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Recently, Thomas C. Südhof, the 2013 Nobel laureate, has been embroiled in controversy when three papers led by him have been accused of having problems with image reproduction.
Südhof acknowledges that there is a problem with the images, but at the same time says that "the errors that are found are completely irrelevant to science, and they do not change the results of the paper." ”
The first author of the paper in question was a member of his laboratory. Südhof believes that "this is a devastating blow to young people in the lab, especially female scientists." ”
Lin Yan | Writing
Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof's lab paper appears to be controversial.
Recently, he admitted that three of the papers were problematic.
Born in 1955, the 69-year-old is a German biochemist who now works at Stanford University and is best known for his work on synaptic transmission, for which he shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with James Rothman and Randy Schekman.
Thomas C. Südhof
However, since March this year, the famous Nobel laureate has been in a hurry, and no scholar wants his paper to be listed on PubPeer, and 23 of Südhof's papers are being found on PubPeer with a magnifying glass. Südhof had to list a statement at Stanford Medical School to clarify it.
Founded in 2012, PubPeer is an academic forum site that allows all registered users to comment anonymously on published research. The site rose to prominence in 2014 when a user faked Haruko Obokata's paper on STAP cells, prompting her article to be retracted by Nature. At present, PubPeer has become an important battlefield in the fight against counterfeiting of papers in the academic world.
Elisabeth Bik is a well-known figure in the field of academic anti-counterfeiting and a microbiologist herself. Bik targeted Südhof in March for her anti-counterfeiting efforts, pointing to three papers led by Südhof that may have problems with image reproduction.
Two of the papers were published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2012 and 2018, respectively, and the other paper was published in the journal Cell in 2021.
Südhof acknowledged that there were image reproduction errors in the three papers and have contacted the journals for corrections, but stressed that "those errors that are found are completely irrelevant to science and do not alter the results of the papers." ”
It is reported that this 2012 paper in the Südhof laboratory studied the physiological function of the synaptic protein α-synuclein and the pathological effects of its mutations. The study's first author, Jacqueline Burré, was a postdoctoral researcher in the Südhof lab and is now an associate professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. Bik tagged two of the data, as well as duplicate images, but she said, "The error really didn't affect the results." ”
The 2018 paper, which was written by Erica Seigneur, a former Ph.D. in the Südhof lab and currently doing postdoctoral research in another lab at Stanford University, also had the same problem with copy-pasting images. Seigneu herself said she made a mistake when combining two figures when studying the function of cerebellar protein molecules in the brain.
In 2021, a paper on RTN-4-binding proteins, led by postdoctoral researcher Jie Wang in the Südhof laboratory as the first author, was pointed out by Bik that there were duplications between the two images, and in fact, this paper was corrected by the Südhof team in January 2022 due to lack of citations.
23 articles related to Südhof are being discussed on PubPeer
Südhof responds to the lab's summary of the questioned paper
In addition, the Südhof team has admitted 17 bugs in 11 of the 23 articles being discussed on PubPeer and posted the news on the lab's website. These errors weren't discovered at the outset, but were made after a lot of discussion on PubPeer.
In response, anti-counterfeiting fighter Bik said, "Most of the errors that have been found look like sloppy mistakes rather than deliberate misconduct, and the 23 papers are only a small fraction of the 600 papers published by Südhof." ”
According to Südhof, "this is a devastating blow to young people in the lab, especially women scientists".
Resources
Nobel Prize winner acknowledges errors in three more papers
https://www.thetransmitter.org/publishing/nobel-prize-winner-acknowledges-errors-in-three-more-papers/