Sholto David
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
📤 1383
📥 236
📝 256
reposted by
Sholto David
Cheshire
1 day ago
“At Thermo Fisher, consistency is more than a goal.”
add a skeleton here at some point
0
15
1
Earlier this week I posted an example of a fake western blot provided by ThermoFisher to demonstrate the validity of a p53 antibody. I considered it an amusing curiosity. In fact Thermo Fisher Scientific has systematically manipulated antibody validation data!
about 17 hours ago
2
32
17
reposted by
Sholto David
Reese Richardson
1 day ago
@johanduchene.bsky.social
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
Spent the last hour looking, found ten more apparently manipulated Western blots in Thermo Fisher's antibody verification data (across eight different catalogued products). Thread below.
www.thermofisher.com/antibody/pro...
14
147
100
reposted by
Sholto David
Johan Duchêne
1 day ago
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
Have you seen this WB from ThermoFisher? Still anti-p53 antibody, but another clone (MA-12648 instead MA5-12557). It also looks like that the band in lane 3 was rotated and reused in lane 4. Moreover, it seems that same band was used for the 2 different clones.
8
64
40
Surprised to discover that Thermo Fisher appears to show a fake western blot for the validation of one of their p53 antibodies. I've added a diagram to show the very similar bands. This does not appear to be one of the "published figures" but their own internal data.
5 days ago
21
252
130
reposted by
Sholto David
Johan Duchêne
9 days ago
TREM2+ macrophages have rapidly emerged as key regulators in diseases. Studying them requires specific antibodies. Among 14 tested antibodies in KO cell lines by WB, 5 are specific. Pick up the right human TREM2 Antibody. Full report:
tinyurl.com/TREM2Ab
Or here:
tinyurl.com/OGA-TREM2
4
18
7
A 2018 paper with an astonishing muddle of overlapping images has finally been retracted. The authors include the infamous (in some circles at least) Alexander Seifalian, a bunch of Iranians, and for some reason, a bloke from Lancaster.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
23 days ago
1
9
3
reposted by
Sholto David
Elisabeth Bik
23 days ago
While the non-disclosure of the conflict of interest is a serious issue, it is also important to point out that
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
and others found several instances of image duplication in this paper.
pubpeer.com/publications...
add a skeleton here at some point
2
67
28
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
25 days ago
Mariano Barbacid retracts his fresh
@pnas.org
paper celebrated worldwide as a "miracle" cure for cancer. Official reason is his omitted business interests.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Read my past reporting:
forbetterscience.com/2026/02/06/s...
loading . . .
Schneider Shorts 6.02.2026 – A corruptive pact
Schneider Shorts 6.02.2026 – men of science who loved Epstein, an Italian bust, how to deal with a sleuth, cancer cured in Spain and old age cured in Germany, and why do academics rally to su…
https://forbetterscience.com/2026/02/06/schneider-shorts-6-02-2026/#cancer
2
9
6
Exciting new graphical abstract from Ivyspring's Journal of Cancer: 10.7150/jca.125659. AI will replace all scientists very soon by the way.
26 days ago
2
5
1
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
about 1 month ago
Former Rector Karin Dahlman-Wright, who was foind guilty of research fraud and sued to avoid sacking, triumphantly returns to
@ki.se
!
news.ki.se/karin-dahlma...
loading . . .
Karin Dahlman-Wright director of KI’s new research infrastructure organisation
Karolinska Institutet has appointed Professor Karin Dahlman-Wright as director of KI’s new research infrastructure organisation, RIKI, with effect from 1 April. RIKI provides the tools, methods, techn...
https://news.ki.se/karin-dahlman-wright-director-of-kis-new-research-infrastructure-organisation
2
11
9
I will chat to Patrick from ImageTwin this week. If you have any questions about the case or analysing images in scientific papers feel free to join.
luma.com/0c2016n8
loading . . .
A Researcher's Sleuthing Journey and How It Led to a $15M Case · Luma
A couple months ago, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute agreed to pay $15 million to settle fraud allegations tied to manipulated research images in NIH-funded…
https://luma.com/0c2016n8
about 1 month ago
1
4
1
Lorenzo Cohen at MD Anderson presented "Biofield Therapy" results at AACR last week. "Biofield Therapy" sounds scientific but is just a fancy name for telekinesis - AKA staring at mice. Actual photo from his lab below, now deceased psychic staring at mice. Not clear who does the staring these days.
about 1 month ago
4
13
7
Chris Gaffe: “Scientific Reports has an in-house team who are dedicated to ensuring that the journal operates with integrity. They are an excellent team who care enormously about the journal and the research it publishes." "oxygenaonol", "cen̈rifiugation", "Cos aspe-9"
pubpeer.com/publications...
about 2 months ago
5
20
6
forbetterscience.com/2026/04/07/t...
loading . . .
The Trivedi Effect
“Mahendrakumar Trivedi does not need a Potion to make you fatter and more delicious; his psychic emanations are enough.”- Smut Clyde
https://forbetterscience.com/2026/04/07/the-trivedi-effect/
about 2 months ago
0
1
2
Now that I have finally been paid I made a video about the Dana-Farber legal case from my own perspective:
youtu.be/ioRtnMEV46Y
loading . . .
I Sued the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for Research Fraud and Won $2.6 Million Dollars
YouTube video by Sholto David
https://youtu.be/ioRtnMEV46Y
about 2 months ago
2
53
25
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
about 2 months ago
Gorilla Troops Optimizer!
add a skeleton here at some point
1
9
3
reposted by
Sholto David
Signe Mežinska
about 2 months ago
Obviously, this is not the only great use case of this tortured phrase. See here, in the context of embryo cryopreservation:
doi.org/10.31674/boo...
1
4
2
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
about 2 months ago
Ahahahahaha.
@bmj.com
first issued a correction to remove the English guys, Anthony Mathur and Sheik Dowlut, as innocent victims of impersonation. Only then did BMJ retract that Iranian papermill fraud!
forbetterscience.com/2025/11/05/b...
add a skeleton here at some point
2
13
7
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
about 2 months ago
Oh nothing, just a peer reviewed paper my colleagues found...
doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...
"1 mL of the mass killing of an ethnic group was opposed to 20 mL of the skin sample and unprotected to light for 7 min." Even AI knows what's wrong here, but
@elsevierconnect.bsky.social
doesn't.
15
206
111
I have been blogging again at For Better Science, this time a case of an epic image fraud from a Japanese lab:
forbetterscience.com/2026/03/24/p...
loading . . .
Perfect Blots
“A coordinated review of the cited publications and underlying data is currently underway” – Hiroki Kuniyasu
https://forbetterscience.com/2026/03/24/perfect-blots/
about 2 months ago
0
8
4
The same western blot image used 23 times in 14 different papers by one Japanese team. The image has been labelled as representing a range of experiments and proteins. This is the most I have ever seen. Perhaps it is a record?
2 months ago
5
30
14
reposted by
Sholto David
Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex
2 months ago
In retrospect it was a bad idea to train the LLM on dialog from Tarzan movies.
0
6
1
Just read the abstract 🫠 via Alexander Magazinov. I don't believe he is on Bluesky.
2 months ago
15
121
74
Figure 1g from a 2018 paper in Nature (10.1038/nature25170). The red staining is supposed to show cleaved caspase-3 in MCF-7 cells... Except MCF-7 cells have a homozygous deletion in the gene. They are well known to be entirely caspase-3 deficient (10.1007/s10549-008-0217-9).
3 months ago
2
5
1
reposted by
Sholto David
Cheshire
3 months ago
Cool, useful, project.
www.sciencedetective.org/scientific-d...
1
14
5
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
3 months ago
Schneider Shorts 6.03.2026 – Not identical and also not adjusted by sequencing
forbetterscience.com/2026/03/06/s...
loading . . .
Schneider Shorts 6.03.2026 – Not identical and also not adjusted by sequencing
Schneider Shorts 6.03.2026 – German university saves dean from slander, Spanish sexual harasser ran a fake ethics committee, with qualified editors telling sleuth off, retractions for famous …
https://forbetterscience.com/2026/03/06/schneider-shorts-6-03-2026-not-identical-and-also-not-adjusted-by-sequencing/
0
4
5
Genus: Man or Female? Alzheimer's improved in just four weeks with plant extract 🙄
3 months ago
3
12
1
reposted by
Sholto David
Cheshire
3 months ago
Maybe investigate how the paper got published.
add a skeleton here at some point
1
9
3
Another wonderful diagram of a bacterial cell with mitochondria, this one in Frontiers in Microbology (10.3389/fmicb.2023.1194292). Reminder: Bacteria are prokaryotes, they do not have mitochondria...
3 months ago
2
26
7
reposted by
Sholto David
LizW
3 months ago
@pmurray65.bsky.social
@forbetterscience.bsky.social
Amazing Videregen, having pissed away €6.8m for 3 trials that never opened, pivoted to new rubbish - a dead thymus gland for anti-aging. From the look of it, the company has been nuked from orbit:
www.videregen.com
LMAO 🤡
loading . . .
Could regenerating the thymus boost human longevity?
Videregen gears up for clinical trials of regenerated organs and tissues as company targets longevity and immune-related disease.
https://longevity.technology/news/could-regenerating-the-thymus-boost-human-longevity/
2
4
3
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
3 months ago
Schneider Shorts 13.02.2026 – Prize for Academic Integrity (Europe category)
forbetterscience.com/2026/02/13/s...
loading . . .
Schneider Shorts 13.02.2026 – Prize for Academic Integrity (Europe category)
Schneider Shorts 13.02.2026 – a Finnish nightmare for a Spanish scholar, a Portuguese Vice-Rector in trouble, a cure for cancer from US government, with a role model for women in German medic…
https://forbetterscience.com/2026/02/13/schneider-shorts-13-02-2026-prize-for-academic-integrity-europe-category/
0
5
5
reposted by
Sholto David
Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex
3 months ago
I want to be author of a paper about cancer biomarkers. You're in luck! We're running a 1/2-price special on processed-alloy papers! What good is that! I'm an oncologist, not a metallurgist. We'll tie a sign to it that says 'cancer'. Do you want the text or not? OK then.
pubpeer.com/publications...
3
15
4
reposted by
Sholto David
Elisabeth Bik
3 months ago
Woohoo!
#SuperBowl
flyover over our city.
loading . . .
2
29
9
reposted by
Sholto David
Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex
4 months ago
Please admire what 'Viola sheltonii' found in Discover Oncology, in "Engineering CAR T NK and NKT cell therapies to target cancer stem cells and overcome stem like resistance".
pubpeer.com/publications...
1
5
3
reposted by
Sholto David
Elisabeth Bik
4 months ago
I know that
@frontiersin.bsky.social
are trying hard to be taken seriously. But addressing the problems in the original figure (left) by a completely new set of panels (that also have problems; right) puts them straight back into predatory journal range.
#ImageForensics
#ScientificPublishing
/
3
76
22
reposted by
Sholto David
Colin Carlson
4 months ago
Student journalists at Stanford the first to break a story that’s long overdue
stanforddaily.com/2026/02/03/f...
loading . . .
Former Stanford professor Nathan Wolfe ’92 planned sexual behavior research, described interns with Epstein
The Daily investigated correspondence between virologist Nathan Wolfe ’92 and Epstein in which the two men discussed interns’ attractiveness, “female viagra” and sexual research projects.
https://stanforddaily.com/2026/02/03/former-stanford-professor-nathan-wolfe-92-planned-sexual-behavior-research-described-interns-with-epstein/
4
148
76
reposted by
Sholto David
Eugenie Reich
4 months ago
Good article by Theresa DeFino capturing my thoughts on how failure to address research integrity failures today accumulates problems for tomorrow. Each scientist or administrator involved in such a mess has autonomy to facilitate or resist that.
loading . . .
Attorney: Dana-Farber’s $15M Settlement Shows Failure of Integrity Oversight, More Suits Coming | JD Supra
Two years after an online sleuth put together a damning collection of papers by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers containing what he suspected...
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/attorney-dana-farber-s-15m-settlement-2724924/
0
5
1
Figure 5. Sudden quarrelling of spouse due to misuse of wireless sensor technology:
doi.org/10.5539/jpl....
4 months ago
2
5
5
Following my blog about former Yale Researcher Wang Min, Nature Communications retracted a paper of his today:
forbetterscience.com/2025/04/30/y...
4 months ago
0
10
4
Another retraction today for Sam S Yoon. Still currently Chief, Division of Surgical Oncology at Columbia, having lost many of the papers that came out of his lab to retractions for an epic fraud. Not clear what the consequences were apart from the retractions:
forbetterscience.com/2023/11/01/m...
4 months ago
1
12
7
reposted by
Sholto David
Martin Plöderl
about 1 year ago
1. I now summarized problems of a paper on ketamine on PubPeer and also contacted the editor after contacting the author who didn't respond. I also checked some other papers from authors and indeed found another suspicious one quickly. Thoughts? ->
pubpeer.com/publications...
add a skeleton here at some point
2
4
5
reposted by
Sholto David
Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex
4 months ago
The publishers of Frontiers are very proud of their fraud-detection software and have appointed themselves as "Guardians of Research Integrity". Also, they publish stuff like this.
7
102
37
reposted by
Sholto David
Derek Lowe
4 months ago
Prepare for the most groan-inducing CRO drug trial situation you’ve come across in a loooooong time:
loading . . .
A Clinical Trial Nightmare
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/clinical-trial-nightmare
4
40
7
reposted by
Sholto David
Dorit Reiss
4 months ago
2026 begins…with a resurrection of the myth that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancers:” A review that tried hard to show the vaccines cause cancer found very little, and used handwaving to speculate. via
@gorskon.bsky.social
sciencebasedmedicine.org/and-so-2026-...
via
@sciencebasedmedicine.org
loading . . .
And so 2026 begins…with a resurrection of the myth that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancers”
I had hoped to let this cup pass, but, after a week and a half, I found that I couldn't. Eminent oncologist and cancer researcher Dr. Wafik El-Deiry is back and doubling down on the unproven claim tha
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/and-so-2026-begins-with-a-resurrection-of-the-myth-that-covid-vaccines-cause-turbo-cancers/
0
21
9
I have written a blog at ForBetterScience. Scientific Reports appears to be as bad as ever despite promises to change and an "excellent team"
forbetterscience.com/2026/01/06/s...
5 months ago
1
12
9
reposted by
Sholto David
Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex
5 months ago
@spottingthespot.bsky.social
Merry $mas!
pubpeer.com/publications...
0
14
2
reposted by
Sholto David
Leonid Schneider
5 months ago
Schneider Shorts 19.12.2025 – Merry Christmas!
forbetterscience.com/2025/12/19/s...
loading . . .
Schneider Shorts 19.12.2025 – Merry Christmas!
Schneider Shorts 19.12.2025- sleuth wins reward in a lawsuit, an Italian cheater can’t stop lying, with retractions for failed and failing science elites, a Nature expert investigation, and U…
https://forbetterscience.com/2025/12/19/schneider-shorts-19-12-2025-merry-christmas/
0
9
13
reposted by
Sholto David
Eugenie Reich
5 months ago
The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a $15 million NIH grant fraud settlement with Dana-Farber Cancer Center. This resolves a False Claims Act qui tam complaint that I filed on behalf of
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
in April 2024, with Gregg Shapiro as my co-counsel.
loading . . .
News & Publications
Eugenie Reich & Gregg Shapiro Announce $15 Million NIH Grant Fraud Settlement (December 2025) Complaint Settlement Agreement Scientific Fraud in the 21st Century (Video Lecture) Sandia Nationa…
https://eugeniereichlaw.com/articles/
4
41
23
Load more
feeds!
log in