Retraction for a (now) Oxford University group leader in a Royal Society journal. This work was published during the first-authors PhD at Exeter University: Tabish et al. 2018 (DOI: 10.1098/rsfs.2017.0054). pubpeer.com/publications... I reported this to the journal 3 months ago:

Reported in March, retracted recently: Mousazadeh et al.2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118747) 'Carbohydrate Polymers'. The authors even argued on PubPeer that repetitions in noise in their various figures is totally expected 🤡 pubpeer.com/publications... Glad Elsevier didn't buy it...

Happy Thanksgiving! A nonsense paper I posted about 9 months ago got retracted by the Elsevier journal today, what a nice Thanksgiving present: pubpeer.com/publications... Meng et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jare.2020.08.010) ...probably not the last retraction for this author.

A great start to the week when you get a notification from @smutclyde.bsky.social spotting a Wiley retraction of a paper me & @sholtodavid.bsky.social flagged in July '25: Wu et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201901307) pubpeer.com/publications...

Always a good read: forbetterscience.com/2025/11/21/s... (this week featuring some interesting finds from labs in Brazil and Canada I made throughout this year)

This article was already corrected, replacing Figure 7 because of image duplication. Yet, in the now 'correct' figure, some of the image panels are still obviously mixed-up. Who approved this correction?: Du et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-022-09740-9) 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...

I have recently been looking more closely at BMC Cancer. They often correct papers but it seems like no-one checks if the "corrected" figures are actually correct. Huang et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08056-4) is just one example. pubpeer.com/publications... This is a "corrected" figure:

Another retraction, for concerns that I reported in February. Wiley even credited me in the note (that's a first)!: Sarandry et al. 2015 (DOI: 10.1155/2015/919342) reused data published years prior + most of the newly presented data consisted of overlapping images... pubpeer.com/publications...

A staggering statistic: "North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year." What are we doing?

🤡 Banu et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-020-07608-4) in 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...

I am not entirely sure why these regions appear cloned and what the purpose of this type of image alteration is, but this doesn't seem correct to me: Mokhtari et al. 2019 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-019-6018-1) in 'BMC Cancer': pubpeer.com/publications...

Another example of great 'BMC Cancer' research: Gao et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08294-6) - non-coding RNA & breast cancer "research" seem to pair well... pubpeer.com/publications... #ResearchIntegrity #ImageForensics

I have recently been looking closely at some BMC journals. To no ones surprise, there is an abundance of questionable biomedical research. For example: Wang et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08914-1) in 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...

Reverse Image Forensics Challenge: Try to find a unique area in Figure 9 of this recent Scientific Reports paper: 10.1038/s41598-025-17456-6 [Aug 2025] - Annotated by ImageTwin.ai

Always a good start to the week when you get notified that a paper flagged more than a year ago finally got retracted: Ahsan et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1007/s10787-021-00840-9). Images overlap with multiple other papers. pubpeer.com/publications...

Wiley today retracted this paper in which a corner clone was used to manipulate a microscopy-image: Iconaru et al. 2011 (DOI: 10.1155/2011/291512) - retraction was the appropriate actions. pubpeer.com/publications... I even got cited for my comment on PubPeer! That's a first for me, but nice to see.

A retraction can also increate the confidence that we have in the integrity of someone's research. I think this is a good example of that. This of course does not count for retractions caused by sleuths who find clearly manipulated images or data & w/ the authors continuously making poor excuses...

Not sure I buy these scale bars, at least one must be off. Team from India & New Zealand: Yadav et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.146238). That's on top of what seems like the same underlying image representing two materials... pubpeer.com/publications...

Next retraction for Italian cancer researcher Sebastiano Andó: molpharm.aspetjournals.org/article/S002... pubpeer.com/publications... The first concerns on this article were raised in 2013 by C. Francis I wrote about this disgraceful saga for FBS a few weeks ago: forbetterscience.com/2025/10/21/l...

More 'science' by the same Canadian team: Nabipour et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.140027). pubpeer.com/publications... Plenty more anomalies and issues flagged by various others on PubPeer; too much to blame it on a student or undergrad.

Some interesting data coming out of this Canadian research group: Nabipour et al. 2024 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.128875) - University of Western Ontario seem to have hired some (photoshop) experts cosplaying as 'scientists' pubpeer.com/publications...

Shanghai-based Deng-Guang Yu just lost his 2nd paper (~100 flagged on PubPeer). It was reported to Frontiers in February & recycled data originally published in 2013 by Yu's team: Wang et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1184767) pubpeer.com/publications... forbetterscience.com/2025/03/03/a...

"Anti-inflammatory and osteogenic nanofibrous scaffolds of bioactive glass/carboxymethyl chitosan-reinforced PCL short fibers for alveolar bone regeneration" The title almost gave me a stroke. No further comment. Feng et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.147197) pubpeer.com/publications...

If you correct your paper because of crooked microscopy images but you don't have any clean data to use, so you have to use more nonsense for the "corrected" figure: He et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.117870) pubpeer.com/publications... Issuing a correction for the correction next?

It is 2025 and Elsevier's International Journal of Biological Macromolecules still publishes nonsense wound healing studies: Mahadev et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.140097) pubpeer.com/publications... 100ths of these flagged on PubPeer. 0 scientific value, just animal torture...

And indeed, Sage investigated and found citation manipulation during peer review (presumably by Zhanhu Guo). The paper was corrected and all references to Guo's irrelevant work were removed: pubpeer.com/publications... Guo has been doing this thing for years: forbetterscience.com/2025/04/15/a...

Wiley today retracted this nonsense: Yang et al. 2019. Almost all issues were already flagged in 2020 by @smutclyde.bsky.social. I send a complaint about the paper in June 2025 and that seems to have woken up the journal at last... pubpeer.com/publications...

I wrote for ForBetterScience.com about an Italian "Scientist" (Fraudster) with a track record of 70+ fake cancer studies published over ~3 decades: forbetterscience.com/2025/10/21/l... Much of the fraud has been known for years but journals have taken little to no actions... enjoy the read!

When we flagged this paper in February '25 the PI called us out for asking 'stupid questions'. The paper has now been RETRACTED. Yang et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116477) This behavior prompted a deep-dive into the PI's extensive scientific record resulting in ~100 flagged papers.

In case you think Science Family journals are immune to issues: I emailed the editors and Science on March 1st 2025 and have not heard back on this. Cited ~6000 times by the way: Ginhoux et al. 2010 (DOI: 10.1126/science.1194637). Might be an honest mistake but it should be addressed/clarified, no?

Given the senior authors' PubPeer record, there should be a dozen-or-so retractions pending. I just flagged this great SEM figure in one of their papers: Erfani et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.135459) in Elsevier's Food Chemistry: pubpeer.com/publications...

Retraction by Wiley: Asadzadeh et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1002/gch2.202000061). Reported to Wiley in May '25, but first flagged for the XRD issues by others in 2023 already: pubpeer.com/publications... Retraction is the only sensical decision here. Papers looks more-or-less completely fabricated...

Re-posting Dr. Wittmers' thread, with a some supporting info. Fabian flagged a paper in J. Appl. Polym. Sci for region duplication in PXRD (see pubpeer.com/publications... ), and reported it to Wiley. I have found additional duplications and crazy chemistry. Wiley's response? All 💯 👍 #ChemSky

We will fight back with this

(1/x) Some thoughts on a recent case: I raised concerns about an article published in 2010 w/ Wiley's IACR team in August 2025. I considered the problems to be severe and clearly indicative of manipulated data (see image below): Sarhan et al. 2010 (DOI: 10.1002/app.32522) pubpeer.com/publications...

Spirulina has been Un-Unleashed: MDPI retracted a paper (I am always surprised when that happens - this is the 2nd one out of 100+ I sent them so far). Nisa et al. 2024 (DOI: 10.3390/foods13213512) Their fancy title didn't safe them after all.

I wrote a little piece for ForBetterScience.com: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/29/f... about a duo of Egyptian papermillers in Europe. (I unfortunately cannot claim credit for the great title image - that one has to go to Leonid himself!)

A question that I get all the time. I often think the same to myself. We will not be able to understand their motivation & yet should still retract these papers rigorously. For example this one: Rofeal et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.11.080) pubpeer.com/publications...

The authors state that they accidentally cloned sections when adjusting the contrast of the image. Sounds wildly unrealistic to me; I have never seen this happen on "accident": Yu et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1007/s00203-025-04453-6) pubpeer.com/publications... #ImageForensics #ResearchIntegrity

Alalem et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.1186/s12985-023-02146-4) published some rather interesting-looking flow cytometry: pubpeer.com/publications... Clearly not an accident as I have found a total of 15 papers from the lab with poorly faked flow data. Didn't stop any journal from publish this fraud though...

And yet your PubPeer record is always on the up!

PLOS ONE also retracted a paper by the same team today: Almagrami et al. 2014 (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096004) is a complete clow-show: pubpeer.com/publications... This is already the 4th retraction I caused for the team around papermiller Mahmood A Abdulla since screening his papers in Dec 2024.

A CRO has been scamming academic and industry labs in the US with fraudulent data that has been published in Nature and other high impact journals. Leonid has written a great piece on my findings: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/22/i...

A retraction in MDPI?! Didn't think I would ever be involved in one of those, but this fake study was so bad even they couldn't defend it: pubpeer.com/publications... (others found more stuff too, see PubPeer) #ResearchIntegrity

Scientists in Springer's Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology are bending space and time again: Santhosi et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1007/s10971-025-06926-y), published just 3 weeks ago. An editor and 2 reviewers certainly took a good look at this paper! pubpeer.com/publications...

Complete bogus Correction: Oxford University Press doing everything in their power not to retract a fake breast cancer paper by Italian frauds Marcello Maggiolini, Sebastiano Andò: Lanzino et al. 2010 (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkq278). "Corrected" without correcting any figure. pubpeer.com/publications...

Another Retraction: Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archive of Pharmacology has notoriously struggled with papermill submissions for years. Ommati et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1007/s00210-021-02177-0) is a good example. The overlap with other papers leaves little doubt about intent: pubpeer.com/publications...

RETRACTED! I am sure the University of Tennessee will come up with some random made-up explanation of how one of their scientists ended up on this paper with hand-drawn figures. It took Springer "only" 6 months to retract this, which is lightning-speed for the publisher. #ResearchIntegrity

Only in the world of Jörg Rinklebe & his papermill friends can you measure 6410g/kg. Ghani et al. 2024 (DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172632) pubpeer.com/publications... 'Desmococcus antarctica' also found extensive editor-author COI & nonsense measurements. An embarrassing paper.

Kicking a weekend of sleuthing off with a nice (but unfortunately completely fake) fluorescence microscopy image: Karimi & Namazi et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1016/j.colsurfa.2021.127205) pubpeer.com/publications... prev. flagged by @mumumouse2.bsky.social & others for other things. Completely made up...