Harvard cancer centre retracts 6 studies, correct 31 others over fraud claims

“We are committed to a culture of accountability and integrity. Therefore, every inquiry is examined fully to ensure the soundness of the scientific literature Dana-Farber has been swift and decisive in this regard.” said Barrett Rollins, Dana-Farber’s research integrity officer and chief science officer emeritus, to CNN.

The new allegations come as the university is already facing flak for the way it handled plagiarism allegations against former director Claudine Gay, who resigned over backlash regarding the same.

David’s blog post where he made the allegations had images like protein bands, data pilots and PCR results from papers that he claims were manipulated using photoshop or even simple copy and paste. In one paper, image of mice on the first day of a study seemed to make an appearance again on the 16th day, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Some images seemed to be flipped, stretched and resized.

In conclusion: A swathe of research coming out of DFCI authored by the most senior researchers and managers appears to be hopelessly corrupt with errors that are obvious from just a cursory reading the papers. Imagine what mistakes might be found in the raw data if anyone was allowed to look!,” wrote David in the blog.