A data investigation sleuth alleges that four senior researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) falsified the data in several scientific papers over the past several years.
According to The Harvard Crimson, Sholto David claimed in a post for the blog For Better Science that DFCI president Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, executive vice-president Dr. William C. Hahn, senior vice president for experimental medicine Dr. Irene M. Ghobrial, and program director of the Multiple Myeloma Center Dr. Kenneth C. Anderson committed research misconduct across dozens of papers.
David, who holds a doctoral degree from Newcastle University, alleged that three papers by Glimcher, 12 by Hahn, 10 by Ghobrial, and 16 by Anderson contained “data forgery.” These included five co-authored by both Anderson and Ghobrial. Although scientific papers often have several co-authors, David’s post focused on the four DFCI researchers.
David said he used a combination of artificial intelligence image analysis software ImageTwin and manual detection to uncover the errors in the papers published between 1999 and 2017. There were errors and duplications in data images, such as blots, bands and plots, claims David.
Ghobrial told the Crimson that she was aware of the allegation and had already submitted corrections to the journals Clinical Cancer Research and Blood in which most of her disputed papers were published.
Glimcher, Hahn, and Anderson did not respond to David’s request for comment, although a spokesperson for the Journal of Clinical Oncology said that Hahn had already submitted a corrected version of an image from a 2011 paper and that the journal would be publishing an erratum to correct the inaccuracy.
The new allegations came during increased scrutiny of scholarly work in elite circles of higher education, with both Stanford and Harvard professors accused of plagiarism and research misconduct recently.
David said he sent the allegations to the research integrity offices at DFCI and Harvard Medical School (HMS).
HMS spokesperson Ekaterina Pesheva declined to comment on the allegations but said to The Harvard Crimson that HMS is “fully committed to upholding the highest standards of ethics and to rigorously maintaining the integrity of its research.”
“Any concerns brought to our attention are reviewed thoroughly in accordance with our institutional policies and applicable regulations,” she said. DFCI spokesperson Ellen Berlin wrote that Dana-Farber is “fully committed to rigorously maintaining the integrity of research under its oversight,” and allegations of error are “reviewed thoroughly and authors are supported in submitting corrections, when necessary.”
Elisabeth M. Bik, an expert in data manipulation, said that the allegations are “spot on.” She added that it may be difficult to formally review the charges as lab storage issues may prevent the authors from providing original data on older papers. But, at the same time, she said that the volume of errors is disturbing.
“It it’s one or two, that could still be an honest error,” she said. “If it’s 10 overlaps, then you have to ask yourself, that is pretty sloppy if you made that many errors.”