A university in China has revoked the medical degree of a researcher found guilty of having produced his dissertation with the help of a prodigious paper mill.
As Elisabeth Bik noted last year in a post on PubPeer, the thesis by Bin Chen, a lung specialist at Soochow University, was one of 121 articles produced by the paper mill that:
all contain images from the same library of about 100 photos and plots. This is unexpected, because each paper has different authors and different affiliations, with little to no overlap, and describes different cancer types and molecules. It would be very hard to explain how authors from different labs would all obtain the same photo. Therefore, the papers might have all be derived from the same source, such as a paper mill that sells ready-to-be-published papers.
Nearly all of the articles, including Chen’s, appeared in the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences.
In a now-deleted announcement, Soochow University said Bin Chen, who received the doctorate from the institution in 2019, committed “academic misconduct” in the thesis.
Although Soochow took down its press release about the matter, a copy exists on the Wayback machine (thanks to Twitter user @TigerBB8). The notice (translated by Google) reads:
Chen Bin, who has studied clinical medicine in the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University since September2015 , received a doctorate in clinical medicine in December2019 , and his degree certificate number is 1028522019920028 .
The Academic Committee of Soochow University confirmed that Chen Bin’s academic achievement ” Long noncoding RNA AK027294 acts as an oncogene in non-small cell lung cancer by up-regulating STAT3 ” used to apply for a doctorate has academic misconduct.
According to the “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Degrees”, “Detailed Rules for the Granting of Master’s and Doctorate Degrees of Soochow University” (Su University [ 2020 ] No. 20 ), “Measures for the Determination and Handling of Academic Misconduct of Soochow University (Trial)” (Su 2017 ] No. 12 ) and other related documents stipulate that after the eighth special meeting of the tenth school degree evaluation committee, it was decided to revoke Chen Bin’s doctor of clinical medicine and cancel his doctorate certificate (certificate number: 1028522019920028 ).
If you have any objections, please contact the Graduate School within five working days from the date of publicity.
The doctor of clinical medicine degree is similar to the MD degree in the United States.
An email to Chen bounced back as undeliverable. We emailed the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences for comment but have not heard back.
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Interestingly, United States institutions rarely make any information about plagiarized or misconduct-manifesting theses claiming that FERPA prevents them from doing so.