A high-profile Canadian urologist received an editorial expression of concern for one of his papers this month, after anonymous comments on PubPeer flagged suspected data duplication in dozens of his articles.
By our count, sleuths have flagged 30 papers co-authored by Martin Gleave, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and co-founder of the Vancouver Prostate Centre. According to the posts on PubPeer, images in these studies appear “much more similar than expected” based on analyses using the similarity detection software ImageTwin. The issues include similarities within individual papers and across multiple publications, with some comments suggesting the alleged reuse of tumor specimens.
Gleave, an appointee to the Order of Canada for his work developing treatments for prostate cancer, has received more than $120 million (approximately $84 million USD) in funding throughout his career, according to his profile on the Vancouver Prostate Centre website. He is also a co-founder of OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, with several of the findings from the flagged papers connected to the company and related patents.
In an email to Retraction Watch, Gleave stated, “We are taking the comments seriously, and assessing them internally now,” adding it would take “a couple of months to understand and respond to the issues.” He declined to speculate on how the mistakes might have occurred, writing that he couldn’t provide insights “at this time,” but maintained the errors did not affect the findings or conclusions of the papers.
A media representative at the University of British Columbia acknowledged the PubPeer comments, but declined to comment on whether the works were under investigation, stating the university does not “discuss employee matters.”
This month, the British Journal of Cancer, a Springer Nature publication, published an expression of concern for the 2012 paper “Clusterin inhibition using OGX-011 synergistically enhances antitumour activity of sorafenib in a human renal cell carcinoma model.” The paper, a collaboration between Gleave and researchers from Kobe University in Japan, is one of the 30 flagged on PubPeer. It has been cited 36 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
The journal’s notice cites “concerns” about similarities between Western blots meant to represent different experimental conditions. The expression of concern follows a June post on PubPeer in which an anonymous commenter had reported the similarities, which appeared to involve horizontal and vertical resizing of the images. According to the journal, the original data are no longer available, and “Readers are therefore advised to interpret these results with caution.”
Four more of the 30 papers are published in other Springer Nature journals:
- Novel inhibition of AKR1C3 and androgen receptor axis by PTUPB synergizes enzalutamide treatment in advanced prostate cancer, Oncogene, 2023
- Clusterin facilitates stress-induced lipidation of LC3 and autophagosome biogenesis to enhance cancer cell survival, Nature Communications, 2014
- Hsp27 silencing coordinately inhibits proliferation and promotes Fas-induced apoptosis by regulating the PEA-15 molecular switch, Cell Death and Differentiation, 2012
- Heat shock protein 27 confers resistance to androgen ablation and chemotherapy in prostate cancer cells through eIF4E, Oncogene, 2010
A spokesperson from Springer Nature, Alice Kay, confirmed the publisher is “aware of the concerns and [is] looking into them” and said editors would decide on appropriate action once they had established the facts.
Another of Gleave’s papers, “Suppression of Heat Shock Protein 27 Using OGX-427 Induces Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Potentiates Heat Shock Protein 90 Inhibitors to Delay Castrate-resistant Prostate Cancer”, published in European Urology in 2014, was corrected in 2016 for mislabeling and duplication of data. But the journal doesn’t appear to have addressed the more recent concerns about additional data duplications.
Several of the papers flagged originated from the lab of Xuesen Dong, a frequent co-author with Gleave and a senior research scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and professor at the University of British Columbia. They include:
- Consensus PP1 binding motifs regulate transcriptional corepression and alternative RNA splicing activities of the steroid receptor coregulators, p54nrb and PSF, Molecular Endocrinology, 2011
- Prostate stromal cells express the progesterone receptor to control cancer cell mobility, PLoS ONE, 2014
- UGT2B17 Expedites Progression of Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancers by Promoting Ligand-Independent AR Signaling, Cancer Research, 2016
- Catalytic inhibitors of DNA topoisomerase II suppress the androgen receptor signaling and prostate cancer progression, Oncotarget, 2015
- Downregulation of c-SRC kinase CSK promotes castration resistant prostate cancer and pinpoints a novel disease subclass, Oncotarget, 2015
- Expression and function of the progesterone receptor in human prostate stroma provide novel insights to cell proliferation control, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2013
For the first five papers listed above, Dong attributed the errors to students who “inadvertently inserted incorrect images into the figures,” he wrote in an email to Retraction Watch. He explained most of the issues involve Western blots, “which can appear very similar” or originate from “experiments with comparable designs. The images “were often labeled with file names that differed by only one letter or a small detail,” he stated.
“Compounding the issue, many of these incorrect images were part of larger composite figures containing up to 30 subfigures, which made the errors more challenging to identify,” he added. Dong also said the method his lab used to develop Western blots may have contributed to “flipped images being saved and later incorporated into figures.”
Addressing concerns about the final paper in question, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2013, Dong claimed “there is no mistake” in the figure referenced in the PubPeer comment.
According to emails seen by Retraction Watch, Oncotarget contacted Dong in late June regarding “image irregularities” in two of his papers published in the journal. That followed anonymous comments on PubPeer detailing similarities between images earlier the same month.
For the 2015 paper “Downregulation of c-SRC kinase CSK promotes castration resistant prostate cancer and pinpoints a novel disease subclass” published in Oncotarget, Dong echoed the explanation he provided to Retraction Watch. He told the journal manager the project “involved a large amount of immunoblotting assays, and all loading controls looked similar. Therefore the two actin images were mistakenly inserted.” He added, “Regardless, these minor mistakes did not affect the conclusion we have drawn.”
In the case of “Catalytic inhibitors of DNA topoisomerase II suppress the androgen receptor signaling and prostate cancer progression,” another 2015 paper in Oncotarget, the journal pointed out similarities to an earlier publication in Cell Death and Disease. Dong explained that the first author, Haolong Li, had been working on the two publications simultaneously.
“Each project involved a large amount of western blotting assays,” he told the journal. “And all images for the loading controls look very similar and easily misplaced.” No corrections have yet been posted for the Oncotarget papers, and the journal has not responded to requests for comment.
In late November, Dong’s co-authors reached out to the other three journals which published papers containing erroneous data to request corrections, according to emails shared with Retraction Watch. None so far has been corrected.
Another 14 of Gleave’s papers flagged on PubPeer were published in American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journals, with six of them in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. In an email, Christine Battle, publisher and vice president of scientific publications at AACR, wrote they would be examining the articles and will correct or retract if required.
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The data don’t affect our conclusions. Yeah, not a scientist.
Exactly. This canned response provided by researchers who get caught faking data is so predictable and telling.
Of course the data affects the conclusions. And explains why your research is a dead end for improving health. It only improves grant-funding and citation counts.
120$ milllion for publication some superficial experiments without clinical translation and lack of benefit to the patients…What a waste of money for Canada…
The journals will not do anything even if pushed into a corner. Their profits depend on it.
“Another 14 of Gleave’s papers flagged on PubPeer were published in American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journals, with six of them in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. ”
That figures. The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) stable of journals is a soft touch. Bothered about protecting to the American people from cancer, think again.
Another prominent prostate cancer researcher with more than his fair share of negative comments at Pubpeer.
https://health.ucdavis.edu/urology/team/1438/allen-gao—cancer-sacramento/
Ignore the Guidelines entry, so many authors that the search picks it up.
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=allen+c+gao
“In an email to Retraction Watch, Gleave stated, “We are taking the comments seriously, and assessing them internally now,” adding it would take “a couple of months to understand and respond to the issues.” ”
That is inordinately slow. Deliberate, or a bit thick?
Perhaps it would be better if the comments were assessed “externally” by independent people, those who have no common financial interests, have no published with Martin Gleave, not from the University of British Columbia, and not from the small netherworld of prostate cancer research, but by people who work in more general cell-related science.
OncoGenex, the pharmaceutical company associated with this group, merged in 2017 with AchieveLife Sciences, and apparently has no further active human trials in prostate cancer. AchieveLife Sciences is promoting the use of cytisinicline in smoking cessation and has published a trial of this agent with positive results (JAMA 2023: 330, 152-160).
“OncoGenex, the pharmaceutical company associated with this group, merged in 2017 with AchieveLife Sciences, and apparently has no further active human trials in prostate cancer.”
That figures!
Problematic data in Nature. https://pubpeer.com/publications/AECD4AC973F3FC89FE755EB52ACE0A#1
Minor correction: it was in Nature Communications, not the main Nature journal. But your point stands.
Interesting
08 February 2025 retraction for Martin Gleave (amongst others) from FASEB J.
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/fsb2.70367
RETRACTION: D. Thuringer, G. Jego, G. Wettstein, O. Terrier, L. Cronier, N. Yousfi, S. Hébrard, A. Bouchot, A. Hazoumé, A.-L. Joly, M. Gleave, M. Rosa-Calatrava, E. Solary, and C. Garrido, “Extracellular HSP27 Mediates Angiogenesis Through Toll-Like Receptor 3,” The FASEB Journal 27, no. 10 (2013): 4169-4183, https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.12-226977
The above article, published online on 26 June 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors; the journal Editor-in-Chief, Loren E. Wold; the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology; and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed upon following an investigation into concerns raised by a third party which revealed inappropriate image panel duplications between this (Figure 3A) and another article published previously in a different scientific context. The investigation also revealed that the western blot panels of Figure 4E were later reused in a publication of the same author group, depicting different experimental conditions. Due to the number and the level of errors identified in the published figures, the authors and the editors have lost confidence in the presented data and consider the conclusions substantially compromised.
12 February 2025 correction for Martin Gleave.
https://www.oncotarget.com/article/28693/pdf/
Correction: Downregulation of c-SRC kinase CSK promotescastration resistant prostate cancer and pinpoints a noveldisease subclassChih-Cheng Yang1,2, Ladan Fazli6, Salvatore Loguercio3,7, Irina Zharkikh4, PedroAza-Blanc2, Martin E. Gleave6 and Dieter A. Wolf1,3,51Tumor Initiation & Maintenance Program, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA2Functional Genomics Core, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA3San Diego Center for Systems Biology, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA4Tumor Analysis Core, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA5School of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Center for Stress Signaling Networks, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China6Vancouver Prostate Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3Z67Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USAPublished: February 12, 2025
This article has been corrected: Oncotarget has completed its investigation of this paper. Our image forensic analysis found only one issue: a duplicated western blot panel in Figure 1. The corresponding author Dr. Dieter A. Wolf confirmed that in Figure 1E, the SRC panel is an accidental duplicate of the SRC panel in Figure 3D. The authors provided original, unmodified raw data for this experiment and the date stamp confirms its authenticity. The corrected Figure 1, which was produced using the original data, is shown below. The authors declare that this correction does not affect the results or conclusions of the paper.
Original article: Oncotarget. 2015; 6:22060–22071. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.4279
12 February 2025 correction for Martin Gleave.
https://www.oncotarget.com/article/28692/
This article has been corrected: Oncotarget has investigated concerns regarding duplicate images in this paper. In Figure 3, the tubulin band in panel 3D is a duplicate of the H3 band in panel 3C. Additionally, the Actin band is a duplicate of one shown in Figure 4C of an earlier article that includes two authors in common with the Oncotarget paper [1]. We also found duplication in Supplementary Figure 1 (AR-V7 western blot of three LANCaP cell lines) which overlaps with WB band in Figure 7C of [1]. The corresponding author of both these articles, Dr. Xuesen Dong, has stated: “The reason for these mistakes was that Dr. Haolong Li had been working on two publications (Oncotarget and Cell Death and Disease) at the same time. Each project involved a large amount of western blotting assays; all images for the loading controls look very similar and were easily misplaced. Regardless, these minor mistakes did not affect the conclusion we have drawn.” The authors provided original western blots with date stamps for the corrected figures and stated that Figure 3A Actin (2 h treatment), Figure 3D Tubulin (second panel, 293T cells transfected with plasmid encoding AR(F876L) and Supplementary Figure 1 AR-V7 blot were misplaced during the figure assembly. The corrected Figure 3 and Supplementary Figure 1, obtained using the original data, are shown below. The authors declare that these corrections do not change the results or conclusions of this paper.
REFERENCES
Li H, Li Y, Morin D, Plymate S, Lye S, Dong X. The androgen receptor mediates antiapoptotic function in myometrial cells. Cell Death Dis. 2014; 5:e1338. https://doi.org/10.1038/cddis.2014.303.
Original article: Oncotarget. 2015; 6:20474–20484. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.4105