A materials scientist in Japan was found guilty of plagiarism and fabrication of data in a May 2019 paper, resulting in a six-month suspension, according to her institution.
Ye Zhang, of the Bioinspired Soft Matter Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), was the senior author of “Enzyme-mediated dual-targeted-assembly realizes a synergistic anticancer effect,” which appeared in Chemical Communications on May 9, 2019. The paper has been cited seven times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.
According to OIST’s report on the case, five days after publication of the paper, a post-doc at the university filed a complaint with the school’s hotline, alleging that the article contained fabrication and plagiarism.
A month later, Zhang submitted a revised version of the paper to the journal, which issued the following correction:
The authors regret that the supporting information figure citations in the text on page 6129 are incorrect as the ESI available online has been updated. The correct citations are as follows. On page 6129 the sentence beginning, “Compared to the 90% closure rate…” should read, “Compared to the 90% closure rate of the control wound healing experiment, single-administration of 1 at 50 μM and 100 μM concentrations resulted in 48% and 30% closure rates (Fig. S9 and S10, ESI†), while single-administration of 2 resulted in 40% and 20% closure rates, respectively (Fig. S9 and S11, ESI†). Co-administration at the same total concentrations led to 38% and 16% closure rates, respectively (Fig. S9 and S12, ESI†). Apparently, co-administration shows slightly higher inhibition efficacy than both single-administrations in a 2D cell culture. In a 3D cell culture, co-administration exhibited strong inhibition efficacy in the migration of HeLa spheroids (Fig. 5B), superior to single-administrations. HeLa spheroids under the treatment of 1 at concentrations of 50 μM and 100 μM exhibit 87% and 78% of the total area of the control experiment after 72 hours, respectively (Fig. 5C and Fig. S13, ESI†).” Additionally, the sentence beginning, “In the 3D cell culture…” should read “In the 3D cell culture, PLAP expression of HeLa cells is twice as high as in the 2D cell culture (Fig. S14, ESI†).”
The authors regret that Fig. 2 is incorrect. The images in Fig. 2A do not indicate a clear fluorescence intensity difference, and the labels for Fig. 2B and C are incorrect. The correct version of Fig. 2 is presented here.
Additionally, the second author should have been shown as “Shijin Zhang” to indicate equal contribution.
The Royal Society of Chemistry apologises for these errors and any consequent inconvenience to authors and readers.
The investigators found the following:
1. Figures obtained by the Whistleblower were used without acknowledgment.
2. TEM images of lysosomes isolated from A549 cells were incorrectly described as from HeLa cells.
3. The existence of compounds 1 and 2 reported in the paper is not supported by the published spectra.
The report also noted that Zhang
failed to enforce compliance with OIST international standards of research ethics among the co-authors under her supervision
Zhang also failed
to keep accurate notes in laboratory notebooks, making attribution and description of work difficult.
The OIST report concluded:
The quality of the work described in this paper and its corrected version falls far below the standards expected at OIST. The violation of scientific ethics (plagiarism, falsification, or fabrication), whether deliberate or through negligence, is serious research misconduct.
The report stated that Zhang failed to appear for a hearing last January about the inquiry, but appealed the verdict in September after she was found guilty. That appeal was rejected in mid-November. Zhang also has refused to retract her article. In response, OIST said it would express concern about the paper to the journal.
Zhang has not yet responded to a request for comment. [See an update on this post.]
Hat tip: Lemonstoism, author of World Fluctuation Watch
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