Scientists Question the Data Behind an Experimental Alzheimer’s Drug

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“There is no possibility, no logical way for this to happen,” he said.

Elisabeth Bik, a leading expert In image manipulation, short sellers became aware of the company last summer after the FDA filed its petition. In a series of twitter posts, blog posts, and posts on the PubPeer website, Dr. Bik pointed to signs that some results were copied and pasted from other experiments.

“These were serious concerns,” he said in an interview. Based on the pattern of disorganization in the images across multiple articles, he believes it “is highly likely to be an ongoing manipulation.”

Charles Spruck, a cancer researcher at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego with more than 25 years of experience with western blotting, said he believes the abnormalities in these images could be the result of simple mistakes or whims. technical.

Associate director of scientific integrity and ethics, Dr. Irregularities or errors in an image or two may be by chance, but “when you see it over and over, you’re less likely to accidentally do it,” said David Vaux. Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute in Australia.

Mr. Barbier dismissed the criticism, saying the irregularities did not affect the company’s research findings. “These background pixels have no effect on the data or its interpretation,” he said, adding, “We are 100 percent with Professor Wang.”

Dr. Vaux and others lamented the limitations of peer review in identifying errors or manipulation, and said many scientific journals were reluctant to retract articles for fear of being sued or damaging their own reputations.

Dr. “It’s time for regulators to step in because the peer review process has gone as far as possible,” Hu said. “The tide has changed so much that I don’t see how clinical trials can move forward if the science seems like it’s not there.”

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