaborate with him. I had written to Dr. Sunil Krishnan about this but no response…I saw his name in couple of papers listed on abnormal science. No response. Imagine prof BBA bring in lot of grant money – investigation is complicated in this case. There are huge implications on the institute. I am sure he must have very very good funding..
Did you write to Harvard University or HHMI about Elledge case in PNAS and cell?? just curious
Elledge was off my radar screen. OTOH Aggarwal is front and center.
BTW, still no response from Depinho or Plunkett. FWIW, DePinho may not beb e best person to be chasing here. He only just took over at MDACC, so most of Aggarwal’s ethical transgressions would have taken place under former president John Mendelsohn. Wonder if he’d care to comment on the circumstances whereby one of the faculty he hired came to publish >300 papers in the space of a decade, with no more than 2 RO1 or equivalent grants at any time (and sometimes only one).
Interesting…so What Elledge did is not a mistake, only Aggarwal is dojng mistakes.
The two cases seem completely different to me. Elledge had a problem with one paper. Aggarwall has 20 papers with problems. Clearly one is likely to have a systematic problem. I would not lump them together. Elledge has done some very good work in the past and is well respected. This is apples and oranges.
Japanese blogger updates, bringing total # of papers in question from 14 to 22…
http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/
japanese blogger is digging very hard. These are without Dr. Sethi’s articles with Prof BBA, right. Cardomonin is very interesting…how could one possible search for these compounds to work on.
Ressci Integrity,
You are right that we should not forget Dr. Sethi. Anyone have time to dig into his record? He is churning out papers like printing machine after leaving his BBA’ lab. Pls see the title of his robotic title below:
– “XXX inhibits ….”
– Papers # 3 and #4 on Celastrol published within 1 month of each other and by two different first authors
– Papers # 5 and #6 on ursolic acid published so close to each other and by two different first authors
Are they the same? Is he playing games?
Problem Papers to look into:
1: Sethi G. Plumbagin inhibits invasion and migration of breast and gastric cancer cells by downregulating the expression of chemokine receptor CXCR4. Mol Cancer. 2011 Sep 1;10:107.
2: Sethi G. Honokiol inhibits signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 signaling, proliferation, and survival of hepatocellular carcinoma cells via the protein tyrosine phosphatase SHP-1. J Cell Physiol. 2012 May;227(5):2184-95.
3: Sethi G. Celastrol inhibits tumor cell proliferation and promotes apoptosis through the activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase and suppression of PI3 K/Akt signaling pathways. Apoptosis. 2011 Oct;16(10):1028-41.
4: Sethi G. Celastrol inhibits proliferation and induces chemosensitization through down-regulation of NF-κB and STAT3 regulated gene products in multiple myeloma cells. Br J Pharmacol. 2011 Nov;164(5):1506-21.
5: Sethi G. Inhibition of CXCR4/CXCL12 signaling axis by ursolic acid leads to suppression of metastasis in transgenic adenocarcinoma of mouse prostate model. Int J Cancer. 2011 Oct 1;129(7):1552-63.
6: Sethi G. Ursolic acid inhibits multiple cell survival pathways leading to suppression of growth of prostate cancer xenograft in nude mice. J Mol Med (Berl). 2011 Jul;89(7):713-27.
7: Sethi G. γ-Tocotrienol is a novel inhibitor of constitutive and inducible STAT3 signalling
pathway in human hepatocellular carcinoma: potential role as an antiproliferative, pro-apoptotic and chemosensitizing agent. Br J Pharmacol. 2011 May;163(2):283-98.
8: Sethi G. Suppression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 activation by butein inhibits growth of human hepatocellular carcinoma in vivo. Clin Cancer Res. 2011 Mar 15;17(6):1425-39.
wow. you have done a good job in listing these papers. Have you informed his university? Abnormal science has put up a blog on him Like Father Like Son…very funny…
So what’s wrong with these papers. I checked 5 and 6, one is spontaneous cancer model and another one is orthotopic model. Both are different. have you find any image manipulation? if yes please describe.
SOme are here
http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width/
Some one will post them later…
Dear Sir Are you trying to tell that the papers are great!
@Public – a little correction here
# 3 & 4 by Sethi on Celastrol have the same first author ‘Kannaiyan R’ (Pubmed search)
# 5 & 6 by Sethi on Ursolic acid have the same first author ‘Shanmugam MK’ (Pubmed search)
When pointing finger at others for not being correct then it is all the more important to be correct yourself if you want to keep the credibility 🙂
Is my mistake! The same first author for the papers.
Also here
http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/2012/02/curcumin-induces-degradation-of-cyclin.html
Can someone describe more evidence from this Dr. Sethi’s lab? He, as usual, remain numb.
http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/american-as-apple-pie/
I think people are aware about this, where similar to Aggarwal case they used different loading controls. Now Cell published a mega correction. Why nobody wants to talk about this? Aggarwal is publishing in journals with IF upto 8, but Elledge lab i never seen anything less than PNAS. With multiple papers every year in nature, cell science etc. So Harvard or HHMI will not will not investigate this? This is not a misconduct? I am just curious
@aktfam, re: earlier comment about Ellege being off my radar (reply trail does not allow me to reply directly under your comment)…. I mean only to say that Ellege is not on my radar because his work is not in my field, so I simply did not encounter his work. BBA on the other hand, has papers directly in my field, so when I found one dodgy paper I looked deeper. I’m sure Ellege’s indiscretions as as bad or worse that BBA, it’s just outside my field so I care less. We all have limited time free to investigate such matters, so it’s down to each field to “police” their own territory. Luckily there are bloggers like Joerg aroung, who cover all fields!
It’s not only in BBA lab, see the other labs who works on natural products, Key words: Silibinin, slimarin,withaferin, Berberine, eugenol, green tea polyphenols. You will surprised to see the results they published in peer reviewed journals.
Less than two years ago I contacted Dr. BBA at MD Anderson because I read his work on curcumin killing melanoma cells. He talked with me and told me his work proved in the lab, in animals and now in human testing at MD Anderson that curcumin kills melanoma cells. He told me to take curcumin only from one company, AFI Curcuminoids, available online. He said this is the only brand he used in his research. We talked several times and in the conversations he told me his wife has a website that sells the AFI brand curcuminoids and I should order from her and use only AFI brand as others have not been tested by him. He told me to start with one gram a day and work up to 8 grams a day. I ordered several bottles and still have one that is empty: AFI Curcuminoids, 90 capsules, materials certified by Sabinsa, AFI stands for America’s Finest, Inc. Piscataway, NJ, 08854, phone 1-800-350-3305. There is a website http://www.afisupplements.com.
I thought he was telling me the truth, but thought it odd his wife was selling the curcumin, but he said she sells it because other brands are not known to be pure or reliable.
Now I wonder if curcumin has any benefit at all for melanoma patients, or for arthritis patients. Curcumin seemed too good to be true. When I read BBA’s book, Healing Spices, I thought it odd that so many spices can cure so many illnesses. Now I do not believe they can do so.
@Barbara: Curcumin is from Curcuma Longa, which is traditionally using in India for more than 5000 years. There is no need of any so called modern scientific evidence for Indians to use Curcuma. Don’t be mistaken about curcuma, due to some technical documentation errors from a scientist.
Curcumin is considered GRAS by FDA. Generally Regarded As Safe. As b student pointed out is has been around thousands of years and many ancient cultures have used it around the world. It has tremendous medicinal uses in Ayuerveda the ancient science of healing from India. It is used in India in every household. Every Indian uses Turmeric from which curcumin is derived, every day in food and most of them use it as medicine also. So please do not doubt the benefits and efficacy of this great herb. Many of other herbs and spices also have tremendous health benefits. There is someone who cares about bringing this ancient wisdom to main stream science in America, and help people. All I see here is trying to stop him my discrediting him. Who knows this may be a conspiracy by Big Pharma to discredit him so they can sell their expensive drugs. By the way, Curcumin is also used in Cheese, Cereals and Yellow mustard by the food industries in America for a long time now. So before jumping to conclusion please educated your self about it. Also Dr. Aggarwal is not the only one who has worked on it. There are hundreds of other scientist working on it. Every country is working on it. You can look at other people’s work also.
I entirely agree with you that there are several BBAs.
If you look back at his publications around 2000, 2001, 2002, there are plenty of issues
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/164/12/6509.long
Somehow they made water soluble resveratrol!
The same control values appear for lipid peroxidation in a few publications too
@The Crow: I guess you caught another fish here. I just searched pubmed on the first author of the paper you quoted above. He has published 33 papers with BBA and at least 20 of them as first author….WOW..Any professor would like to have him as a postdoctoral…so productive…similar to the case of Sethi…..I feel like having one postdoctoral fellow like that…
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/164/11/5815.long
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/163/12/6800.long
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/60/14/3838.long
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/165/10/5962.long
“Untreated cells showed 0.571 ± 0.126 nmol of MDA equivalents/mg of protein” appears in all these papers (unless I’m seeing double, I mean double double). So all the controls have been published multiple times???
Nice!
Since its the same first author who worked in the assembly line factory production of data … this is how the ctrls would have been same … set up an experiment 1. ctrl 2. compd A 3. compd B, 4. compd C and so on. Highly efficient process … A, B, C.. all get published as different papers .. this is how he managed that many publications. 😉
The only real problem is that in the last or was it the second last listed above its not the same cell line i.e. U937 or whatever they have used in rest of the papers
There are many unethical, unprofessional and discriminatory activities are taking place in that lab. I am ashamed to say, I worked in that lab. I taught the first author of the papers you are referreing to, currently Head of Immunology in an institute in India. The irony was when the experiments were negative in my sincere attemts, these were positive by this author that includes experiments on resveratrol. As a result, I was mocked at for my poor technique and incompetence. I was looked down upon throughout my stay in the for about a year with humiliation and open crititicism. I was compelled to continue in the lab as I was new to this country and did not know where to get a help. The lab did not pay me a penny throughout my stay in the lab as I had my own fellowship.
I hope you will continue investgate and follow it up until MD Anderson comes out with the results of complete and unbiased investigation.
@sup: This is interesting case. Have you published anything with the group? Hope you are out of that laboratory now and are back in your country!! Please be careful – as i have mentioned elsewhere – it is a tough task for MDACC as most of the people who have worked have already left the country or elsewhere. It is going to be a very lengthy investigation, i believe. How Indian authorities will take this now? I see that several of the postdoctoral fellows worked there are head of the departments and leading a group in India as well. Someone needs to report this to their current institutes.
Yes, there are several ex-members from the lab including myself who are currently in US (some in the MD Anderson itself). Yes, I published a few papers with my sincerity and integrity, working like a robot at least 15 hours a day. Fortunately, none from the lab has co-authored except BBA in my publications. One of his collaborators, Ramesh Govindarajan is currently a professor at NSU, Virginia, awarded grants from NASA, US Science Foundation and NIH. R. Govindarjan and SK Manna have professional association and I understand later visits Govindarajan and co-authored publications such as article #46 of the link attached.
md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/
I was in that lab too for a few months. I remember BBA style of working. He gave several compounds to all of us (3-4 at that time) to test for NF-kB inhibition. None of them inhibited NF-kB. He used to say that it is in your hands that they are not working. They will all work, it is up to you to decide whether you want the paper or someone else will get them. Then came the person mentioned above who is now Chief of Immunology division at a reputed institute in india. All those compounds started working in his hands and he published around 30-40 papers in JBC or equivalent journals. The trend continued after that and BBA was able to maintain one or two such people who can generate papers for him without doing experiments. I knew one day these things will come out. However I am surprised it took so long. I want to add that people join his lab with full honesty and to do good science. That was the reason I joined his lab too. However BBA pushes people to generate only papers that is too at minimum expenditure. Those who can maintain integrity quit the lab and some start doing what he wants them to do. Based on my experience I would suggest that BBA is the only person to be blamed for all this mess. The people mentioned above are the creation of BBA. They all had the potential to be an honest and independent investigators; it was unfortunate that they ended up in his lab and compromised their integrity. No post-doc can do fraud if the PI is honest and watchful.
@SS: it is heartening to know the stories of ex-postdocs. However, as you mentioned in your comment, once the person , who is currently head of immunology group in India, joined the laboratory, everything seems to affect NF-KB. Here, the postdoctoral fellow who did (or didn’t) the experiments is also responsible for the things have happened. If the student/postdoctoral fellow does not agree with the PI, they should not do it. It is easier than said but ethics courses always tell you to be vigilant. Without wistle-blowers, nothing will come out. Things have come out now because of an anonymous whistle-blower’s message to Abnormal Science on one of his postdoctoral fellows – then the chain reaction…I am not criticizing you that you did not complain but this should have stopped long ago. Now it is out of hands – collateral damage will be very bad…it will affect many people…
This man has over 600 publications. Who can possibly publish that much and know what is in the manuscripts, no wonder there are problems.
Dear SS do not blame only one. The team is responsible. If not why did you leave his lab? Honesty stays in the blood. Nobody can force you to be dishonest.
Are you his postdoc? Honesty stays in your blood. Do not defend postdocs who have done the dishonest work bec’s of dollars!
I just looked him up on Science Citation index. He publishes between 30 and 45 papers per year. Per year! How can that be possible. And he is very highly cited as well.
Told you so …
John C Reed (Sanford Burnham Institute) has published an average of one paper per week for the last 20 years.
If you look carefully , not all of them are original papers. Aggarwal is publishing 10-15 reviews per year and he is co-author 3-5 publications. Rest is actually contributed to original papers. It is a higher number but very common with people publishing/working on natural products. If you check authors like Agarwal, R or Reed JC or Sarkar FH, or Rao, CV, or Kong, AN you can see that they all publish in the same level. But there are scientists in basic science also publish like this. For example Karin M or Dikic I etc. Probably these labs are big with 10-12 post docs and other researchers.
I take his high-citedness back. Over 10% of his citations are self-citations, which makes sense if he cites himself liberally in the zillion papers he publishes. Perhaps this is part of the success self-fulfilling prophecy — more citations means greater visibility which leads to more publications which leads more citations…..
@Jane’s Addiction: Correction accepted..that’s what I said in the other post – we do mistakes…sometimes mistakes get cited – empire will be built upon. If someone follows up with the original paper and the manuscript most probably would go for that investigator for review – what happens then – he/she would support the papers which conforms his/her hypothesis/opinion/data. This cycle continues….we will not be able to fine out whether the origial discovery was genuine or not, if there are no conflicting papers..right?
@ Ressci Integrity
Here Dr. Aggarwal had that aspect covered very nicely – he had one paper for it and another against it… one paper reports “we conclude that curcumin mediates its apoptotic and anti-inflammatory activities through modulation of the redox status of the cell.” (Sandur SK et al Free Radic Biol Med. 2007) while another one says “curcumin present in turmeric exhibit variable anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activities, which do not correlate with their ability to modulate the ROS status” (Sandur SK et al Carcinogenesis. 2007). So if subsequent papers show that Curcumin works thru redox regulation then it validates FRBM paper or if any one reports otherwise then they validate his Carcinogenesis paper!! A win win situation 😉
@expostdoc: In that case, it neutralises the observation – curcumin may not do anything? Why it is in clinical trials at MD Anderson (radiation oncology colleagues are testing it, I guess).
@ Ressci
It just goes on to show how much of the data can actually be trusted even if there are no obvious figure manipulations. It is shocking as to how people who are working in the field have turned a blind eye to such obvious and conflicting data coming from the same lab, same person at the same time!!
Don’t you people understand, Science is a business, Aggarwal is not in the lab doing these experiments.. he probably simply delegates ideas for the postdocs to do and they come back and present him with a paper, which he does not have the time to do a forsensic analysis on each of them…
@Scienceobserver – i don’t know if you are being sarcastic or genuinely mean it … no great forensic analysis is needed if some one ‘presents’ you 2 papers with opposite results!! Yes he is in the business of science and if he is putting his name there he better read it, no business is done by blinding signing your name on the papers that come to your desk. Those who do business like that are bound to fail … its not his birthday that post docs ‘present’ him with papers and he gladly accepts them!!
it appears that scienceobserver is offended by the comments. He might have close association with the investigators we are discussing. @expostdoc: please be careful in naming the names….
@scienceobserver: what would have happaned then in the lab? do you have any insider information? why do you think this issue has come up? please provide some insights…
Not offended, just astounded by the level of niavety of the posts here as to what actually goes on in the lab and how the whole process works.. and to all the conclusions that are reached based on obvious unfamiliarity of the process…
@scienceobserver:
Many of us either work in labs or have worked in labs. We know how large labs function, and we don’t think that a PI being “hands-off” or “largely a fund-raiser” is an excuse for fraudulent work.
Perhaps you don’t understand where we’re coming from. I’ll put it another way. Your understanding of science is a bit skewed toward large labs. So be it. In your view, Aggarwal serves primarily as a manager.
Shouldn’t a manager take responsibility for the quality of the work that emerges from their personnel? Shouldn’t a manager be able to assess the quality and reliability of the personnel under them?
Shouldn’t a manager understand the domain of their field well enough to recognize fraudulent work?
If a manager is not capable of doing these things, shouldn’t the manager be fired?
If the manager propagates the fraud, taking credit for it, shouldn’t the manager suffer for being inept at managing?
Less abstractly: if Aggarwal, in his managerial role, is inept at quality control, why should he be allowed to publish or receive grants? Given the competition in the academic job market, why should an incompetent PI have a job?
True is some respects, but the individual doing the work must take the primary responsibility… this is how th rest of the world runs.
Does Obama or his general resign because a US soldier illegally kills a civilian ?
The individual must take primary responsibility for his won task.
@scienceobserver:
This is science, not a military operation. We’re not talking about “collateral damage,” or disasterous mistakes that occur in combat.
This is a simple case of fraud. Aggarwal’s lab took grant funds and published results that are potentially fraudulent. His lab is accused of doing this repeatedly (*fourteen* publications!). If these claims are true, then he’s either a poor supervisor, or has created a culture of fraud. In either case, he is ultimately responsible for publications where he is the corresponding author. Sure, there’s no doubt that the students/postdocs have responsibility for their actions, but this does not ameliorate Aggarwal’s responsibility in the matter.
There should be no golden parachute for fraud in science.
Here’s a Nature profile of John Reed:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080319/full/452258a/box/1.html
the case discussed earlier on retraction watch (http://www.retractionwatch.com/category/by-author/dipak-das/ ) – PI has about 600 publications as well!!
@Aktfamily: well, we may find some irregularities if you check the publications of those people you have listed.
They continue to surface. You wait and watch.
HELLO. He is definitely manipulating the data because if you are doing honest science then it is not possible to publish 4 papers in a month for three years. The frequency he publishes the scientific paper is amazingly high. I have gone through several of his papers and couldn’t find a single innovative work in his publications. It is like copy and paste research. Only compound is different in each paper. I think there should be a competent investigating authority to handle all these kind of fake scientist. This kind of fraudulence should be punishable with imprisonment.
Nothing is wrong with using the same approach on different compounds..
It seems you are supporting the BBA fellow or you yourself one? it is ridiculous to have such publication.
Abraham, what is wrong in supporting someone if you feel they are right in some aspect? Is this blog only to bash the person or give a honest feedback?
Sky23 – You say, “HELLO. He is definitely manipulating the data because if you are doing honest science then it is not possible to publish 4 papers in a month for three years.”
Are you saying everybody in the entire world that has published the way Dr. Aggarwal has, is a data manipulator? Hello, Hello.
You say, “I have gone through several of his papers and couldn’t find a single innovative work in his publications. It is like copy and paste research.”
Please see his first paper on TNF, Hello! Hello! According to you all the scientists who sighted this papers 1700 times have some problem too! Hello! Hello!!
TR, why do you cite a paper that he, well not even he, it was his boss who published that paper in 1985, many of us were not even born or those who were born, were on school reading ABC….,
so except one paper (which is not his anyways) that he published 27 years ago, he does not have a single paper that has any reputation in the field……hello hello hello….why your clock has stopped at 1985 paper? Hello!!! Hello!!! Hello !! tell us what he has recently done which you consider significant?? Hello! Hello!! Hello !!!…
disillusioned – you say, ” why do you cite a paper that he, well not even he, it was his boss who published that paper in 1985, many of us were not even born or those who were born, were on school reading ABC….,
I say, you need to be little bit calm to understand the significance of first TNF paper. Since you say you were not born at that time, how would you know BBA’s boss of that time and who did what work?
Hello TR……hello helllo…TR…..I think you are the biggest follower of BBA….God save you….
I had accused BBA of data manipulation, but it seems it has hurt you more than the person concerned !!!!
Are you completely insane ?????? Hello…Hello…
Hello TR……hello helllo…TR…..I think you are the biggest follower of BBA….God save you….
I had accused BBA of data manipulation, but it seems it has hurt you more than the person concerned !!!!
Are you completely insane ?????? Hello…Hello…
TR: does not matter who was his boss….during 1985 but TNF paper was not BBA’ idea…he did some technical work on the instructions of his Boss……period
this brazen BBA should not take credit for what he did as Postdoc….since he has not done any significant work as an independent investigator at MD Anderson……
Well, the same thing can go to people who work with knockout mice. They perform the same experiments, same end points, same parameters but only the gene of interest is different. Most of the time, the results seem to be the same as well. You can check papers from the PIs who are experts in knockout technology!! At times, hypothesis driven research can be biased….
Where is written you can only do hypothesis-driven research. Half of the drugs available in the clinics is based on accidental findings.
Gautam Sethi claimed that re-use of control bands is not research misconduct? Does it exonerate him if he shows the lab book indicating control bands that he performed but not submitted to publications?
Does anyone know of further evidence of image manipulations from Sethi lab?
If they have raw data to show, there will be no issues.
that is a fair comment. Imagine there is a comptetion to publish a paper for novelty. Authors somehow publish the paper using whatever figures they have. Then after few months they come up with a corrected figures – no harm done – novelty retained. How about that, Scientist?
Then they are forgetting the ethics and getting involved in scientific misconduct. Nothing can justify a rapid publication without concrete evidence in terms of results.
Well I dont know where this discussion will lead.
This guy (aggarwal) is one in 100’s. I think ; not think but sure that only <10% research is original, rest is copy or fraud. Well but who is responsible for this ? I think system. The way a phd, a postdoc or professor is assessed ? through number of papers or high end papers?. No body cares of quality of work. More fashionable(stem cell, miRNA, autophagy , dna damage???) the work is better are chance of getting accepted in high end journals.Well I dont know when and how this system will be corrected ?
This guy (aggarwal) and other his friends(in 1000's) produced lot of incompetent factories( postdoc) which will inturn produce more of their kind. stop this before its too late! HE SHOULD BE PUNISHED. SO THAT OTHER GET LESSON FROM THAT. HE HAS WASTED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WHICH COULD SAVED LIFE"S OF SEVERAL's.THIS MONEY IF GIVEN TO POORS WOULD BE MUCH BETTER THEN HIS CURCUMIN.
PLEASE all of you REPEAT THIS SENTENCE if you are true researcher 'PUNISH THIS GUY'.
In fact I think US goverment should take all the funding money from him.
Totally with you, pal. Sometimes scientists talk to much and leave the issue in the background of their egos.
PUNISH THIS GUY. AND ALL TO COME.
Only this way can science change to a new era.
Scienceobserver: here we go. Another set of irregularities posted on abnormal science…
http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/
No problem, all i say is nail the guy that produced the figures not someone who missed the errors…
It will take some time to unravel all of that, it is extensive.
Bharat Aggarwal is a scientific cheater. He instructed his postdocs to email his papers to natural product companies and MLM to ‘market’ his research. Consequently, he cheated grant moneys. Similar to one of the commenter here, I received one of those also. Someone should contact “Clayton Foundation for Research” “[email protected]” which has active fundings to BBA.
Can anyone publish concrete image manipulation by Gautam Sethi? Or already in pipeline.
Here we go again. Gautam Sethi again. Dr. Aggarwal DOES NOT HAVE ACTIVE FUNDING FROM CLAYTON currently. So please keep your facts straight, before you go on with false comments
Gautam Sethi is not publishing as much as Prof. Aggarwal. He has published only 15 papers as his own from 2008 to present. If the number is less, errors also will be less.
I think this is the time to discuss about developing new strategies for selection and assessment of a good scientist. It should not be calculating the number and impact factor but the quality and reproducibility of the paper.
@scientist: I just checked the papers where he is the first or last author and it appears that he has published 20 papers in these capacities. For a new investigator (I assume that he would have become independent in 2008 or 2009 based on his publication history) who just joined the university as a new faculty member, the number is very high unless you are provided with generous grants (more than a million or two?)
Did you check his homepage? http://www.med.nus.edu.sg/medphc/staff/academic/GSethi.htm
He has worked with the above lab at MDACC from 2004 to 2007 and did you count his publications from this laboratory: whopping 57 in 4 years…..almost a paper in a month. VERY VERY PRODUCTIVE…
Like Deepak Das and Aggarwal BB, there are several other natural product scientists has to be evaluated. Most of their work is not repeated in any other labs. The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Volume 113, Issues 1–2, January 2009, Pages 25–35 . Look at the Fig 5, Bax and Bcl2.
japanese blog updated the number of papers with irregularities. OMG:http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/
it is 31 in total starting from 1999 to 2012 ? This needs to be confirmed.
Gautam Sethi, if left uninterrupted, will be Bharat Aggarwal junior. He adopted BBA’s approaches:
– sends out infomemo to ‘market’ his research
– test on all kind of rare natural ingredients
– make up data on western blots, graphs, figures
I remembered BBA was in Singapore last year. He was invited by Gautam Sethi, thus these two guys are potentially of the same type.
@public: how is it like in Singapore? I guess you are in Singapore. I almost forgot that there were couple of cases earlier reported both on retractin watch and abnormal science and some heated arguments on abnromal science. they everything went quiet.
Considering Singapore’s small population and short research track record, our bioresearch achievements and talents have been impressive. Future potentials to lead biotechnology industry in Asia is growing. The problem is with a small pocket of scientists who have serious research ethics problem. Gautam Sethi and BBA have been toxic to the research community here.
For example, Sethi will offer authorship to get supports for his papers. Sound right? Look at the authors in one example (http://www.molecular-cancer.com/content/10/1/107). He needs to re-learn the meaning of authorlist. In his making, more paper of this type will be coming.
Yes what happening to Halliwell, Pervaiz, Bhatia, and Bian. I guess they all have 100 papers each!
This commenting can go on and on but is it going to change anything? The journals will not retract any paper on their own unless MDA/ NUS tells them so or else they might get sued. Dr. Aggarwal also happens to be on the editorial board of 24 international journals (as per the MDA website) which too may possibly play a role. So basically its all up to the institute(s) whether they want to support such potentially dubious research or not.
http://www.uthouston.edu/gsbs/faculty/faculty-directory/faculty-profiles.htm?id=1346133
My source of info on his membership on editorial boards!
I agree completely with public and hope that at least Sethi can be given capital punishment in Singapore for spreading toxicity.
Warner and public. you definitely have a chip on your shoulder against Sethi. Why would you say such things. You keep bringing his name again and again on this blog. May be you dragged Dr. Aggarwal in this just to get back at Sethi.
I have sincere advice to TR…..Are you his public representative….Please dont waste your time defending him….He has wasted money for nothing. All his recent publication are fabricated.
@warner: why you are targetting him? as someone commented earlier – there should not be any witchhunting here. we should comment and give opinion on the issues rather than a person…
@public: I checked that paper which you provided the link…amazing – it is a highly cited one on the journal list. by the way, public and warner, did you bring this to university authorities already or not? i think you should take this to them for proper action.
@Ressci Integrity: It is hopeless to bring this matter to university authorities because the VP responsible for research ethics (http://www.nus.edu.sg/dpr) may himself be implicated in scientific fraud:
1) http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/singapore-self-plagiarism-by-ethics-official-prof-barry-halliwell-nus/
2) http://www.retractionwatch.com/2011/10/24/national-university-of-singapore-official-who-co-authored-melendez-papers-wont-be-part-of-investigation/
I see a systemic issue here.
@ expostdoc
“According to him he had to work from 8 in the morning to at least 10 pm with a 10-15 minute lunch break .. if he exceeded the break time by 5-10 minutes then he had to answer as to why it took him long .. weekends didn’t mean anything. So it was tough for him being an immigrant in US with a family that had 2 small kids. This was his story … I have no first hand knowledge of how things were actually in that lab”
I do not know you are the same person writing this? to take the revenge?
@ Jane’s addiction
Don’t believe me … search pubmed for Sandur SK and Aggarwal BB. Now 12 papers come up but in 2006 there are 6!! Santosh S Kumar (Sandur SK) is currently working at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India and he was in BBA’s lab for only one year.
Figure duplications and manipulations are far more easier to spot but the data credibility..
Sandur SK et al Free Radic Biol Med. 2007 – “we conclude that curcumin mediates its apoptotic and anti-inflammatory activities through modulation of the redox status of the cell.”
Sandur SK et al Carcinogenesis. 2007 – “curcumin present in turmeric exhibit variable anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activities, which do not correlate with their ability to modulate the ROS status”
Havent read the entire papers but these are the conclusions presented in the abstract for 2 papers published in the same year, same author, same group, same compound!! Science is really funny isn’t it??
the place mentioned above in India “Bhabha atomic…” is also now very known for good scientific ethics point of view, though they publish teh work which no one reads (and so bothers)
expostdoc
“According to him he had to work from 8 in the morning to at least 10 pm with a 10-15 minute lunch break .. if he exceeded the break time by 5-10 minutes then he had to answer as to why it took him long .. weekends didn’t mean anything. So it was tough for him being an immigrant in US with a family that had 2 small kids. This was his story … I have no first hand knowledge of how things were actually in that lab”
My question:I do not know you are the same person writing this? to take the revenge?
@ Jane’s addiction
Don’t believe me … search pubmed for Sandur SK and Aggarwal BB. Now 12 papers come up but in 2006 there are 6!! Santosh S Kumar (Sandur SK) is currently working at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India and he was in BBA’s lab for only one year.
Figure duplications and manipulations are far more easier to spot but the data credibility..
Sandur SK et al Free Radic Biol Med. 2007 – “we conclude that curcumin mediates its apoptotic and anti-inflammatory activities through modulation of the redox status of the cell.”
Sandur SK et al Carcinogenesis. 2007 – “curcumin present in turmeric exhibit variable anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activities, which do not correlate with their ability to modulate the ROS status”
Havent read the entire papers but these are the conclusions presented in the abstract for 2 papers published in the same year, same author, same group, same compound!! Science is really funny isn’t it??
COmment: the place mentioned above in India “Bhabha atomic…” is also not known for good scientific ethics point of view, though they publish teh work which no one reads (and so bothers
@ Lincoln
I thought I had given enough information but you still think that I was the one working in that lab and I am questioning my own papers from the lab now to get revenge?? How is it going to benefit me now to have my own paper retracted by pointing out the obvious inconsistency in the results? I knew Dr. SS Kumar who did post doc training at Dr. Aggarwal’s lab and changed the labs after one year to another lab at MD Anderson and finished the remaining one year of his leave for post doctoral training there.
You can judge the work coming from a place and decide to read or not read. I have just given the facts and details to establish the authenticity of what I have stated … there is no other malafide intent.
You have nothing to say about the facts presented regarding the credibility of the publications (2 examples presented from a long list of publications) from the lab but your concern is my identity!! I think that in itself speaks about your intents.
@expostdoc I goofed up. My sincere apologies. BTW i clicked your link and was pleasantly socked that you have not tried to hide your identity (like many of us), I admire your courage, current situation of science will improve if there are many like you who come out openly, without fear of loosing the job etc. My congratulations!
Yes, the two papers are conflicting clearly indicates the casual approach in that lab.
@janes addition and Lincoln: The recent estimates by the japanese blogger show that there are 48 papers which may have irregularities (http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com/).
@expostdoc: do you know the other first author SKM? Where is this person? This person was also very prolific…
This would take a long time to dig – if each one of them (i mean postdocs workerd there) needs to be checked for quality.
@Ressci
I did not know SK Manna but he is currently working as Head, Immunology group at CDFD, Hyderabad (India). Pasted below is the link to his lab webpage where you can find a link to his publications too .. which has ben fairly prolific even after he left BBA.
http://www.cdfd.org.in/labpages/sunil_kumar_manna.html
oh, I see. both of them are in a good position. I see that you did some work in the same institute as SKS in India..why don’t you write to the authorities there?
@Ressci
Yes I worked at the same institute as SSK but writing to the authorities over there is going to be futile for
1. The work was NOT done there but at MDA
2. There is no authority such as research integrity office associated with an institute or and an ORI equivalent. The universities / institutes in India will investigate only if the Journal questions the data and asks them to unlike in US where the journals majorly remain mute spectators till the univ authorities ask them to take action.
Oh I see. I checked the cases of scientific misconduct in India. Wikipedia gives only a few…that means many of them are not being investigated…Thought he work was done at MDA – probably because of his publications he got promotion or other benefits in his home institute. They should check his current research as well. If a person start doing once, it continues to do such things. There may not be a one-off thing here.
The scenario is way more complicated – he got his promotion in the same time span as a couple of other people who returned after 2 yr of post doc but not a single publication whereas one guy who published a first author paper in nature during his 2 yr of post doc leave had to wait a little longer to get the promotion (same grade). Need I say anything more??
I am saying this without any bias … I think it goes in his favor that he was the one who decided to leave that lab after one year though he could have stayed on for another year and got many more publications. He was on leave from his job for this post doc and with all the paperwork and govt involvement it is not easy to make a change. What was he supposed to do if he was being to asked to just fit in the figures and presumably saw others around him work in a similar fashion? BBA is a well known and established name and he was a very junior person, on a visa and going by my own experience the univ authorities will turn a blind eye to the misdoings of the faculty .. force a person to leave, use threats of canceling the visa. I am not saying or implying that any of these things actually did happen in his case. All I am saying is that post docs are usually a vulnerable lot and more so when they are immigrants.
In this case it will turn out to be “he did that” vs “i was told to do that” with the truth possibly somewhere in between those .. going by the number of other people involved in this case with BBA being the common denominator “i was told to so” would be more convincing.
One thing is sure .. whether the mistakes were actively encouraged by BBA or resulted from his passive role in the lab, such places should not be allowed to train any individual
…also… What I gathered that this scientist (BBA) is suppose to be discoverer of new entity like TNF, after listening his talk few years ago I wonder is this the same person who had credit for discovering novel things, now doing the mediocre research, as his all the paper was “inhibition of TNFa induced NFKB by… (any and all the plant product)” it was very funny. Either there is something wrong with current science set-up, or there is something like somatic mutation (of BBA), or probably he was never so good in science and the discovery under his credit was misplaced.
Now some one should pin down all his first author co-workers and post-docs and put them under scanner.
That means some one else need to sacrifice his/her time. A sabbatical would be better idea – investigative journalism and appropriate reporting and then write a book…how about that? Spicing up your research – title sounds good? Are you game for this?
“Some one” means the people like ORI etc.
I read above that he treated all his staff as slaves and made them work for more than 14 h every day including weekends. Any person when subjected to such intense stress/pressure is bound to make such mistakes. So it will be very difficult for authorities to decide who is the main culpurit behind this mess!
@myeloid There should not be any confusion it is PI and PI only responsible for any fraud.
That’s not quite true. The PI is ultimately responsible for the research the emerges from the lab. The scientist who makes the mistake or commits the fraud is also responsible. What makes the Potti, Aggarwal, etc. cases so egregious is the number of publications at issue.
In other words, if a PI hires a dishonest postdoc, and realizes that one publication has fraudulent results, then I would fault the postdoc much more than the PI. PIs do have to trust their personnel, and can make honest mistakes in judgment.
However, Aggarwal has at least fourteen publications that are under review. If these papers have serious mistakes or fraudulent data, then this indicates either very poor oversight, a lab culture that invites mistakes/fraud, or direct participation in fraud. The PI is very much at fault for all of these situations.
This simply sounds like uninformed hysteria… hard to take any comments here seriously…
Hot off the press: Plumbagin Inhibits Osteoclastogenesis and Reduces Human Breast
Cancer-Induced Osteolytic Bone Metastasis in Mice through Suppression of
RANKL Signaling Bokyung Sung, Babatunde Oyajobi, and Bharat B. Aggarwal Mol Cancer Ther 2012;11 350-359
look at the figures:apparently the Figure there are lots of irregularities ACTIN in C is looks like same and Figure F IKK alpha in the medium and plumbagin treated is looks like flipped and stretched.
Aggarwal’s first retraction…
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304383511007580
Well, not retraction but withdrawal. This was one of the papers questioned by bloggers.
I thought that a retraction and a withdrawal are the same thing.
That is one of the problems of retractions: they go under different names.
again, uninformed people making comments… there is a saying that the most dangerous people are those that know something but not everything… perhaps all too true in this case…
Too premature….bizzarre at the moment i guess.
While it is good the that the wrong doing has come out and getting caught, I am also thinking that it is more pertinent to think why this is happening? BBA may not be only one -there may be several, I feel the blame should also go to the system. (dominance -grant, impact factor, publish or perish, and other such paraphernalia). BBA may be one of them out. It is high time that some drastic steps are needed in bio-medical research.
(NO I am not trying to justify BBA’s actions)
the basic problem starts from why does one do this and are we serious to improve do we want to improve and forget the short term gains what is actually our target ask questions to our self why did the person do such a thing if we start to look at these things we will find that to reach the top is hard work and to remain there it is still harder and we would like to continue at the same till death dont understand that it is also difficult to get good problems continuously we can see this thing also in sports but here the performance is seen directly but stll some pull on but it is also wise to retire when we find that we do not have good problems to work with
Well, I just came to know this whole story yesterday. I knew this group for long time and knew all this for long. But unfortunately such people are very successful in science. I am also from India, and came to US to work in a very reputed lab, as we all know that publishing in big 3 journals in Cell, Science, or Nature is not in our control, we can only work hard towards that and I did but luck was not in my favor though I was able to publish my good and innovative work in reasonably good journals including Cancer Research and some other journals of equal reputations etc including identification and characterization of a new protein. However, when I started looking back for a faculty position in India, which is where I always wanted to go back in order to continue my cancer cell biology research work in context to some local cancer which is endemic in India, I realized the difference of working in a genuine lab and a factory styled lab like Dr Aggarwal’s. It was mostly Gautam Sethi type of people who have a long long list of publications, (its another thing that now we know, thank you blogger, that they all are worthless, redundant, and repetitive and even fraud) came in my way and were successful in fetching a job in science and still are producing same kind of unethical work, unfortunately, while I was not even called for interviews from reputed research institutions in India. In few of the interviews from second rated institutions in India, that I got called for, I was told that I was not being productive as I did not have 6 papers in one year as most of Dr. Aggarwal’s post docs do have…!! Well, now I am getting close to 40, almost gave up in science though still I want to do some good work deep down in my heart, and continue my intriguing work on my protein that I identified as postdoc if given an opportunity, however, now with responsibility of a family here and in India, I am forced to join a company and do some other type of work which is not academic in nature.
Well, this blog and story actually asks for deeper questions, retrospection, and thorough examination of the scientific world and the system by which it works not only in the US but everywhere in the world, where people like Sethi are considered productive and therefore given opportunity to continue in science and so many genuine people who have taken bio medical research close to their heart and listened to their soul and in the process devoted their lives in this world, are suffering and went into oblivion…… 18 years ago before joining my masters program in India, I was in impression that good people with great hearts, work in the bio medical research field, however, after spending a significant amount of my life, now I realize, they are blood suckers, and worse than even politicians or wall street bankers…..
@disillusioned: I am totally agree with your comments. I think we are in the same boat.
@disillu: It is sad and true. What is my fear is that even after all this -whether this fellow Aggarwal and his cronies will be punished? what will be punishment? will they be actually thrown out? i have my own doubt.
Consider this : “nature” in its last two issues has not touched this issues. This has given the signal that may be matter will be hushed up.
if you were so great how come some one else did not recognized your talents. You look like a bitter person trying to blame BBA for all your problems, which may be nothing to do with him. He has also done some good work which has helped many people and their careers.
@TR: are you BA? I think you should see the blog. And you may be one of the persons got benefit form his crap research
Lincoln, you say that:
“also… What I gathered that this scientist (BBA) is suppose to be discoverer of new entity like TNF, after listening his talk few years ago I wonder is this the same person who had credit for discovering novel things, now doing the mediocre research, as his all the paper was “inhibition of TNF a induced NFKB by… (any and all the plant product)” it was very funny. Either there is something wrong with current science set-up, or there is something like somatic mutation (of BBA), or probably he was never so good in science and the discovery under his credit was misplaced.”
To set the records straight so you stop speculating: Dr. Bharat Aggarwal is the discoverer of the new entity TNF. He is the SAME person. After his discovery, the field of TNF has exploded in the scientific community and led to many other discoveries
Now some background into why he started the research in plant products.
He is from India and which has rich heritage in natural products such as herbs and spices. He is extremely passionate about it. He himself is a great cook and know how to use these spices in cooking. The ancient science of India ‘Ayurveda’ has many herbs and spices discribed as anti inflammatory. When he tested some active component of these spices in his lab, he realize the potential of these in preventing and treating the diseases. He is in cancer center so obviously his focus is cancer. It turn out these things have potential in all the inflammatory diseases. This is nothing new for ‘Ayurveda’ because these have been used for over 5000 years in India. But he wanted to bring this ancient science for the benefit of the west. Pass the ancient science through new technology and prove it through current science, so that people understand it, and it just does not remain as old wives tale.
Obviously this is for the benefit of general public, becuase spices and food items are cheap, readily available and do not have side effects.
This kind of bold step can be taken up only by some courageous person who care about humanity. The greedy Pharma companies are not going to be interested in this because there is no money to be made in it for them. Instead of calling this plant research funny, you can look at it as bringing some eastern wisdom to the west in the language that the west understands. If he wanted to, he could have continued to do what he was doing prior to coming to MD Anderson.
Some people in Americans know only how to use salt and pepper, but there are hundreds of other spices and herbs that not only taste good but are full of medicinal value. Finally with research many people may know that they are good for your health, but do not know how to use it in their daily lives. For this purpose he authored the book, ” Healing Spices”. where you can learn how to use it in your cooking.
I hope this sheds some light on his good intentions and it is not just what you think, “somatic mutation”
no, I am not BA
TR, well I am great and I do not need your approval for that, but may be I am not great enough in faking up data in large quantity so that I can open a factory of papers….as BBA does and asks his postdocs to do….
and I am not bitter, I am just being truthful and if it makes you feel bitter, I can not help it. And I again blame BBA for my problems because due to fake and fabricated data his publication factory produces, genuine scientists like me do not get opportunity…
Regarding, his “good” work, he has not done any good work, since his TNF work that was not his anyways…it was his mentor, Dr Haas’ idea and he got some papers…BBA has not produced a single paper as PI that could be considered landmark in the field….nobody respects him in the field….regarding career…yes his most student get the job in India, but here in US same successful postdocs (Sethi or Manna or anyone else) can not get a faculty job in any reputed institute because everybody in TNF-alpha/NF kappa field knows what the level of their science is….
And again, when it comes to greatness, I am greater than you…because I have not faked the data as you did under mentorship of BBA……and I am proud of what I did as postdoc…all I want is BBA to be severely punished that sends a strong message to the other people who do such crap with taxpayers’ money…
I am in the same boat. I did few good research work, but not identified new proteins etc.
@disillusioned and real world: I noticed here that few people knew about the irregularities. Why no one informed earlier? In retrospect, do you think whistleblowing is a good thing? This can be an advice to be given to youngsters who are entering the field. Better late than never..however, I feel that this should have been done earlier…
@Ressci: I can give some name of PI can you do that for us? I am sure you wont do that.
@science alert: i too am ready. Please give me the name and details i will write to ORI or any relevant agencies…
@sciencealert: I had done this before – let me know who it is and I can send an email to the concerned authorities…
http://ori.hhs.gov/contact-us
John E. Dahlberg, Ph.D.
Director of the Division of Investigative Oversight
Dahlberg Dr. Dahlberg has been the Director of the Division of Investigative Oversight of the Office of Research Integrity since April 2006. He received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in in microbiology from Purdue University in 1968. After post-doctoral fellowships at the Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York and at Rutgers University, he spent sixteen years at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda carrying out research on retroviruses with an initial emphasis on ultrastructure and virus classification. Subsequently he focused increasingly on immunoassay development and molecular biology and, using all of these technologies, began research on lentiviruses in 1980. In 1988, Dr. Dahlberg joined a small biotechnology company as director of research and development, where he developed procedures for growing macrophage cells in serum-free medium and using them to test drugs for their ability to inhibit HIV replication. Dr. Dahlberg joined the Office of Scientific Integrity in 1992, just prior to its being reorganized into ORI. While at ORI, he has developed a variety of computer-aided techniques to assist in analysis of data and detection of evidence of data falsification.
So I have now emailed Plunkett (Integrity Officer at MDACC) 3 times over the past 3 weeks, asking what the hell is going on there. Nada. Zilch. Zero. No acknowledgement whatsoever that he even received my emails. Not even a simple “we’re looking into it” response. Such a pattern leads me to strongly believe they’re hoping this will blow over. While it is true they have a duty to keep details under wraps until the results of an inquiry are clear, they should also realize they have a duty to acknowledge an inquiry is underway at all. So far the only indication of that has been from Aggarwal himself (above), and he is clearly in denial – claimed no retractions, then one came along a few days later.
The Dipak Das case inquiry was apparently ongoing for 2 years before UConn went public with it. I sincerely hope it won’t be that long in this case.
Any study in which the FDA was involved can be looked into by the FDA – if they are pointed in the right direction (i.e. adequate cause for concern). I think they have a few more teeth than the ORI (and may be less unwilling to use them). Also, some of this information – FDA or ORI – may be accessible under the FOIA.
Jayesh Mehta – Your name looks like you are from India. Dr. Aggarwal is also an Indian, who came from a humble beginnings and with his hard work and dedication reached where he is today. I understand that some questions have come up with the images, and everyone is looking into it and will find out what was going on and scientific errors will be corrected no doubts. But to try to discredit any thing and everything he has done and looking for every agency out there to pull him down seems a bit extreme. If you have the scientific ability than look for the positive contributions he has made in this world also, you will be helping America and India both.
IMO, the number of errors in BBA’s publications is egregious. Even if he had nothing to do with it and these were all due to people underneath him, it stills suggest a lab culture that cannot produce good science. This lab need to be closed down immediately, and all funding should be terminated. For several reasons: 1.) is is doubtful that a good lab culture could ever be created underneath BBA to produce good science 2.) a punative measure against BBA for his dishonesty and or irresponsibility, and 3.) to serve as a warning to other advisors to keep on their toes.
If it turns out that the number of errors is correct, and they were done dishonestly, BBA deserves absolutely NO respect for allowing this to happen under his watch. He needs to be completely discredited.
NMH you say, “If it turns out that the number of errors is correct, and they were done dishonestly, BBA deserves absolutely NO respect for allowing this to happen under his watch.”
My point is “IF” and “DISHONESTLY” So lets wait and see. We do not need to make conclusions yet.
I am replying to TR who seems to be either BBA himself defending his own sins from his home computer or someone who became dishonest under the tutelage of BBA and became successful by getting a PI position because he/she published equal number of fake papers….
well, TR, listen one thing, you or your boss BBA will never be remembered for what he did wit TNF, I agree that it was genuine work, also because it was not BBA’ brain behind it, it was the idea of Dr. Hass. But after that whatever he published as prinicipal investogator at MD anderson, was very mediocre and has no meaning or value in the field…..
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Whistle-blowers-say-M-D-Anderson-researcher-3360037.php
Vigillante – Sorry too much assumption again. It will be very nice if you can tell the world what great research you are doing so all of us can applaud you.
TR: I will tell you what I am doing for sure….because I am not ashamed of what i am doing or did…and there is no ongoing inquiry against me…cause I have not fabricated my data…but before I tell you what I did or what i am doing please go ahead and tell me what you did Mr TR that you are proud of????
Why should the university reply to you to let you know what is going on ?
Does the rest of the world work like that ?
Ruchie Pandey, looks like you are the same person using three different names on this blog RP, Ruchie Pandey and Exposdoc. Also you wanted to work in BBA’s lab but never did, and still keep speculating things that may have happened there. Also you said your current choice is not so great. So you may be just trying to ruin some one else’s career just because your own did not go the way you wanted. I have been helped my his research also I happen to know many people that have been helped by his research.
very true, you have been helped because you also fabricated the data the way BBA wanted you to do…things started coming positive in your hand so I am not surprised that you are helped…he may have recommended you for a big research Institute in India where now you are free to play with your data as much as possible…..
Sorry, too much assumption.
TR or BBA: why you call it too much assumption….? do not you have any direct answer to that..dont you recommend your fraudulent postdocs for faculty positions in Indian Insttiutes as they can not get job in US because everyone knows your reputations so they will not get a job here
Expostdoc Your statement,
“its really a very sad thing that BBA will not be remembered as the person who discovered TNF but as someone who just added random natural products to cells, looked at NFkB and published papers that had no value or had questionable data. He is not the only one .. there are many more like him. Whether BBA fell into this trap of quick publications by choice or funding compulsions .. the system encouraged it for so long despite the red flags being there. Either way its a loss to science …”
You cannot be a judge of what he will be remembered by. You are only one person here. You have no clue how many people’s lives he has touched positively around the world. His original discovery of TNF has a huge positive impact on science. Many drugs have come out based on it and many companies are making billions of dollars because of that. He is not making any money off of it, just continue to work hard. Just because some errors by his post docs, he has been put under the microscope, which is fine. But please do not undermine the good work he has done. Obviously you have a whole lot to say on this blog against him. It will be nice if you come out and tell the world what contributions you have made to science, so we can applaud you also.
He could have continued to work on TNF but the reason he switched to natural products was that there is huge side effects on patients by using many TNF blockers, but natural products are safe cheap and in some cases work even better. One of his goal is to bring the ancient wisdom through modern science, prove that if works, so people can use it and improve their health and well being. You look like from India, instead of helping the ancient wisdom of your country, you are nit picking and belittling his genuine efforts of a great scientist
Ressci Integrity – you said “Is it the first time Retraction Watch has taken up a story before the retraction? This posting will be hotly debated”
This is one of the wisest comment have seen on this blog.
Have we forgotten in America you are innocent until proven guilty. The bloggers of this issue have taken upon themselves to be the judge and the jury without looking into all the facts, circumstances and the big picture. I see a lot of people here whose life did not unfold the way they wanted to. I can understand their pain, but to discredit some one’s entire life’s work seems very unfair to me. Accusing someone before giving a proper chance to investigate this kind of things, only leads to a platform where people are venting their frustrations and deviating from the main issue. Even if some mistakes happened in the hands of Post docs, that does not mean everything Dr. Aggarwal has done is bad. If he has been sighted so many times, his original paper on TNF 1700 times, I am sure scores of scientists have repeated and validated his work. what do all of you out there on this blog have to say about that?
You seem very innocent, his original paper on TNF was never HIS paper, it was an idea of Dr. P Hass and Dr. Hass was not greedy for papers or dishonest enough to prompt BBA to fake his data as BBA does to his students/postdocs…..
Also, people here not the one who are suffering, you do not need to see their pain, you better see your dishonesty and count the days when this monster will be behind the bars….I rely can see the pain of BBA…what he will do now when he will be fired from MDAnderson, bad old days for him…he can not even go back to India with this blackened face….
That is too much blabbering and waste of time.
TR has no direct answer to this…so he calls it blabbering….? hahahahha well why TR does not answer that why BBA has not been able to repeat any success in real good journals after he got his position at MD anderson
I assume that “TR” stands for TROLL.
Rule 14.
Sorry to disappoint you, it does not. It is just initials of a name.
Virgilstar TR also could be:
Trouble Rectifier,
Truthful Reflection,
Being Tireless and Reasonable,
Take the Right direction,
Don’t Twist the Reality,
Try to Remove the misunderstanding,
Tell what is Real,
Last but not the least Tracking Rubbish and Fixing it.
Sup – You said “I was compelled to continue in the lab as I was new to this country and did not know where to get a help. The lab did not pay me a penny throughout my stay in the lab as I had my own fellowship.”
Well my, question is if you had your own fellowship, you came on your own to get experience in Dr. Aggarwal’s lab. Why do you say the lab did not give you a penny? If you needed money you should have negotiated this before coming. Also if you did not like the lab, since you were not financially dependent on Dr. Aggarwal’s funding, you could have very easily left. That seems lot more logical solution to me than to say I did not know where to get help.
SS you say “Those who can maintain integrity quit the lab and some start doing what he wants them to do. Based on my experience I would suggest that BBA is the only person to be blamed for all this mess. The people mentioned above are the creation of BBA. They all had the potential to be an honest and independent investigators; it was unfortunate that they ended up in his lab and compromised their integrity. No post-doc can do fraud if the PI is honest and watchful.”
My question is post doc is not a little kid on the block that some one can create. They have taken the highest degree in science, and are at least in their mid twenties or thirties or sometimes even more. They should know the definition and meaning of scientific integrity and practice it diligently, otherwise they are not fit to be post docs anyway. You do not have to have POTENTIAL to be honest. You need to BE HONEST when you take up a position of Post Doctoral fellowship. If they are compromising their integrity,THEY are solely responsible for their transgressions and no one else. If a child above 18 does a crime the parents are not punished for that. Yes the PI has to be honest and watchful, but he cannot expect to believe that everyone in his lab is compromising the integrity, because that is not true. Only some careless and weak compromise the integrity and many people have to pay the price for that, including the professor.
Just so we’re clear, David Goeddel’s lab published the cDNA of TNF. The PI in question was 2nd to last author on that manuscript (of 9 authors). The reference is Pennica et al., Nature, 312:724. Goedell went on to help start Genentech as their third official employee and his lab published much of the signaling work on the TNF receptor over the next 15 years. I think to say BBA was the discoverer of TNF is a bit of an overstatement.
Dr. Aggarwal was the first to do the complete protein sequencing of TNF.
That does not mean he identified TNF. Protein sequencing is a technician work. Looks like BBA paid “TR” to wash all his sins. Of course BBA has to defend and fight this case even if he knows that he is wrong. He will have a battery of TRs to defend him. Let’s not discuss it anymore. Those who worked in his lab and authors of those 65 articles know the facts. Bragging about BBA or accusing him on a forum will not solve the problem. Let there be a proper investigation which is ongoing and let the truth prevails. All the evidences are out there on the web and obvious. I have respect and sympathy for BBA for his initial work on TNF. But what was the need to do which is now so defaming?
Just so we are more clear, BBA was the first one to isolate the protein and determine its structure ( Refer to Aggarwal 83, 84, 85) which was used to clone the TNF gene and that led to the paper you are referring to Pennica 84
SS – you could not be more wrong. BBA HAS NOT PAID me anything. If that’s what you think than someone can accuse you also for getting paid by some crooks out there to ruin someone’s life. At least I was not the first one to start bashing anyone on the blog. I am just giving my honest opinion to all the posts here. Of course BBA has to fight when people like you say nasty things. Wouldn’t you defend your self if someone was trying to discredit everything you have worked for?
SS – You say that, “Protein sequencing is a technician work”.
I say that if that is the case then everyone in your eyes have to be quite naive to cite that paper 1700 hundred times?
By the way, are you friends with Ruchi Pandey? Looks like both of you have a pact to try to ruin BBA’s life.
you say that , “Let’s not discuss it anymore.”
I say there were 157 blogs already before I entered the scene on this forum. So I am not the one who started the discussion. But most of you were saying only one sided things against BBA. If you want to be so judgmental about someone, than you better learn to hear every side of it.
TR first of all thanks for considering me influential enough to “ruin” life of a stalwart like BBA merely thorugh my posts (being sarcastic – in case there are people who don’t get it)
Amongst all the people who have posted and have made direct accusations, been contacting journals and people to take action against BBA you pick on me. Why? Is it because I am an Indian or is it because I am using my real name? Before questioning me about my name can you dare to reveal your true identity and nature of association with BBA? Why are you using initials by which no one can identify you? Why are you scared of revealing your identity if your intent is to bring out the other side of the story and set the record straight?
I tend to agree with you that you are not BA as you clearly do not seem to know the difference between ‘cited’ and ‘sighted’. Since you have used it repeatedly in different posts it cannot be a mere spelling error (“Hello! Hello! According to you all the scientists who sighted this papers 1700 times have some problem too! Hello! Hello!!” “..If he has been sighted so many times,…”). One needs to have a scientific background to know the difference between the two words.
Me – “…..that was one lab suggested to me and that was when i looked at his papers …” TR -“ … you wanted to work in BBA’s lab ….” A lab being ‘suggested’ to me doesn’t make it that I ‘wanted’ to join that lab. Need I say anything more about your comprehension skills? With your proximity to BBA you probably already know or can verify that I NEVER approached him for post doc position.
TR- “Obviously you have a whole lot to say on this blog against him.” “..Ruchi Pandey? Looks like both of you have a pact to try to ruin BBA’s life.” My other comments such as “…but lets not crucify before there is conclusive evidence. The evidence presented in the 2 blogs is primarily duplication of the same figure which could also be a honest error…” “@Public – a little correction here ….” go unnoticed by you as they do not fit into your conspiracy and vendetta hypothesis? Is that the way you have been trained and do research – selectively use the data that fits your hypothesis?
Then your conspiracy theory extends to “The greedy Pharma companies are not going to be interested in this because there is no money to be made in it for them.” Did the pharma companies send those sloppy post docs to BBA’s lab? Were those post docs being paid or trained by the pharma companies to fabricate and manipulate data? Did the pharma companies also somehow influence BBA to close his eyes towards the way work was being done in his lab?
TR- “I have been helped my his research also I happen to know many people that have been helped by his research.” You need not have stated this, your comments have made it pretty obvious that you were one the beneficiaries of this kind of research and possibly that is why you are jittery about the ongoing investigations and revelations by the former members of the lab?
TR- “A lot of ones who are complaining came from India which is democracy too, you do not have fear of political prosecution, so you can easily go back. Truth is, they do want to come to US but if they cannot work hard (American work the hardest), rather than leave the lab, they end of compromising science, blame others and constantly complain.” Dr. Aggarwal is also from India so can we extrapolate your statement to him too that he could not work hard, ended up compromising science and now blame others for it? How come majority of the people in the lab were Indians or asians and not Americans when it is the American who work the hardest?
TR-“ if they are feeling so uncomfortable, they can resign and leave.” Is it wrong to expect fair working conditions? Resigning and leaving isn’t as easy as you make it sound. There are financial and visa related issues. Why should the post docs have to bear the brunt of the wrongdoings by the PI? In case you failed to notice some people have stated that they did leave the lab for these kind of reasons. “There is no such thing as slavery in US” If making some one work for 14-16 hrs a day or else face termination is not modern day slavery then what is it?
TR – “So lets wait and see. We do not need to make conclusions yet.” But yet in your posts you have concluded that the blame for the errors lies with the post docs. TR-“ The bloggers of this issue have taken upon themselves to be the judge and the jury without looking into all the facts, circumstances and the big picture.” Were you a part of the investigations and have the big picture with all the facts, circumstances and therefore concluded that it was all due to sloppy post docs? If so, please share the details so that it puts an end to all the speculation and allegations.
RP, If you were not interested in working in BBA’s lab, why are you so obsessed with everything that is happening there. Since you did not work there directly why do you keep making statements about working conditions there? As far as I know, I do not think any body has appointed you to look into this matter officially.
RP, Beneficiary does not have to be monetary always. Yes, I have been helped by BBA’s Curcumin research with my health issues. So has all my family, extended family and scores of friends. Do you have a problem with that?
RP, I admit I my English is not the best. You may be better at it. My request is to get the meaning and let go of typos and spelling errors.
TR – Let’s reverse the question – has any one appointed you to defend the practices in the lab and act as the spokesperson for Dr. Aggarwal and his lab?
I am not obsessed with his lab or work and not only me but several other people have commented upon the working conditions in that lab. Some of the postdocs were from other countries and claim to have got trapped as they did not know about the work culture. Therefore, I think that it is good that it should be made public so that when they approach a lab they know what to expect. Being from a foreign country they do not have the chance to visit and talk to the lab members to get a sense of what they are getting into.
In fact I have refrained from restating several other things that I have heard since I know only one side of the story and that would be much more damaging to the reputation of the people you are trying to defend. If you are aware of facts that contradict what all those people have stated then you should present them.
Once again your inability to comprehend – I did not state or imply that you have benefitted financially (monetary benefits) … there are several other ways too such as publications, position etc etc which we cannot judge as you decline to reveal your identity.
If indeed your claims of health benefits are true then it is all the more reason why you should present your real self to the world so that it can serve as a real example of the benefits of the herbs that others can look upto and follow.
The use of curcumin as you yourself have stated in one of your posts (TR- “This is nothing new for ‘Ayurveda’ because these have been used for over 5000 years in India.”) has been around for ages and is not an outcome of Dr. Aggarwal’s research. The people who were using it for health reasons or as a spice will continue to do so whether Dr. Aggarwal shows it to be a anti-oxidant or a pro-oxidant. As for “bringing some eastern wisdom to the west in the language that the west understands.” western world has been experimenting with the ‘eastern wisdom’ even without any such research being there for e.g. Yoga, alternative medicine etc. So you and your extended family could have been getting those benefits even without this research!!
Yes, I am trying to get to the meaning of your these posts and you alone can explain their meaning. Targeting individuals is not going to help unless you can give explanation for the inaccuracies in the data published. On one hand you blame BBA’s post doc’s for messing up the data but when someone comments upon the former post docs (for e.g. Sethi) then you have an issue with that too!! If the corresponding author (BBA) didn’t do anything wrong, the first author didn’t do anything wrong then who is the culprit? May be the publishers? The only meaning that I have been able to derive so far is that you don’t want people to question or bring out the facts but unfortunately science doesn’t function that way.
TR – And yes … I do need to know from you as to why you have targeted me as trying to ‘ruin’ the life of BBA, ‘being in a pact’ with some one whose identity I do not know or have been in touch with esp when there are so many others here who have said far more nasty stuff about him.
RP, I chose to be anonymous, and I am consistent with that, you on the other hand have taken 3 identities Ruchi Pandey, RP and Expostdoc (even though you are not ex post doc of BBA). What kind of game are you playing? Also since you have become a self appointed spokesperson on this blog to tell about BBA’s lab culture, without knowing directly anything about it, let me tell you what some of the aspects of that lab culture is. BBA has been going around the world for invited lectures since he has started working. So many times he is out of town, and there is no one around to police the post docs like you think. They have full freedom at that time, and are expected to work from their own conscious. BBA has started a tradition in his lab to have afternoon tea ever day in his conference room at 4:00pm where EVERYBODY who is working in the lab, post docs, volunteers, visiting professors, guests join in at least for half an hour. The discussion at that time are light and meant to relax. He invites everybody from his lab with families, many times ex members of labs are also included who still live in Houston, to his house at least 4 or 5 times a year and himself cooks and serves them. If any one new joins in, he makes it a point in invite them with their families home. and again himself cooks for them. If someone is leaving his lab, he will take the entire staff out for lunch or invite them home to give a farewell.
If he has a Saturday meeting with his post docs, most of the time he will buy them lunch, which they all eat together for an hour, so the lab culture is not just the way you tried to portray.
There are certain professions in this world that in my mind are noble profession, where a person goes beyond the call of their duty. Doctors, Teachers, Soldiers, Scientists etc. Here to be good you have to love what you do, have a lot of passion for your work in your heart, and work much harder than other professions, not because some body is demanding it, but you want to do it. A scientist’s profession is highly demanding if you want to be successful. You have to have the zeal to do something new, go to the depths that no one has gone before, you have to read constantly to keep up with your field. All this requires not a 9 to 5 approach but beyond that. Have you seen how many hours a doctor who is doing residency or fellowship works? Some times they work on double shift without sleep. What happened to the labor laws there? This is the training they are given so when they have their independent positions they will be able to survive. The labs are open 24 hours a day. Why? Because at that level you have the freedom to choose when you want to go there to continue your experiments, no body needs to clock your time. If you want 9 to 5, you are in the wrong profession.
There are many visiting scientists that have come repeatedly to BBA’s lab over the years, so there are people who like the lab culture, unlike your friends who fed you negative information only, and you decided to post this second and third hand information, and malign his reputation on this blog. May be if you focus on your own work instead of wasting your time posting ‘I was told by so and so’ your current bosses will be happier with you.
I am not into playing any games here or else where. I was questioned regarding my identity and considering the fact that we were commenting upon an individual whose identity was out in the open for every one to see, I thought that it was only fair if I (we) too engage in the discussion with our real identities rather than making allegations and accusations behind the veil of anonymity. Using initials is easier for typing but again you can see that I have not tried to alter or camouflage them…not even reversed the order!! I can get multiple identities which cannot be linked/ associated with each other and use them to post as different individuals but then it goes against the very reason why we are here. I hope you can see that and appreciate it rather than try to target me or may be appreciation of honesty requires a certain level of integrity which may not be there in all individuals. Reading some of your posts and of others also gives an insight into how any dissenting voice would have been dealt with.
Can we now get some clarity regarding the game you are playing. Previously you tried to project yourself as some one who had just benefitted from the knowledge about role of spices in health but now your post seems to indicate that you are some one closely involved with the lab work. You come after me with a bunch of accusations but when I respond to them rather than answer the specifics it turns into that I am having trouble with your respect for a certain individual!! You seem to be quite enjoying this game of making people guess your identity (which may not be a secret any more) and going around advising others about their career without telling us what exactly have you achieved that you think that you are qualified to make all these suggestions.
Another person has posted that lab note books were signed every day (I am assuming it to be true as with your indepth knowledge about the lab you have not contradicted it) and you have brought out how Dr. Aggarwal made it a point to spend time with the people in the lab. So are you trying to imply that he had the time for interacting at the social level on a regular basis but did not have the time to critically evaluate their projects and data which was supposedly his primary responsibility?
Yes there are very many noble professions and it is the duty of the people engaged in the profession to maintain the honor. I am aware of the crazy working hours of the medical residents. However, Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has taken note of the adverse impact of long working hours on patient care as well as resident training and their safety and is taking steps to limit the rigorous working hrs and schedule. Please check it out.
I didn’t know that doing science was about keeping the bosses happy. Since it comes from some one who has enjoyed the benefits of keeping boss happy and is extremely successful it must be correct. Thanks for sharing your secret to success.
RP: you could not be more correct in assessing this guy TR, yes he has been advising everyone here to concentrate on their career. I would ask him…why he himself does not go back to the lab and concentrate on getting his data in right order…because it could be his turn that officials might appear in front of him and ask for his old data that he has published in some junk, below standard journals….
I have a strong opinion about BBA and TR (if they are two different guys) that they should be prosecuted by law of United States and India as well for unethical practice of science and misuse of taxpayers money…..
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TR has some conflict of interest, or he is does NOT understand the seriousness of the scientific fraud. May be the later is more true. More some other time.
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand the seriousness of the word “Fraud”. It is not determined yet that “Fraud” was committed by BBA so I think bloggers should hold the judgments and let the people who are looking into it, work at it. What kind of conflict of interest you are talking about on this blog? This looks like a free for all business here.
Of course fraud is serious, the issue is who is individually responsible for it… I doubt BBA ever manipulated any of the figures published in his papers… that is not how the system works.. the figures are usually prepared by students and postdocs..
SS you said, “Protein sequencing is a technician work.” and in the same paragraph later you said, “I have respect and sympathy for BBA for his initial work on TNF”
You look like confused, bitter and angry. May be you want to make up your mind whether you have respect for that work or not. I still did not get the part “sympathy”. Sympathy for what?
Yoga and meditation may be very good idea.
come on….his initial work on TNF is not even his work…he did it as postdoc…it was his boss idea….and BBA just did experiments as a postdoc as most of BBA’s own students do….
Wow! BBA would be very proud of you “TR”. People like you have spoiled him and I am 100% sure you are one of them whose publications will be retracted/investigated. Unfortunately, he frequently finds TRs these days. You are too close to him to know that he does not have Clayton Foundation funding anymore. It’s not health benefits. Its other benefits which make you defend him. Yoga and curcumin are for BBA and his super-ambitious post-docs like you. BBA himself does not believe in anything published from his lab.
SS – It is quite interesting how you have assumed so many things about me. Yoga Meditation and Curcumin still sounds good to me.
I think it is quite possible that TR is a family member of Aggarwal. Perhaps his wife?
LNV: well his wife is not going to be this brazen about defending his husband’s wrong deeds…she must be rather ashamed and embarrassed after knowing of what her husband has been doing in the name of science….
Its very likely that TR is none other than BBA himself or some of his postdoc whose future is also on stake due to all this and also because his career is also going to be negatively affected by all this….
wow…SS, I could not get more agree with you…..you said so right about TR…seems like he is a “chamcha” (a hindi word for yesman) of BBA and just to please his boss taken up this responsibility of clearing up all the clouds here…well i know BBA pays to some of his postdocs just to send his references (even without any prior requests) as soon as they appear in journals to all those people (relevant or irrelevant does not matter) to spread the word that his paper has published….as if the himself doubts that anyone would ever read those papers…so BBA has very strong and personal public relations (PR) (besides MD Anderson’ official PR)…and TR is one of them….hahahahaha
Unfortunately, there are many TRs who know how to get benefit out of this whole situation and exploit a paper greedy boss and how to make good use of it for their own benefit…science fraternity is ashamed of BBA and TRs who are determined to carry forward that tradition of dishonesty and fabrication in the field of science….
disillusioned – you are presuming whole lot of thing in your head about me. Who I am is so far away from your imagination that it may not be worth for you to waste your time thinking about it. If you use your time focusing on your career scientific or otherwise, you might feel more accomplished yourself and not worry so much about BBA and his life.
TR: I am not speculating anything about you..I do not even need to….and even if you are BBA yourself which i am sure you are, it is the reason I am taking this much time to say some harsh words against you because you are a rat…you have no morals…..you spoiled lives of so many genuine scientists and changed them into rats like yourself…..
regarding your preaching on concentrating on my career….I already have a decent and nice career and feel very fulfilled about it…..you do not need to preach me on that..I know your life is finished with this misconduct episode….so I would no say same thing that you go and concentrate on your work rather than wasting your time here….because you do not have any work to do anymore….you are done MAN…get some life…..
but mine is not…it is still ahead…so making you, yes Mr. BBA its you I know that, infamous here I am also accomplishing a goal that your career is finished and you get never any other job here in US so that genuine scientists could fill in those positions that has been occupied by junk scientists like you for decades and decades…so it is for my career…. man…hope you got my point……
RP – Why do you have so much trouble if I and my family and friends have respect for what Dr. Aggarwal has done for the world? That is our opinion. It is not a bad thing to respect someone.
TR: BBA may have done things for you or your family as I am sure with your attitude you would not get any postdoc position anywhere else where honesty and real talent is demanded…but could you explain what he has done for the world…??? hahahahahha…is not it too big world…even nobel laureates do not use such terms that they have done something for world..and your BBA has done something for world….come on….do not joke here…..its a place to discuss serious things…..
Reading the comments here, I sense a degree of vigilante justice being practiced on this forum. Sadly, this has degenerated into an echo chamber of people jumping to conclusions and crucifying an individual (with the occasional dissenter) without having all the facts at hand. This is precisely the problem with vigilante justice – there are no rules and there is no fact checking. It is probably best to shut down this discussion and leave things in the hands of appropriate authorities. Adam and Ivan – as investigative journalists, you have blown the whistle, it’s equally your responsibility to ensure that it is not a dog-whistle for a smear campaign and a public lynching. Investigative journalism also requires the the reporter to perform the due diligence of fact checking – how many of these allegations have been fact-checked? A little soul-searching will lead to the obvious conclusion that this is not what the creators of this blog intended. Before the reputation of the blog gets tarnished, it may even be reasonable to mandate all posters/commenters to establish their identities via a verifiable university/industry/government email address. My two cents.
Thank you.
Thank you for what? retraction of paper?
Vigilante is a bit of a harsh term. I think what you really need to look at (as in the case of all vigilantes, not just scientific) is what drives people to say these types of things…. clearly the current “justice” system does not work! There are obviuously people here with axes to grind, and personal vendettas, but when the scientific system has prevented these individuals from bringing an allegedly bad person to justice, is it really so bad to have an outlet such as RW for them to voice their concerns?
The important thing in this particular case, is that in addition to the “crazies”, there are also people with no axe whatsoever to grind, no personal connection to the case at all, and yet they publish blogs and post images online for all the world to see that Aggarwal has published fabricated data. Add in the thousands of viewers of this blog, most of whom are scientists with independent minds, not one of whom has seen the questioned images and then called for the websites to be taken down. Note carefully how not one of the defendants of Aggarwal here or elsewhere has offered valid explanations for the clearly faked data. There’s your fact checking!
Agreed, this type of discourse is probably not what Ivan & Adam intended, but right now as scientists, with the authorities apparently taking their own sweet time over investigating this case, blogs such as this are a valuable place for such discussions.
Virgilstar – I do not think Retraction Watch is the best place for anyone to defend themselves or offer a valid explanation. Here people are showing the tendencies of Vigilante Justice as pointed out by Website Moderation. Valid explanations will take some time to come. You have to have patience. Even to try anyone for anything in America we look for unbiased judge and jury. Here people have formed opinions based on whistle-blowers, blogs, sensational news paper articles and statements by people who are showing signs of personal vendetta. How do you expect that truth will come out on this platform and give justice?
I would go further than “vigilante”….. the bloggers here are simply hysterical and vindictive.. and display little understanding of anything related to science.. or justice.. surely there are more informed ways and processes to handle these issues..
Reading the comments here, I sense a degree of vigilante justice being practiced on this forum. Sadly, this has degenerated into an echo chamber of people jumping to conclusions and crucifying an individual (with the occasional dissenter) without having all the facts at hand. This is precisely the problem with vigilante justice – there are no rules and there is no fact checking. It is probably best to shut down this discussion and leave things in the hands of appropriate authorities. Adam and Ivan – as investigative journalists, you have blown the whistle, it’s equally your responsibility to ensure that it is not a dog-whistle for a smear campaign and a public lynching. Investigative journalism also requires the the reporter to perform the due diligence of fact checking – how many of these allegations have been fact-checked? A little soul-searching will lead to the obvious conclusion that this is not what the creators of this blog intended. Before the reputation of the blog gets tarnished, it may even be reasonable to mandate all posters/commenters to establish their identities via a verifiable university/industry/government email address. My two cents
“Before the reputation of the blog gets tarnished, it may even be reasonable to mandate all posters/commenters to establish their identities via a verifiable university/industry/government email address”
Wow what a bullshit….I am sure you are either BB Aggarwal or some of his yesman working for his publication factory.!! Why someone would give his email address so that you start abusing your power that this system o them….
well I can provide you my address, but little soul searching is required at your end too? Just go and sit in a silent place and think what did you do in your scientific career, was it always intended to do good for taxpayers whose money you have been spoiling on the name of research…I think you need soul-searching not us, you need some retrospection on your way of conducting science…
regarding checking the facts…can you go ahead and do this favor to us…find out how do you find these errors in figures justifiable…go read these papers and find a way to declare them appropriate for the publication…and do your soul-searching….
also reveal your government/industry/university affiliated email address first and we will follow you Mr. Soul Searcher….
Is Bharat aggarwal’s lab already sealed? Anyidea if he is hiding in India!
RP: I learned from your online posts that you had a tough time as postdoc in US. Did you have similar fights with your colleagues and bosses in India because of your daring attitude. Were you forced to quit your previous lab in USA and / or your first lab in India? Is any disciplinary action pending against you in India or US? Have you made any form of scientific contribution in your life?
Unfortunately for ADI, TR and similar other individuals (who are very likely to spring up in near future), trying to run me down will not correct the issues with the images and the data being brought out by various individuals on this and other forums.
It never fails to amuse me when individuals who are ashamed of their real name and/ or identity and therefore prefer to remain behind the wall of anonymity come up with these kind of questions.
Anyway to answer your questions – I had similar fights with my bosses in India and as a disciplinary action against me they punished me by giving the young scientist award!! I was having a very tough time as post doc and PI was not happy with my performance and so I decided to quit a comfortable 9-6, well paying job with life long benefits while I still had six months of study leave remaining to continue with my miserable life as post doc with a PI who was dissatisfied with my performance!! I didn’t know that my life was affecting the images and data in other’s papers!! Now if that has satisfied your intent to run down my credibility can we have your take on some of the scientific issues that have been brought forward so that we can be enlightened by someone who has presumably made significant contributions to the world of science.
Lets say I agree that I have made no contribution to science and am a layman but does that mean that I cannot question what is being published in the name of science? Correct me if my interpretation is a result of my poor understanding of the technique or of the subject. I am all for increasing my understanding and getting educated about things that I do not know. Didn’t these image manipulations and other inconsistencies escape the peer review process by experts in the field and editorial/ publication review processes and are now being noticed by people who may or may not be the leaders in science. By analogy does it mean that people who have not been in politics or held a public office should not question the wrong doings of politicians or public office holders?
Can anyone update me about the current status of this investigation at MDAnderson.
Aggarwal made the front page of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE newspaper (feb 25 2012).
MD Anderson has a new president and he does not like this bad publicity
When I posted my comment on January 31, 2012 at 5:43 pm, I anticipated this kind of response – amazingly it is 202 posts (prior to my this response) on this blog. I am not sure whether this is a record for Retraction Watch.
Looking at the comments – some of them seem to be personal attacks which may be out of context. Hope readers will realise that this is not an easy case to solve and probably MD anderson needs to take a bold step here to come up with a judgement on the case. There are collateral damages involved….let us see how the story unfolds hereafterwards. It doesn’t look good at this stage.
Bharat Aggarwal will have the last laugh.
Bharat Aggarwal is the only the tip of iceberg…he came in lime-light because he started killing the golden chicken of his fake science (as he published 250 papers in just 3 years) instead of getting one golden egg (fake publication in reasonable amount of time) everyday at normal pace…..
well as I said, it is the story of almost 95 scientists of Indian and or foreign origin here in US, most of whom are forced to adopt such unethical measures to survive in grant/paper oriented science, as they are anyways less favored faces when it comes to publishing their genuine results and getting grants by ethical means…..
Gandhi: with due respect, not sure whether your assumptions are going to be proven correct?
It is my fear based on the observation that America is no more the USA of the JFK era. (at least in the field of science). Will the relevant authorities show their mettle?
Aggarwal signs the labnote book of all his people at 9AM every morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if he signs everybody lab book, he should have seen all the data on daily basis…..then why does he blame his postdocs for mistakes in these 65 papers…he is solely responsible or not sharp enough to catch the errors/mistakes that his postdocs made…well i do not blame him, it is his age….he is above 60 now….time to retire….anyways he is not doing any good to science anymore…his last 5 years papers are cited only in his own papers…no other group cites them…
Well he should go back to India and spend his time doing Yoga, Ayurveda and eat curcumin powder ….may be he will feel healthier, happier, and become more attentive in this stage….
disillusioned, I think you are still under illusion. If you are going to continue to have this kind of bitterness and hatred in your heart to punish people for your own problems, another 40 years will go by and nothing will change for you, wake up! Otherwise you will be still blogging on some one’s misfortune and try to feel happy.
And I do not think you need to go back to India to practice Yoga Ayurveda or eat Curcumin, this can done in any country.
May be if you did all three, you will start feeling better about yourself and stop bashing people with your rude words.
TR: its you who is in illusion not me….hahahaha…well I will continue to have this bitterness for the rats like BBA and you because you people need to be punished…regarding 40 years – well things have already changed for me for good, I am doing what I always wanted to do…doing good and real good for others…I am not faking up data like you guys are in BBA lab….but things will change for BBA too but for his good…for his bad actually….within few months …as it has happened for Dipak Das….you and your guru BBA have already got more than you guys deserved….now its time to get some air in prison….be ready for that…
and yes, I dont believe in this bullshit of curcumin and yoga and all that…ask your Guru BBA to eat curcumin when he gets cancer….which he will get for sure…owing to his deeds….and see if that curcumin cures him….until he gets cancer…….he better do Yoga so that he remains calm while MD Anderson and this new president fires him…and he is too old to get another job in academia or industry….
you and your guru BBA are quacks…fake scientists…they are chelas of Ramdev, another fradulent from India….who came from India and was honored by these bunch of Indian scientists including BBA…what a shame….
some of these comments also sound entirely racist…. harldy appropriate for people claiming to be self righteous !
it appears that these people are fighting themselves rather than highlighting the bigger issue in scientific research. it doesn’t matter where you come from and where you have worked – as long as you do good and honest research work – everything falls safe..let us look at the root cause of this and try to improve situations. one can write a book on the commentaries written here..taking attendance every morning at 9 am is rather serious though.
Science is a serious business.
taking attendance at 9 am everyday itself shows how he treats his postdocs, like slaves…well no great scientist anywhere in the world who expects his postdocs to be productive in creative way, will ever do that….i have known personally several bright young scientists especially those who do not have married life, to be very casual about sleeping habits….if you bind them for a time…how can one be creative…is not a McDonald job where u have to be behind your desk at a particular time….
Signing the book at 9 AM is not the attendance, it means that BBA is generous enough to sign the blank notebook in the morning itself, so that the Post-docs can fill in the results (POSITIVE) afterwards. Complete democracy.
@TR -dear instead of trying to be PR of BBA why don’t you spend time in going through those 65 publications and explain the image manipulation? Go sit with BBA and workout the explanation of all the 65 papers that will be better service to BBA rather then trying to convince few of us through this blog. Good luck!
http://www.chron.com/default/article/Whistle-blowers-say-M-D-Anderson-researcher-3360037.php
This link was already posted by RP on Feb 26 11:44 am. You did not have to repeat it.
well why not repeat it…i will repeat it as many time as I want to spread the word….well i am going to send this link to some Indian Newspapers as well so that in India too where he has made his strong network based on all his fraudulent work, people know his reality….
@ TR: “since you have become a self appointed spokesperson on this blog to tell”
wow….let it put this way….who has appointed you to become spokesperson on behalf of BBA? or you are too a self appointed spokesperson….
Time will tell.
well before time tells, better you tell us that who are you and who is paying you for washing all the sins of BBA?
@ TR: “Have you seen how many hours a doctor who is doing residency or fellowship works? Some times they work on double shift without sleep”
total BS….does anybody force a doctor to do double shift…like your BBA does to his postdocs….?? No…they do it on their own, because they feel like doing it….well you have to create that friendly environment that young scientists feel enthusiastic working in that lab for longer than their normal working hours….
also comparisons are always odious, those hardworking doctors are well compensated for their work, what do you pay a postdoc? meager 35K !! which is less than what an average high school pass graduate earns in US….so better you do not compare….well I agree that hardwork is important but for that right kind of environment is important, not how many hours he/she put in the work…why somebody will be enthusiastic to work for 18 hours if he knows that what he is doing is nothing but repetition of what has been done before with some other compound…from some other plant from India.!!!..shame on BBA, he even put the reputations of all Indians herbs at stake…..
For doctors – when they are in residency it is part of the job to do very long shifts. And when they are in residency they do not get paid more than 35k either.
Also on this blog I learned that a post doc chooses his lab. So according to that if BBA was doing repetition work and some people did not like that, why did they join his lab?
you are completely unaware about how it works in residency or in medical field so please shut your mouth…..do u know when somebody is doing residency, he is sure that after 3 years they will get a job that starts @200,000 dollars per anum….and a job for sure…
what a postdoc get…? no assurance of getting a job..it is fact that only less than 10 percent postdoc get a faculty position….so why somebody should work like a slave for his old boss with stupid ideas…
Well, because most of those foreigners (chinese and Indians) do come from a country where science is done even more poor way, so they do not know what is repeitive or what is original,,,,,and by the time they realize its too late, they are already on some those fake fabricated publications and become part of the system….
Vigillante – Indian herbs are too big for any one even BBA to put its reputation at stake.
Also if all of you great scientists here who are against what BBA is doing, than you can go do your own research of what you like, start something new, convince the world they you are the genius, get funding and be happy, instead of beating the issue of repetitious herb research to death on this blog.
Dear TR- You need to be bashed-up and jailed. We all are scientist- doesn’t actually matter great or not, but have not raped science as BBA has done. If you have explanation of those 65 paper’s image manipulation then let us know or else keep quiet.
TR: you donot need to teach us what we should do, we are already doing what we like and love to do…but we need to get rid of fake scientists like BBA who is making us all i mean scientific fraternity embarrased by his fake and immoral deeds….its responsibility of all genuine scientists like us to make sure that quacks like BBA should be punished for what they have been doing for last many many years….
TR, or Mr BBA…(yes I am calling you Mr, because you do not even deserved to be called as doctor cause you are shame on the name of a Ph.D. scientist) why are you teaching us what we need to do…this blog is not about what we need to do…this blog is about what misconducts or fabrications in the data you have committed? We are not your postdoc…thank God for that…so do not threaten us…we will not ask for your recommendation letter….hahahahhaha
Regarding starting something new, we all are doing something new here man…what you think we are doing….well we at least I can say about myself….that I am conducting novel and original work…..I do not need to tell you details….its a more suitable preaching for you and your postdocs..as you were caught repeating or fabricating not us…..so if you were still allowed to do science in your future…..that you should do some novel work….
and we scientists are not here to claim our geniuses….we are here to do some real good and something genuine work ..what do you think Mr. BBA about yourself …so was it your agenda to prove yourself a genius ?? thats why you were cooking so much data and publishing them at so fast speed..? well I am sorry then…you could not prove that you are genius…well I would have considered you genius at least in one are area – fabricating data…if you were retired without getting caught red-handed….hahahahahahhaa
disillusioned – You said “it was his mentor, Dr Haas”.
Well, Dr. Haas was not BBA’s mentor
Lincoln – mind your language and keep your threats under control.
does not matter…who was his mentor….but whosoever it was, it was the idea of his mentor, not BBA’ cause BBA did it as his postdoc or some other fancy name given to that position at Genentech…but he was only a postdoc there and we know very well that BBA since then as an independent investigator at MD Anderson has never been able to repeat same level of success with genuine publications….so he adopted this short cut strategy…means cooking the data….that made him very popular in India….lol….here in US nobody cares what he does…except funding agencies……who keep funding his junk and repetitive (if not fake as it is still in question) research…..
Cancer Letters had already given an opinion on BBA’s misconducts by retracting his ‘accepted’ article. In fact, some of the evidence disclosed so far are obvious manipulation of data, indicating serious research misconducts.
In my opinion, the challenge now is to identify the root cause other than BBA. However, I am doubtful that the scientists below BBA can mastermind such a massive data manipulation over several years? Worth watching is whether BBA will take the approach of Dr. Dipak Das, to divert responsibilities to his subordinates and racial discriminations, which make no sense in my view.
I could not get more agree with you….it could only be a shrewd and experienced person like BBA not his poor postdocs that can mastermind such level of misconduct….moreover, it is not just one or two postdocs, there are more than 10 people on these papers in questions so it is not possible that all those 10 people become dishonest and BBA is so innocent that he could not catch the manipulation….
regarding BBA’s approach on all these allegations, well did not you already see his chamcha’s or in other words his yes man Mr TR’s conspiracy theory…that big pharma got scared of potential of curcumin as anti-cancer agent….so they are behind it…hahahhahaha
what a joke…joke of 21st century….
Agree! Mr TR’s conspiracy theory is highly unlikely! The proposition lacks industry perspective!
Pharma companies can easily patent its derivatives and still have freedom to operate! Furthermore, derivatives probably improve specificity and drug bioavailability, which are the limitations inherent to natural curcumin extract.
There is only one remedy for this whole situation…..BBA lab should immediately be sealed and closed…and BBA himself should go to Himalaya to practice Yoga and Ayurveda and some retrospection on his black deeds…so that he can spend rest of his life in peace….see I am not even demanding his arrest and punishment…doing yoga on Himalaya for rest of his life will make him a better man..hopefully
@vigilante and public: can you identify who this is? Do you know this person? http://www.nsu.edu/biotechnology/DrGovindarajanRamesh/
Any guesses?
Good job Ressci
TR = RT = RGT = GRT ???
investigative scientific journalism at its best….another box is opened…ninja warrior should work on this case as well….
I do not know him, but looking at the publication track of Govindarajan Ramesh, I would like to say that I do not even care for such small stature people….. look at their level of science – so pathetic and it sucks….it does not even matter what they publish and what they do….its total waste of time to even mention such low level researchers here….who can not make difference in their own lives, how can they change the world….
BTW, G Ramesh appears as a shrewd and dishonest person too like his guru and of low ethics and morality….let us not even talk about such low class people here… it is below our dignity to be indulged in talking about these low category researchers…
My guess: TR is an abbrieviation of a common research theme for BBA, Dipak Das, Gautam Sethi and Chandran Sen. Thus, he is one of these 4 persons.
Dr. Govindarajan Ramesh is too remotely related to BBA to know all the details.
And here I was putting tumeric in my egg whites every morning.
Just a ton (millions) of money wasted. And it really makes science look very bad. The public picks up on these things and start to question why the american taxpayer should fun science?
I can barely keep any kind of publication record being as honest and careful as I am (and the demand of positive results) and we have a lab that flouts the rules and makes us all look bad and lessen the chances that we will be funded due to budget cuts. Good reason for a lot of people here to be pissed off.
NMH: exactly thats what I echoed in my first post here….that a lab like BBA’s and publications (which now turning out to be fake one by one) makes us (such as you and I who are honestly pursuing genuine science ) look bad and lessen the chances of getting funded….and hamper the pace of scientific development…
Yes, american tax payers have every right to ask why they should fund such type of junk research work….also my suggestion is BBA once he is proved guilty, should be prosecuted publicly in court for playing with hopes of public, that one day scientific fraternity will come up with cure for cancer….even MD Anderson should also prosecute BBA…for what he has done to the reputation of otherwise a very prestigious cancer research center in the world….
Update… I have uncovered another 14 papers from 2003-2005 with manipulated images. Files have been sent to Abnormal Science and JuiichiJigen blogs, so we can expect updates there in a couple of days. This brings the total papers to 79 papers, with undoubtedly more to come. Watch this space!
FYI, this includes some papers on TNF, before BBA jumped on the natural prodcts bandwagon.
wow….congratulations……r3sanon. Please keep it up…serving the cause of science…..
I am also going to contact Indian media who is always news hungry about it so that they publish all this what is going on here in their news and talk about it during TV shows that how a so called famous now infamous Indian scientist brought such a shame for rest of hard working and honest Indians…..
I think people should wait until MDACC give their final verdict. Looks like disillusioned has some personal issues with Dr.Aggarwal. This blog is to discuss retractions and not a place to talk to who hates whom. I was going through the comments and more than 50% are accusing each other. Let’s wait for the decision of ORI.
AKTfamily, I have no issues with BBA or anyone else here, I do not know him personally, but yes I have known his bad reputation in science for long time. I have known personally not just one or two or three but around 15 people who were trained in his lab, and I have been following their work as I do follow others work in the field. Therefore, I and several others like me who usually are too busy with our own things and yes positive things, have known this fact that there is something not right in that group. So, I have all rights to say things about him when I got a forum/platform to say things that I always wanted to say…
I would again like to thank these bloggers to raise these issues, which many people have known about but never had resource, courage or knew way to express their feelings about such filthy people who bring shame to the community and let down the reputation of academic research……
And there are things about which you make your opinion anyways especially when the level of crime is so high such as you start immediately neglecting/rebuking/condemning a rapist if you have seen or heard him raping a person, you don’t wait for court’s verdict … similarly BBA has been raping the scientific research for many years that most of us knew already, and when it is out to the public, we will not wait till ORI gives its verdict…..
Aktfamily i agree that it may be more prudent to wait for the final verdict by MDACC but the process is going to be a long one with the number of papers and people from outside USA being involved. There is a comment about previous action by MDACC in another research misconduct case posted on the blog about cancer letter retraction which raises some concern. Further, since majority of the people in this lab seem to be from outside USA public awareness of what is going on will possibly save some one from committing to the lab while MDACC decides on course of action. The evidence presented so far seems to strongly suggest that all was not right and something of this magnitude seems quite unlikely without the involvement of people right from the top
also can you publish the list of those papers so that we can also find any irregularities, that will confirm if we see same mistakes that these bloggers will see and then will post….
http://forbesindia.com/blog/economy-policy/does-indian-science-suck/#comment-876
just posted this link to Forbes India website…..hahahahahha….
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/prominent-indianamerican-researcher-under-probe/233667-2.html
http://www.pravasitoday.com/indian-american-researcher-bharat-aggarwal-under-probe
WB, wow…you did great job by spreading this news in India…..his God like image should be tarnished in India for sure where young researchers consider him a role model in science….and get trapped with such people and then loose their track and potential in science….
ummm.. he is under investigation…. whatever happened to justice… innocent till proven guilty ????
@disillussioned: Apparently they modereated it..your comments haven’t posted yet on Forbes India..
Vigilante,
I also do not care about this guy, but, he is getting American tax payers money (NIH, NSF, NASA). He is also getting the minority institutional benefits by robbing the opportunities of deserving people. He gives the data to his people to write papers. Many people came to his lab with J1 suffered a lot and he ruined their scientific career. people who came with J1 knows exactly what I mean. it is very pathetic. Also, check the following link and you will know what type of person he is.
Document 73 :: Yog v. Texas Southern University et al :: 4 …
law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txsdce/4…/73GOVINDARAJAN RAMESH, Individually and in His Official Capacity, … Plaintiff’s live claims are based on allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation.
public,
Ramesh has very close connection with BBA. Houston is speaking.
Mimi,
Interesting background:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txsdce/4:2008cv03034/614064/73
I hope BBA don’t treat his students like that.
Public: he is very close to the person we are discussing on this blog…lot of publications together…
JuiichiJigen: please run your software on this one as well. http://www.nsu.edu/biotechnology/DrGovindarajanRamesh/
I saw only 3, where are the rest? any other name for GT?
Public,
He does’t do these type of activities.
hmmmm that makes more sense – for washing up use an individual who is a close associate but not one with a direct strong professional association as that would keep him out of getting closely scrutinized.
No wonder TR appeared so confident that no one will be able to identify him … he wasn’t BBA’s post doc but lived in Houston for a long time. The Indian bonding might have brought them together.
GTR+SKM – 11 papers, SKM+BBA – 33 papers ….
overlay GTR+SKM+BBA – 3 papers!!
there is one name r.s.aggarwal in the papers —is he big bosses son?? more associations…genomewide will be useful..
I know Ramesh very well, he used to work at TSU and now at Norfokk, he is NOT TR for sure.
He used to work as researcher in BBA lab for 3 months when I used to work in BBA lab in 1998.
He does not like him at all or he does not have any contact with him. He helped SKM for a short vist to USA in 2003 for 4 months at that time SKM did some collaborative work with BBA. I am once agin sure TR is not Ramesh.
TR is quiet these days….does this sound good?
ANJ,
Looks like you are not keeping up with Houston. BTW, SKM and Ramesh are the pioneers of this saga of fraud.
ANJ,
You are not the real ANJ who worked during 1998. You may be Ramesh.
TR came along to clear up for BBA and now that TR’s identity may not be a secret do we have a ANJ to clear up for TR?
Looks like BBA is enjoying himself with world tour to spice up his life?
http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/events/item/?item_id=213414
http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/events/item/?item_id=213412
@RP, Ruchi Pandey: this looks like a collaboration between your previous lab/institution in India and the person we are discussing on this blog….any inside information on this?
Potent Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Ursolic Acid, a Triterpenoid Antioxidant, Is Mediated through Suppression of NF-κB, AP-1 and NF-AT.
Checker R, Sandur SK, Sharma D, Patwardhan RS, Jayakumar S, Kohli V, Sethi G, Aggarwal BB, Sainis KB.
PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e31318. Epub 2012 Feb 20
Dr. Aggarwal has close ties with institutes in India. Sorry I have no inside information on the work that you have mentioned as I have been out of there since 2008 and not in touch with any of the authors except Dr. Sainis who was my thesis advisor and boss. SSK, SD, KV have done their PhD with Dr. Sainis. I seriously doubt that they would indulge in manipulation of data similar to what has been reported on this and other blogs (again its not biased by my association but my genuine thought). Inclusion of SG and BBA as authors may be just for using Ursolic acid and other reagents which SSK may have got during his post doc with BBA.
As some other people have mentioned on this blog … this kind of research spreads the toxic environment where individuals are being compared with their number of publications. The youngsters are under pressure to generate papers and when they see such successful individuals around they are tempted to emulate without putting in too much thought.
Has any of ssk papers affected in this episode? If yes, then they should be put under scrutiny as well. I am not saying that they have done something but association affects people!! There will be collateral damage. I know of few people from your former institute – such as KPM and his laboratory – I am sure you can guess who it is…I have met them somewhere in meetings and I have witnessed their presentations and even reviewed their manuscripts…therefore, there will be a question mark on this group….
I checked the other blog (abnormal science) and found only one with SSK that has duplication of the loading control in one of the figures Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2009 Oct 1;75(2):534-42. As every paper goes through the scanner, if there are more then it will come out. SSK was the one to bring ‘oxidant research’ to our group but ever since I steered myself away from that kind of research, I haven’t kept up with the related literature. I just looked up and had pointed out in my earlier posts what i could see with a casual reading of the abstracts.
No doubt there will be collateral damage but I sincerely hope that it will strike the root too and not just the associates. BBA had a very widespread network and I too have had associations with people who have ties to him. All this while I had known people to either hold him as a role model with the number of publications that he had and his public presence (invited lectures, honored guest etc) or ignore as doing repetitive work with little innovation but no one thought that irregularities to this extent exist in his publications.
Reading that other blog pointed out by Mimi and Public – the post about non reproducibility of his data was made in Jan 2010 but surprisingly it could so long for all this to come out!!
The irony is that several of the people come to this country thinking that with better mentoring, availability of resources and facilities they will be able to perform to their potential and come up with novel findings and end up bitter and disillusioned with science.
http://itisonlycancer.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
I do not know how he is allowed to give talks on lung cancer cure etc., after all these things have come out.
Mimi:
It is an revealing confession by a patient and researcher.
Just as promising for natural product to be developed as a drug, the reverse can be true! In nature, plants develop natural defense system as efficiently.
All should read this confession and summarizing statement: A landmark clinical trial and personal trial
“The most noticeable finding of the study is “limited absorption” – plasma curcumin concentration reached only 20-40 ng/ml at day 3 of continued dosing”
“A good spice” that requires further development.
http://itisonlycancer.blogspot.com/2011/03/curcumin-food-supplement-or-medicine.html
303 comments and still counting….barring a few of us seriously commenting – this has been a most discussed blog on retraction watch (as per my calculation)(Ivan and Marcus can verify this).
Houston: how did you forget BBA’s right hand S Shodia who has published more than 50 papers.
He should be immediately fired from where he is a faculty now.
well, proper investigation means most of the coauthors (with significant number of papers as co-authors) and prominent collaborators should also be investigated. Then you will find association or link. This is what Abnormal Science usually does…
I agree with Ressci integrity. S.Shodia entered TSU with the influence of Ramesh to further spread BBA fever.
this is getting more and more interesting…Birds of a feather flock together or something like that…
At present 8 out of these 65 papers are genuine and they do not have any evidence of data manipulation. There is enough primary raw data to prove these points.
@addit1, Kudos . Send the PRIMARY raw data and your analysis report to ORI to stop the investigation against BBA. Good luck.
@Mimi, lol you got such a great sense of humor….hahahahahahhahaa…..LMFAO….very true…he should send all his analysis to ORI and Dr Ronald Depinho (who is now so angry with BBA) that given first legally safe opportunity he would immediately fire BBA from MD Anderson….
53 bloggers have commented in this blog. Out of these 27 are confirmed indians and 17 have direct or indirect link to BBA. I can provide details if some one wants. Two bloggers are related to each other and support each other no matter what the context is.
One small update: 32 bloggers are Indians on this site. 21 related to BBA (directly or indirectly). One blogger has used three different names. One blogger has used 2 different names. Two bloggers are husband wife. Details can be provided on request.
I am curious. I counted 9 real names – including mine. I would love to get more information on how you are making this assertion.
Addit1 you seem to be excluding yourself from your stats. Didn’t you earlier use ADI as username and now back as addit1?
Didn’t you see how confident TR was about not being discovered but the real scientists over here got to it? Do you think people can’t get your real identity and the skeletons that you are trying to cover if they want to?
@addit1: job well done. Not sure how your statistics will benefit the issue discussed here. Nationality doesn’t matter in discussing the topics. Look at all the blogs being discussed on retraction watch. I don’t think people are very much concerned. What is the importance of those associations with the person involved? What is the motivation for this? your analysis of 8 out of 65 papers are genuine..is also a bit strange. Is it possible to elaborate your analysis and its interpretation?
Here’s his second retraction (ironically from the journal BBA)…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22265847#
This was paper #3 on Jigen’s blog
wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…..what a big news…..man…..
I really do not have words to thank enough Ivan/Marcus for bringing this whole issue forward….
it just proves that we all here are right..well we all knew BBA has been involved in mass scale wrong doing but it is now just being proved …one by one……amazing….
let us see how many more nails are still there for the coffin of BBA’s scientific career…
Ivan/Marcus: these retractions should be listed on retraction watch as usual I guess…second retraction from this scientist…
Indeed, make sure to keep up with our follow-up posts; there have been two: http://www.retractionwatch.com/category/by-author/bharat-aggarwal/
I wonder what happens to patents that have been issued if the underlying research is proven to be “flawed” and the papers are retracted. BBA certainly has plenty of both!
@Jayesh Mehta: Good question. I don’t know what will happen to the patents. I am also worried about the field which built upon such research initiatives. Imagine, many people followed this work and published papers on such and such drug affects NFkB or something like that. There will be 100s of them. Papers which supported these observations and papers which cited these articles – what is the fate? Any one has any thoughts on this?
People who followed his work should be mediocre. So let them pay for it.
One more thing: why not some-one find out who were the reviewers of all his 65 papers?
Generally if the reviewer is concern genuinely -he/she gives the proper attention to minute details-some of the image needs only one glance- to understand the flaws.
@Lincoln: it is hard to find out. In many of the journals they have published papers, the person is in the editorial board. Of course that does not matter much. Unless the journal has the policy to disclose reviewer names ) we will be able to find out. Some biomedcentral journal do this as well frontiers series has started interactive reviewing. Otherwise, just backscratching each other…
http://news.yahoo.com/healing-spices-book-receives-abcs-duke-award-consumer-224109195.html
Hahahahahahahahaha! What a joke.
I just called them up and asked about this. Spoke with the person who purchased the award and is involved in its administration. They (the American Botanical Council) are FULLY AWARE of the allegations, and “knowing him personally, Jim Duke [for whom the award is named] and the other members of the panel did not believe it [the allegations], and chose to make the award anyway”. She went to great lengths to explain the innocent-until-proven-guilty principle in this country (I have an accent, so maybe she tought I was from overseas), and stated there have been no concrete findings. I then told her about the 2 retractions already, and she seemed surprised, so I directed her here for further reading. I honestly think these people have no grasp whatsoever about the gravity of this situation and how stupid this makes them look (well, more stupid than they looked before this, at least).
hi r3sanon, could you please tell me their telephone number…I also want to call them and tell about how big fraud BBA is and will protest this award….
and I think all of us here should call the organizer of this award function and ask them to put this award on hold until BBA proves himself not guilty…..
FYI, the award will be presented at Nutracon 2012 (http://www.nutraconference.com/) tomorrow, March 8th, so presumably he’ll be there to collect in person. Anyone in Anaheim CA fancy reporting on this? (or heckling).
Is there any policy to retract awards?
Mimi: good point actually….but I would be little soft on this issue as this is not an award for his science, it is award for his book…and book may not necessarily based on research work …..it could well be fiction….which is fine….lol…..should not bother us…real scientists who like things to be proved in the laboratory…
also, a good suggestion to TR, BBA and rest of the people on that league of pseudo-scientists- may be it is good for them to seek their alternative career in science fiction writing than being involved in peer review based research publications….apart from all the controversies about their faking the data etc…one thing is evident for sure – that these guys have really great minds in generating fictions….related to curcumin and whatever other herbal plants they worked on…wow….they should not waste their time in laboratory research…fictional book writing is best thing they can do without being questioned on the integrity of their content….hahahahahahahahha
Fellows Number of publication with BA Number of duplication current position
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Reuter S 22 ?? ??
Gupta C 23 ?? ??
Prasad S 32 ?? ??
Kannapan R 22 ?? ??
Sung B 88
Sethi g 58 NUS
Nair AS 6 ?? ??
Kunnumakkara AB 42 ?? ??
Mann AP 1 ( may be he stayed only one week in his lab)
Pandey MK 27 ?? ??
Shishodia S 51 ?? ??
Harikumar KB 18 ?? ??
Anad P 15 ?? ??
hmm……. interesting, however half of the papers by these authors are reviews. This lab publishes lot of multi author reviews also.
Michael you are right that all the papers by these authors may not have problems but I guess the question will arise about reviews too. What can we say about reviews based on papers that turn out to be falsified? The ramifications will be far beyond BBA’s work.
@ Follower: Where are these folks? Are they living in US or gone back to their bases. Are they sincerely exercising whatever they had learnt in their new positions? If yes, how to quarantine their activities before many innocent youngsters are baptized.
Secondly, it appears that the list is incomplete. My apprehesion is that the scientific misconduct, fradulent manipulation of data and deliberate falcification started well before these folks visited BBA. I am surprised to see SK Manna, currently Head Immunology at an Institute in India failed to make to the list, inspite of dozens and dozens of JBC, JI papers and documeted data manipulation. To me Dr. Manna should lead the list.
@Sup: You are back on this forum. Don’t worry my friend. I understand your anguish. Many of us who did not want to work his style went through the same kind of humiliation and had to quit the lab sooner or later because we did not have those things in our hands (heart) that can generate quick publications for him. But you know we are not losser either and we are proud of what we did after quitting that great lab. Infact if MD Anderson cancer center look at their database, they will find that the number of post-docs who left his lab within days and months of joining is at least 20 times higher compared to those who stayed longer and became super-productive. This new crop of post-docs is too ambitious to do research. Being a Hindu I hope you believe in “Karma” and you know that the people who have done this “mass fraud” will have to pay back someday in this life only. God bless you.
These are the total papers of these people with BBA. Not all the papers have problems.
@ Michael Warner: I know that most of them went back to India and replicating what their guru has taught them to do here in his lab. Some of them still here in US dreaming that they could fetch a faculty job in US…
One of them is:
http://profiles.psu.edu/profiles/ProfileDetails.aspx?From=SE&Person=1020
Y. Takada missing in the list: 42 papers.
Hey…any one know where they are now?
just discovered that another guy Harikumar is also here in actually a very good researcher Sarah Speigel lab. I know her personally, she is wonderful scientist, she may have taken this guy because of his background in inflammation but I am praying to God that this guy is not doing the same tricks that he did in the lab of BBA, cause he may spoil the reputation of Dr. Spiegel as well….
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harikumarkb
http://www.biochemistry.vcu.edu/directory/faculty/spiegel.html
but using your own logic.. how can he spoil the reputation of Spiegel when the PI is responsible for everything ???
http://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/profiles/profile/person/97889
this guy Ramaswamy Kannappan, Ph.D. is at Harvard….dreaming for a faculty position…
wow….see this guy:
http://bio.tsu.edu/faculty/shishodia.html
he is spoiling and corrupting Indian science by setting himself as a teacher in a prominent Indian university Banaras Hindu University..
Only God can save those students who are being taught and trained by him….
sorry I did not read it right earlier..Shishodia is working right here at Texas Southern University….
I do not think any of Shishodia’s papers has a problem.
Really? Jigen’s blog would suggest otherwise! Shishodia’s name is all over the dodgy papers. I’d put him right up there with Prasad, Yadav, Sung, Sethi, Manna, and the others who have waaaaay too many papers than is feasible.
FYI, on the topic of where Aggarwal’s minions have gone to, Vivek Yadav is now a post-doc in Oklahoma. AFAIK, Sung and Prasad were still working in Aggarwal’s lab as recently as January.
addit1: wait man….I am going to report some irregularities in Shishodia’s papers too that I have found out already….tell Shishir shishodia that he is going to get a letter soon from ORI…
Dr. Shishodia inherited Dr. Manna legacy.
Shishodia has manna’s legacy.
Shisodia is still doing good. Is it not our duty to look at all shisodias who are involved in wrong science. So why only sishodia why not Dr. Sethi or Dr. Sahu (the great nanotechnologist?) Why pinpointed targeting?
8 possible reason for people to blog about BBA
1. Failure in his lab
2. Inability to work in his work set up
3. Lack of good job after leaving BBA lab
4. Rivalry with other colleagues from BBA lab
5. Genuine concern about science and research ethics
6. Habbitual blogging (blah blah blah)
7. Frustration in personal life / carrier
8. Concern about another blogger.
You forgot another important category –
9. Associates of BBA who benefited from this research and are now scared of truth coming out
Why should not be them? It is criminal offence. Misuse of public money means only option is to go to jail.
I have done a background check on Indian bloggers hre. For majority of them reason is 1-4, but for three of them the reason is 7-8.
There is not a single blogger here with successful scientific career and peaceful personal life.
addit1: you are biggest dumb on the earth…I have checked myself and found that 70 percent of these bloggers have at least 1 RO1 grant in US…
and your background check tells that you are still a postdoc…struggling for papers….
Hello addit1,
You r totally wrong. Some of us are in such powerful positions, once you know our identity you wouldn’t dare to write in this blog. We see your successful scientific career and very very peaceful personal life that you attained at the cost of intigerity.
Mimi I know everything about you. If you want I can tell you everything (from your date and place of birth till present day employment).
What do you mean by powerful position?
How about something about you Addit1? From india, living in houston not with BBA but a co-author with him on 8 papers … right or is it just a coincidence that BBA has a co-author on 8 papers with same initials as yours?
According to my analysis you probably belong to category 9 mentioned above.
A common feature of category 9 people is that they have nothing to do with 5 but everything to do with 8
Is it because without a ‘carrier’ there is going to be no ‘career’ for people like you?
Top 3 of BBA followers:
1) SUNG Bokyung, 88 papers co-authored: http://www2.mdanderson.org/app/peoplefinder/person.cfm?id=3D5ADAD7C81D
2) SETHI Gautam, 58 papers co-authored: http://www.med.nus.edu.sg/medphc/staff/academic/GSethi.htm
3) SHISHODIA S, 51 papers co-authored: http://bio.tsu.edu/faculty/shishodia.html
The no. 2-3 had moved on to faculty positions. I am surprised that Sung B (no. 1) stays in MD Anderson as instructor! 🙂
Can somebody analyse huge number of papers, Dr S K sahoo who is Chairman of nanotechnology lab in India has published in a very brief period of time?
Biomaterials 31 (2010) 9340-9356 No doublet done, FL1 and FL2 voltage altered.Fig 7: No sub G1 peak as allthe figures have been edited and pasted. The Authors have examined BrdU incorporation using linear scale on X axis. It has to be on log scale.Fig.8: Moreover the Authors have mentioned use of RNAse whereas DNAse should have been used to expose incorporated BrdU. Fig.10: FL1 and FL2 voltages have not been properly set to detect double negative cells. Moreover FL2 voltage has been decresed to show double positive cells as Annexine positive only.
Biomaterials 31 (2010) 6597-6611 Ungated data and altered FL1 voltage. Fig 9: The Authors have photoedited this data as suggested by their FL1 vs counts histogram (FL1 vs FL2).Clearly in native curcumin FL1 voltage has been altered as with nanoparticulate curcumin.
Acta Biomaterialia 6 (2010) 3120-3131 Ungated cells false positive binding of Annexin FL1 has been altered.Look at fig 7.FL1 voltage has been altered as the double negatives have been moved on X axis.
European Journal of Pharmacology 670 (2011) 372-383: Fig9: The authors have for the first time reported about analysing 10,000 gated cells. Earlier they were not doing this.
Acta Biomaterialia 7(2011) 3656-3669: Fig6a: Ungated cells showing false positive staining for Annexin V. Non specific binding (ungated cells), FL1/FL2 voltages altered.
Nanomedicine: nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine 7 (2011) 859-870 Fig.5 FL1 and FL2 voltages clearly altered in shown samples to show apoptosis. Ungated cells have been used which shows false positive staining for Annexin V.
More papers from the above school are being analysed.
BBA holds patents on curcumin (Treatment of human multiple myeloma by curcumin Aggarwal, B. B. as inventor; granted on March 27th, 2007 (US 7,196,105 B2); Curcumin, analogues of curcumin and novel uses thereof. Aggarwal, B.B. as inventor(s). International Publication No. WO95/18606, date 7/13/95. and a couple of other related ones).
He is also listed as Advisory Board and Founding member, Curry Pharmaceutical, Advisory Board and Founding member, Vantari Pharmaceutical, Advisory Board and Founding member, Charak International; Scientific Advisor and Founder (company website lists him as one of the board directors and curcumin capsules available for $15).
I would think that these would constitute conflict of interest but none of his publications on curcumin report it.
To list a few
1. Phase II Trial of Curcumin in Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer (Clin Cancer Res July 15, 2008 14;) conflict of interest state – V. Badmaev is employed by Sabinsa.
What about BBA?
2. Curcumin circumvents chemoresistance in vitro and potentiates the effect of thalidomide and bortezomib against human multiple myeloma in nude mice model Mol Cancer Ther April 2009 8; 959 – Disclosure – Curcumin is commonly available from numerous health food stores and various companies, including Indogen which was set up by spouse of one of the authors (B.B. Aggarwal). No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Why no mention of the patent held by BBA or his role in other companies involved in marketing of curcumin?
3. Cyclodextrin-complexed curcumin exhibits anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative activities superior to those of curcumin through higher cellular uptake Biochem Pharmacol. 2010 October 1; 80(7): 1021–1032. – mentions Dr. Jaakko Parkkinen as an inventor in a patent application on the cyclodextrin curcumin and a share holder in a company that owns the rights for the patent application but ignores the associations of corresponding author.
4. Curcumin Selectively Induces Apoptosis in Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma Cell Lines and Patients’ PBMCs: Potential Role for STAT-3 and NF-κB Signaling Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2010) 130, 2110–2119 The authors state no conflict of interest.
5. Curcumin Modulates the Radiosensitivity of Colorectal Cancer Cells by Suppressing Constitutive and Inducible NF-κB Activity Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2009 October 1; 75(2): 534–542.Conflict of interest: No conflicts of interest
This is from someone who was a member of the conflict of interest committee (2007-09). Were these in accordance with the MDACC policies or is MDACC looking into these too?
@addit1, looks like you are trained not only in scientific theft but also in identity theft. BTW, a position is powerful when it is gives dignity, respect and honor in life
TR= addit? Or TR+addit=BBA?
While we appreciate the free flow of ideas, we have had to unapprove several very abusive comments in the past few days. Please refrain from ad hominem attacks, as they undermine this community’s attempts to improve our understanding of the scientific process.
Thanks Ivan reinforcing this. We have seen this in other blogs. We have had so much uncovered on this issue and I am sure ORI or other bodies who are investigating this issue should take note of these points which might be associated with the case. We hope for the best and truth will come out one day.
Dear All,
Now after carefully looking at all the data in question produced in BBA’ lab, I agree with you guys that there has been serious violation of research ethics and I also feel that there is something fishy with BBA and his associates who have published all these papers without much substance in it. As a sincere scientist, I too would appreciate if ORI can look into these points raised above and come to a conclusion on one of the most debated scientific misconduct in United States in recent history….
It’s all about money-just imagine how low he was been doing it (>10years)
His salary last year was >200k (Salaries are public at a state institute like MD Anderson)
For that salary I would believe that the sky is red.
I am surprised that Cancer Res. 2010 Nov 1;70(21):8695-705 did not make it to the list or may be the list is not updated as yet. It has the same problem of ‘universal loading control’ (see figures 3c-d & 6c-d).
Fig 3 c-d have the same loading control but Bcl-2 is not from the same gel/ blot as some of the others as a band can be seen on the left in Bcl-2 blot but not in others with similar or more spacing!
Fig 6c the Bcl-xL blot seems to be missing the lane background on increasing the contrast in the last lane as compared to lanes 1-3. A bubble or something more?
6d MMP-9 does not appear to have come from the same gel as others as a portion of adjacent band can be seen on to the left in MMP-9 blot but not in others (entire fig 6 blots) even with similar spacing or more.
6a signal present in the well of first 3 lanes but missing from the last lane. Was equivalent sample actually loaded? Why is it not required to have a control for EMSA? Though with the way loading is being done for the westerns I do not know how meaningful will any control be for people who just want publications.
These were some of the very obvious … may be something more is still amiss in the paper
I agree with you…these figures are also compromised in their integrity….waiting for this paper too to make to the list of retracted papers….
Does anybody know whats happening in the case of Bharat Aggarwal? Is his lab closed or is he still continuing his dubious work on turmeric powder?
Yes, Jackson..let the noble people decide on this. In the mean time, these scientists can freely give keynote address, plenary lectures and invited talks at international conferences – sometimes they do talk about scientific misconduct….
World is alive because of some good people. Scientific misconduct is nothiing but criminal offence. Let the lab of Dr. Aggarwal, Dr. Sunil Manna, Dr. Sethi and Dr. Sishodia be sealed first. Truth will eventually come out. We have hard evidence of fabricated data. This will be a great message to the whole scientific world. Regarding Dr. Manna if his appointment as the Head in a Govt Institute in India is based on the publications in MDA then Govt. of India can cancel his appointment. Regarding Gandhi’s comment that BBA will have the last laugh. Well after retraction of paper he should hide his face for rest of his life.
Dear Daff67 Yes why they should not have? Everybody is trained how to change the voltage and very confident on using ungated cells.
@Daff67 you have surfaced all of a sudden. Do you address the questions which I have raised or simply in a protecktive mode?
Look at the number of fabricated data with Journal name etc I provided above. I invite all the experts in the concerned field to comment on them.
I urge all the retraction watchers to post their comment on why these papers should not be retracted immediately!
@P Jackson: I will look through those papers …can you just post at least one or two irregularities in those papers?
I request a group to come forward and analyse the data and if there is manipulation pl expose these. This will be another lesson to unethical scientists. Any request for input from my side is always welkome.
I am really sad that energetik people are are not komming to scrutinise the unethikal science.
Thanks Ressci. Here are some.
Biomaterials 31 (2010) 9340-9356 No doublet done, FL1 and FL2 voltage altered.Fig 7: No sub G1 peak as allthe figures have been edited and pasted. The Authors have examined BrdU incorporation using linear scale on X axis. It has to be on log scale.Fig.8: Moreover the Authors have mentioned use of RNAse whereas DNAse should have been used to expose incorporated BrdU. Fig.10: FL1 and FL2 voltages have not been properly set to detect double negative cells. Moreover FL2 voltage has been decresed to show double positive cells as Annexine positive only.
Biomaterials 31 (2010) 6597-6611 Ungated data and altered FL1 voltage. Fig 9: The Authors have photoedited this data as suggested by their FL1 vs counts histogram (FL1 vs FL2).Clearly in native curcumin FL1 voltage has been altered as with nanoparticulate curcumin.
Acta Biomaterialia 6 (2010) 3120-3131 Ungated cells false positive binding of Annexin FL1 has been altered.Look at fig 7.FL1 voltage has been altered as the double negatives have been moved on X axis.
European Journal of Pharmacology 670 (2011) 372-383: Fig9: The authors have for the first time reported about analysing 10,000 gated cells. Earlier they were not doing this.
Acta Biomaterialia 7(2011) 3656-3669: Fig6a: Ungated cells showing false positive staining for Annexin V. Non specific binding (ungated cells), FL1/FL2 voltages altered.
Nanomedicine: nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine 7 (2011) 859-870 Fig.5 FL1 and FL2 voltages clearly altered in shown samples to show apoptosis. Ungated cells have been used which shows false positive staining for Annexin V.
More papers from the above school are being analysed.
P Jackson – I am not clear as to how you have made the conclusions about alterations in voltage settings etc on the basis on the data presented in the figures. IMO this appears to be a chemistry group who would have collaborated with some one having knowledge about FC or used some core facility for charge unless you were the person doing those alterations under the promise of authorship or such and when that didn’t materialize you want to expose them?
Biomaterials 2010 – Fig 7- How do you know “no doublet done”? How can you say figures have been edited to remove subG1 DNA containing cells? The left edge of the histograms does not show a sharp straight line indicative of such manipulation and neither is the G1 peak touching the Y axis. If these people were smart enough for that then I would expect them to also similarly remove cells with >4N DNA. BrdU is on the Y-axis and not X-axis and yes the norm is to acquire those in log scale but use of DNAse for exposing incorporated BrdU? They have clearly mentioned the denaturing step in their methods which is required for exposing the incorporated BrdU and then counter staining has been done with RNAse-PI. If DNAse is used to digest the DNA then what will PI stain?
Fig10 – Yes they could have increased the FL2 voltage to bring up the population but the gating would depend upon their negative control so the the gates (quadrant) too would have moved up and so the same population would still be only annexin positive. The position of their gating quadrant is the same across treatment groups and with it they have shown the presence of all 4 different populations.
If this is the kind of analysis you have done on the rest of the papers too then I don’t think its worth anything.
Lok at the analysis done afterwards. Anybody who has acquired expertise in flow cytometry will understand the clear message. Afterwards the authors have indirectly admitted the irresgularities in their interpretations as after a while they have started to consider gated population. Dear WB the original files can never tell lies. believe me or not there are alternations of data. But wait a while. Truth shall be revealed with more and more evidences. Watch it!!!
I am not sure whether the retraction watchers are keenly analysing my observations. The most important reason as to why I got involved with this blog is to expose many so called great achievers in science.
Unfortunately I see very limited interactions to my comments. Anyway, it is my duty to convey the scientific world where the fault lies. if the experts in the said field can review these inputs I have to believe that we are definitely performing the jobs of retraction watchers. Tells me honestly if we admit that we have taken ungated population of cells as control is it not equivalent to do a western blotting without house keeping genes as control. I strongly believe that the entire paper which is primarily focussed on apoptosis and ungated cells are the control is absolutely rejectable by scientific community. If the supervisor is still learning let him learn. But not at the cost of peer reviewed publications. I urge the sci communities to look at each paper and extend their opinion about the interpretation of the data. secondly you go on increasing the voltage and and decreasing it you shall see what ever you want. The early apoptotic cells can be necrotic the necrotic cells can be apoptotic. Can somebody expert in the field of apoptosis come forward and challenge me on my remark that fc analysis based on the data of ungated cells should be equated with trash. Wait for more analysis on several papers from different Indian Institutes.
Look at BA. Many of his papers are under scrutiny because the kontrols are same. What is the difference in the papers from nanotech skool if the controls are not relevant! So why you targeting BA but not everybody who has chosen his path!
Yes, it is frustrating. experts in the field will not investigate these things. We can do this but you see we have other responsibilities as well. I do this for science when I have time. I know it will be too late as these people keep giving lectures as key note speakers in many conferences world-wide though their papers are under investigation. They keep publishing and getting funded by their university. No university will investigate any of their employees unless formal complaint is made……..
Thanks ResSci. Pl lok at the beautiful representative Flow cytometrik analysis of apoptosis in Mujoo K et al Cancer Res 2001, 61,5486. When cells moving into apoptosis how the duble negative cell population is decreasing. Double negative cell population pattern remains almost same. Luk at the data in figure10 (BIOMATERIALS 31 (2010) 9340). Will you not admit the double negative pattern shows distinct difference. Do you know why? By changing the voltage the cells are either compressed or expanded that to mind it they are ungated cells. This is unethical science. We are not targeting person. We are targeting unethical science. So I do not believe one person one time. What about others? Why should not we also think about time factor. Thousands of good scientists are there. If one group is engaged in one job let the second group be engaged in the second job.
Is BBA having the last laugh as per Gandhi!
Dear Ressci When you shall have the time to lok at all the manipulations done which was identified in many of my postings?
Nobody tried to analyse what I am saying in this blog. But there is a great news that a guy known as Dr Gopal Kundy, Chairman of the nanoteknonology lab in DBT and most probably BBA are kreating a center of excellence for Nanoscience in India. Each one of them is famous for their prololifik publikations. I now agree BBA will have his last laugh.
In reply to P Jackson May 2, 2012 at 12:44 pm.
“targeting BA but not everybody”
One case at a time.
We are not targeting person. We are targeting unethical science. So I do not believe one person one time. What about others? Why should not we also think about time factor. Thousands of good scientists are there. If one group is engaged in one job let the second group be engaged in the second job.
Kome on and give a reply. I believe we all are fighting for Science.
Nobody tried to analyse what I am saying in this blog. But now there is a great news that a guy known as Dr Gopal Kundy, Chairman of the nanoteknonology lab in DBT and most probably BBA are kreating a center of excellence for Nanoscience in India. Each one of them is famous for their prololifik publikations. I now agree, that BBA will have his last laugh. Some unknown great blessings on the above group of great scientists! They run the business as ususal and we are just wasting our time for nothing!
check this out, nothing stops him from publishing.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22178471
@Mimi What ca we do do stop these unethikal scientists? Do you mean that the world belongs to BBA, Gopal Kundi and Dr S Sahu
P.Jackson: i wish i had time to help you. Please follow the recent retraction watch blog on a Korean professor whose articles are retracted in Antioxidant Redox Signalling journal. You may want to compile your observations on those individuals and try sending them to the journals. i am really sorry – I am totally busy with some more important stuff. I will catch up with you later.
Wonderful. Nobody can stop them. Probably we should not waste our valuable time.
@mimi and @vigilante @ Ressci
Can you please visit nanotechmanipulation blog and leave your comment?
None of this surprises me. MD Anderson is a giant garbage hole of corp waste and inefficiency. The culture is beyond toxic and is a cancer preventing any real breakthroughs. Their top down management approach, lack of communication, and a sense of accountability ensures ethics issues. Take it from someone on this inside, this place is a massive waste of public funds.
There has been a constant competition to be ahead in scientific community with one’s own data as triumph card..however this has lead to rise in various types of manipulations and new way of fabrication to present the data through research articles. This link gives the glimpse of some papers that come under scanner for such disgraceful works…http://samjson.wordpress.com
Awesome stuff.great mockery of science.
@ Scienceguy: Its truly a mockery of science but the group is still enjoying the scientific stardom with such fake datas. We need to stop this by letting the reputed scientists investigate these manipulated datas.
Time is very important in researcher life. This blog has started to give valuable directions for those who are sopling their times in various ways.
P.Jackson: this is what going to happen, I guess….what is going on other former postdocs of BA?
P.Jackson: this is what going to happen, I guess…
what is going on other former postdocs of BA?