請更新您的瀏覽器

您使用的瀏覽器版本較舊,已不再受支援。建議您更新瀏覽器版本,以獲得最佳使用體驗。

Eng

Chinese university chief under investigation after research called into question

South China Morning Post

發布於 2019年11月18日13:11 • Zhuang Pinghui pinghui.zhuang@scmp.com
  • Nankai University President Cao Xuetao defends papers he supervised after an investigator questions graph results
  • Chinese Academy of Engineering starts investigation into claims made on PubPeer website 
Cao Xuetao says he is confident the research will stand up to scrutiny but admits there may have been “lapses in supervision”. Photo: Handout
Cao Xuetao says he is confident the research will stand up to scrutiny but admits there may have been “lapses in supervision”. Photo: Handout

The Chinese Academy of Engineering is investigating the president of a leading university over claims that academic papers he supervised may have questionable data.

Cao Xuetao, the president of Nankai University in Tianjin, insisted that he was "confident in the validity and strength of the scientific conclusions" after the accusations were made on PubPeer, a US website that allows users to review scientific research.

Last Thursday, Elisabeth Bik, a former microbiologist who has spent the last five years identifying image manipulation in research, posted about apparently duplicated graph results from a paper Cao supervised in 2008 when he was vice-president of The Second Military Medical University.

"Each panel with the measurement of cells should have a constellation of dots but some panels appear to have the same set of dots and that is not expected in a biology experiment," Bik wrote.

Top Chinese academic hits back at plagiarism claims over US-China trade war research

The discovery led to similar findings in more than 50 papers Cao supervised when he was with The Second Military Medical University and National Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology with Zhejiang University between 2003 and last year.

Bik posted on Twitter that she was not accusing anyone of misconduct. "Please keep in mind that many of these duplications might just be honest errors," she wrote.

An unidentified official with the academy's general office told Shanghai news site Thepaper.cn that an investigation will be carried out.

Recently I have raised some issues on @PubPeer about possible image duplications in a set of papers from a Chinese Academician.I want to stress here that I am not accusing anyone of misconduct. Please keep in mind that many of these duplications might just be honest errors.

" Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) November 17, 2019

"We have already learned about the online complaints against academician Cao Xuetao. We will look into it but further investigation takes time," the official said.

Cao, who took up his post at Nankai in 2017, told China Newsweek last Friday that he would investigate the claims.

"I am aware of the attention. I will give a response when the investigation is done," Cao was quoted as saying.

Senior Chinese law researcher target of PhD plagiarism claims

Cao responded to Bik's posting on PubPeer on Sunday night, saying that he had made investigating the claims his top priority and had started re-examining manuscripts, raw data and lab records.

He also said he would work with the "relevant journal editorial office(s) immediately" if the investigation indicated any risk of inaccuracy.

However, Cao defended his work. "Based on our analyses up to this point (still ongoing) and additional feedback we received from colleagues and peers, I would like to add that I remain confident about the validity and strength of the scientific conclusions made in those publications," Cao said.

This morning I am working on a paper by a big-name professor who is a Chinese Academician and president of a top tier Chinese university.But look at this flow cytometry image.If you find something, keep on going….#ImageForensics Level: Advanced pic.twitter.com/Z2QeIYHTEa

" Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) November 13, 2019

Cao admitted there may have been "lapses in supervision" and that he "might have fallen short". He apologised for "any oversight" on his part.

Some of the authors of the papers in question responded to the criticism on PubPeer, saying that there had been some errors in the editing process and they had contacted the journals that published the research to correct the mistakes.

Cao could not be reached for comment.

Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

0 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0