Main neuroscientist accused of analysis misconduct

The Nationwide Institutes of Well being mentioned Thursday that Dr. Eliezer Masliah, a distinguished Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s illness researcher, falsified or fabricated photographs revealed in two papers, which it’s now retracting.

Masliah spent many years on the College of California, San Diego, and served as a senior chief of the Nationwide Institute on Growing older since 2016. NIH mentioned that Masliah had been faraway from his management place and declined to remark additional.

The NIH investigation of Masliah started December and concluded earlier this month. However the company didn’t make any public feedback till the journal Science revealed its personal prolonged investigation earlier within the day Thursday. 

Science’s findings present that scores of Masliah’s roughly 800 analysis papers revealed whereas he was at UC San Diego and NIA are riddled with what appear to be falsified photographs of proteins and mind tissue. A few of them, the investigation reveals, have been reused throughout papers revealed years aside to doc fully totally different experiments. 

Science offered preliminary considerations about Masliah’s work to forensic analysts who specialised in scientific analysis. The analysts then produced a 300-page file that documented “a gradual stream” of suspect photographs in over 100 research revealed between 1997 and 2023.

“In our opinion, this sample of anomalous information raises a reputable concern for analysis misconduct and calls into query a remarkably giant physique of scientific work,” the analysts instructed Science.

NIH was given a replica of the file greater than two weeks earlier than the investigation was revealed however didn’t remark till after. Masliah has not rejected or challenged any of the file’s findings to this point. 

Though the creators of the file say they aren’t essentially accusing Masliah or his colleagues of fraud or misconduct and word that a number of the picture issues could also be easy errors within the publication course of, Science contacted almost a dozen neuroscientists who had been surprised by the outcomes and mentioned a lot of the suspect work can not moderately be defined as careless errors.

“Breathtaking,” mentioned neuroscientist Christian Haass of the Ludwig Maximilian College of Munich. “Folks will, after all, be shocked, as I used to be … I used to be falling from a chair, mainly.”