Dr. Bik on the Case: The Great Research Fraud Reckoning

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More and more reports have recently uncovered the use of fraudulent data in scientific papers. The scientific method dominates how humans seek to understand the physical, and the scientific method depends on researchers running experiments to test hypotheses. If an experiment supports a hypothesis, it must be repeatable by other scientists in other laboratories; otherwise, it cannot be accepted into the body of scientific knowledge. Truth and reproducibility lie at the heart of science. When scientists produce fraudulent data to support their hypotheses, the entire system suffers because the other scientists who base their research on false grounds go astray from the truth. Going astray also wastes the valuable time and funding that could have gone to legitimate research. A number of significant leaders in prominent research institutions have had the integrity of their research called into question by a microbiologist and scientific integrity expert—Dr. Elisabeth Bik, Ph.D. Dr. Bik, originally from the Netherlands, now lives in California and consults on research integrity full-time. Before she left her position at a microbiome company called uBiome, she had worked as a staff scientist at Stanford University. Over the past decade, Bik has examined tens of thousands of papers, and according to an article in Times Higher Education, “She and others uncovered 400 shoddy papers produced by ‘paper mills,’ a phenomenon she called ‘particular to China.’ These companies sell papers to researchers who want to boost their citation numbers.” (thetimeshighereducation.com) Dr. Bik’s inquiries triggered an investigation of the research integrity of the President of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne. According to Bik and others, a pattern of image manipulation follows Tessier-Lavigne across his decades of research publications. (thestanforddaily.com) Images appear manipulated and reused in different publications. The investigation ultimately cleared Tessier-Lavigne of “fraud,” but his work fell below “customary standards.” He had to retract two papers from the prestigious journal Cell and make significant corrections to other papers. (nytimes.com) He has since stepped down as the President of Stanford. Bik has also called into question the legitimacy of images published in research papers by Nobel Lauriat Gregg Semenza. Semenza earned his Nobel for work on how cells regulate oxygen and respond when oxygen gets low. His findings suggest new ways to approach heart disease and cancer. However, in recent years, seventeen of his studies have been retracted, corrected, or flagged, and a study by the scientific journal Nature implicates another fifteen studies as requiring investigation. (thescientist.com) Moreover, the scientific integrity tracking website PubPeer listed 56 of Semenza’s publications that need investigation. (pubpeer.com) Dr. Bik began her now full-time work as a “scientific integrity detective” in 2013, investigating what parts of her work had been plagiarized. (nature.com) When she saw that others had taken her work and called it their own, she began a journey of detecting scientific fraud and plagiarism. Her work and that of others defend the integrity of scientific research that future research leans on to make new discoveries and support existing hypotheses. The pressure to publish and make significant discoveries affects all researchers, but the ones that cheat and fabricate irreproducible results to get ahead damage the credibility of science. Fortunately, Dr. Bik and others have undertaken the job of scientific integrity sleuths.

Dr. Smith’s career in scientific and information research spans the areas of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, toxicology, and chemistry. He has published a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has worked over the past seventeen years developing advanced analytics, machine learning, and knowledge management tools to enable research and support high-level decision making. Tim completed his Ph.D. in Toxicology at Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington.

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