A cancer researcher who was once the subject of a misconduct investigation at an Illinois university more than 10 years ago has made his debut on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard with 35 retractions.
Last month Oncogene, a Springer Nature title, retracted 15 articles by Jasti Rao, formerly of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. A 2014 university investigation into his lab’s publications found manipulation and rotation of images that “‘show a disturbing pattern’ indicative that Rao acted intentionally or recklessly,” we previously reported. Rao sued the university for wrongful termination but lost.
More than 100 of Rao’s papers have comments on PubPeer, most originating from a user called Lotus azoricus. We now know that pseudonym belongs to sleuth Elisabeth Bik.
“I had learned from several Retraction Watch articles that Dr. Rao had previously sued the University of Illinois. It seemed wise to file my complaints anonymously at the time, to avoid being sued by him as well,” Bik told us. “I have a couple more years of experience, so I now feel confident on stating publicly that the PubPeer comments by Lotus azoricus were mine.”
Bik had reported the Oncogene papers to the journal in 2019. In February 2024, Bik sought an update and Springer Nature told her the investigation was still ongoing.
A spokesperson for Springer Nature acknowledged that Bik was the first to alert the journal to concerns with the Oncogene papers. Tim Kersjes, head of research integrity, resolutions at Springer Nature, said in a statement:
Whilst we endeavour to complete our investigations as swiftly and efficiently as possible, we do so with care to ensure the integrity of the scientific record. However, we appreciate that substantial delays to investigations can be frustrating, and we apologise for the length of time taken in these cases. We take our responsibility to maintain the scientific record extremely seriously and the retraction of these papers demonstrates our commitment to this.
In a followup statement, a spokesperson added:
[W]e apologise for the length of time taken in these cases. This was in part owing to the age of the articles and the difficulty we had in trying to contact the authors, as stated in the text of the retraction notices.
Rao was once a highly regarded cancer specialist, earning a salary of $700,000 a year. When the university kicked off its investigation in 2013, it focused on concerns about misconduct related to plagiarism and data manipulations — and on allegations of ethics violations related to allegations of kickbacks and fiscal improprieties. Rao had run up tens of thousands of dollars in gambling debts, much of it accrued on university time. Court documents from 2017 alleged that Rao had:
demanded and accepted cash payments from at least one subordinate to pay off alleged gambling debts and concealed the extent of errors in papers published by his lab and then directed subordinates to delete documents evidencing the scope of the errors.
With Rao’s publications, the easily identifiable problems include image duplications and “problems suggestive of photoshopping,” Bik said. But “ it is the sheer number of problematic papers that stand out,” she said. A PubMed search for Rao’s name calls up about 450 papers, and Bik has found issues in over 100 of them. “That means that over one in 5 of his papers have clearly visible problems,” she said. “That is a very high and concerning ratio.”
Bik reported 104 of Rao’s papers to the university in 2019. An official at the University of Illinois College of Medicine told her in 2022 that they were still looking into them. We’ve reached out to the university to ask whether it is still investigating Rao’s published papers, or whether they’ve reported the issues to the journals, but have not heard back.
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