Editor who opined on author excuses has paper subjected to an expression of concern

A study co-authored by an editor who has previously opined on common excuses by authors about research misconduct has received an expression of concern.

The paper’s first author defended the work, explaining that the experiments in question were repeated multiple times, and that the results are “valid and reproducible.”

The study, titled, “CK1δ modulates the transcriptional activity of ERα via AIB1 in an estrogen-dependent manner and regulates ERα–AIB1 interactions,” was published in Nucleic Acids Research in April 2009. It has been cited 20 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

In March 2017, an anonymous user on PubPeer flagged several images in the paper, all of them immunoblots. Georgios Giamas, the study’s first author and now a professor at the University of Sussex, defended the work at that time, writing that he had performed “thousands” of these experiments and that “there were occasions that certain results/data were indeed ‘strangely similar.’” He attributed the similarities in the images to a “technical issue,” explaining that they had “repeated these experiments (as we do for every single one) at least 3x times; therefore, the results/conclusions presented in this manuscript are valid and reproducible.”

After those initial PubPeer comments, Nucleic Acids Research launched an investigation into the study, according to editor-in-chief Keith Fox. Giamas repeated the experiments and shared those new data with the journal, he explained on PubPeer. 

In May, as the journal’s investigation proceeded, an “unregistered account” responded to the PubPeer whistleblower, signing their message as “Justin Stebbing,” the name of the study’s corresponding author and an oncologist at Imperial College London:

You have an extraordinary amount of time on your hands. Anonymous complaints lose all credibility in my view and as Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene, if complaints remain anonymous they are in general not dealt with. It is cowardly and anyone with conviction should name themselves – this is in accordance with basic principles of justice. We have repeated experiments and written to the journal, Justin Stebbing

Separately, Stebbing, who has not responded to our requests for comment, was recently “accused of inappropriately treating terminally ill cancer patients, in some cases overstating the benefits of treatment or treating patients who had just weeks to live,” according to Medscape. He “has admitted getting too close to a vulnerable cancer patient whom he wrongly treated after telling her she had just months to live,” but denies most of the charges.

In 2017, Stebbing co-authored an article in Oncogene citing eight excuses that he frequently hears as an editor from authors whose research integrity is questioned. One excuse is that the original data are missing — which becomes more valid as time passes — while another is that ‘the results have been replicated by ourselves or others, so the image manipulation is irrelevant.’ 

In July 2017, Nucleic Acids Research said that they were “satisfied” with the authors’ response, and “agree that the figures have not been unethically altered,” according to Giamas. The editors concluded: “We now consider this case closed.”

Then, on February 2 of this year, the case was reopened after science sleuth Elisabeth Bik posted on the PubPeer message board that she agreed with the original whistleblower and would “be happy to testify in person for any research integrity board that the similarities in the figures of this paper are very unexpected, and very, very unlikely to have happened by a technical issue.”

The journal’s second investigation also did not find any “quantitative evidence of image splicing,” according to Fox. Still, the journal issued an expression of concern on March 8, and asked Imperial College London to investigate the paper. The expression of concern reads, in part:

Following comments published on PubPeer, the Editors were first alerted by the Authors in 2017, and more recently by a Reader, that the blots depicted in several figures show unusual levels of similarity.

Details have been published in PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/1CCAC58543784D1B17C8416A6D97C2

The Authors have not been able to provide the original data. Therefore, following COPE guidelines, we are referring this to the Authors’ institution. The Editors advise Readers to examine the details of this study with particular care.

When we asked Fox why they reopened the case, he sent a statement and asked that it be published in its entirety. It reads:

Thank you for contacting us about this Expression of Concern.

We did investigate the issue in 2017, when we were alerted by a whistle blower and then the authors, of the comments in PubPeer. Using the tools available to us at the time we could find no evidence of image manipulations or splicing that would explain the apparent similarity of some of the bands. The authors also sent a rebuttal to the accusations that the bands were identical. According to COPE guidelines we therefore did not proceed further.

In February 2021 we were contacted by another whistle blower, as well as the authors and so we re-opened the case. While we have still not been able to detect any direct quantitative evidence of image splicing, the author’s most recent response and inability to provide the original data led us to decide that, following COPE guidelines, we should publish an EoC and ask the authors’ institution to investigate.

The Editors of Nucleic Acids Research always take any allegations of fraud or breaches of academic integrity very seriously and we carefully follow COPE guidelines in every instance. If allegations are upheld then we published Expressions of Concern or Retractions, as appropriate.

In response to an email from Retraction Watch, asking if he agreed with the editors’ decision to issue the expression of concern now, and whether he was aware of any image manipulation, Giamas said:

I cannot speak on behalf of NAR about their decision to issue now an EoC, following their previous statement in 2017: ‘We are satisfied with your response and the evidence provided and agree that the figures have not been unethically altered. We now consider this case closed’. Nevertheless, we respect their decision.

Regarding our comments, due to the fact that the original data are not available, we cannot categorically demonstrate that figure editing and image compression did not unnaturally alter the appearance of some of the blots.

Though Giamas said that he had repeated the experiments, and that the study’s results were replicable, he was not willing to share those data with us, saying:

As this is an ongoing investigation, the data have been made available to the journal (as mentioned in our statement) and to Imperial College as well.

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