"There are many rabbit holes on the
internet not worth going down. But a comment on an online science forum called PubPeer
convinced me something might be at the bottom of this one. “This highly cited
Science paper is riddled with problematic blot images,” it said. That anonymous
2015 observation helped spark a chain of events that led Stanford’s president,
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, to announce his resignation this month.
Dr. Tessier-Lavigne made the
announcement after a university investigation found that as a neuroscientist
and biotechnology executive, he had fostered an environment that led to
“unusual frequency of manipulation of research data and/or substandard
scientific practices” across labs at multiple institutions. Stanford opened the
investigation in response to reporting I
published last autumn in The Stanford Daily, taking a closer look at scientific
papers he published from 1999 to 2012.
The review focused on five major
papers for which he was listed as a principal author, finding evidence of
manipulation of research data in four of them and a lack of scientific rigor in
the fifth, a famous study that he said would “turn our current understanding of
Alzheimer’s on its head.” The investigation’s conclusions did not line up with
my reporting on some key points, which may, in part, reflect the fact that
several people with knowledge of the case would not participate in the university’s
investigation because it declined to guarantee them anonymity. It
did confirm issues in every one of the papers I reported on. (My team of
editors, advisers and lawyers at The Stanford Daily stand by our work.)
In retrospect, much of the data manipulation
is obvious. Although the report concluded that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne was unaware
at the time of the manipulation that occurred in his labs, in papers on which
he served as a principal author, images had been improperly copied and pasted
or spliced; results had been duplicated and passed off as separate experiments;
and in some instances — in which the report found an intention to hide the
manipulation — panels had been stretched, flipped and doctored in ways that
altered the published experimental data. All of this happened before he became
Stanford’s president. Why, then, didn’t it come out sooner?
The answer is that people weren’t
looking.
This year, a panel of scientists
began reviewing the allegations against Marc Tessier-Lavigne, focusing on five
papers for which he was a principal author.
In the earliest paper reviewed, a
1999 study about neural development, the panel found that an image from one
experiment had been flipped, stretched and then presented as the result of a
different experiment.
A 2004 paper contained similar
manipulations, including an image that was reused to represent different
experiments.
“Basic biostatistical computational
errors” and “image anomalies” were found in a 2009 paper about Alzheimer’s that
has been cited over 800 times, including the reuse of a control image with
improper labeling.
At least four of the five papers
appear to have manipulated data. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne has stated that he intends
to retract three of the papers and correct the other two.
The report and its consequences are
an unhappy outcome for a powerful, influential, wealthy scientist described by
a colleague in a 2004 Nature Medicine profile
as essentially “being perfect.” The first in his family to go to college, Dr.
Tessier-Lavigne earned a Rhodes scholarship before establishing a lab at the
University of California, San Francisco, in the 1990s and discovering netrins,
the proteins responsible for guiding axon growth. “He’s one of those people for
whom things always seemed to go just right,” an acquaintance recalled in the
Nature Medicine article.
Anonymous sleuths had raised
concerns of alteration in some of the papers on PubPeer, a web forum for
discussing published scientific research, since at least 2015. These public
questions remained hidden in plain sight even as Dr. Tessier-Lavigne was being
vetted for the presidency of Stanford, an institution with a budget of $8.9
billion for next year — larger than that of the entire state of Iowa. Reporters
did not pick up on the allegations, and journals did not correct the scientific
record. Questions that should have been asked, weren’t.
Peer review, a process designed to
ensure the quality of studies before publication, is based on a foundation of
honesty between author and reviewer; that process has often failed to catch
brazen image manipulation. And when concerns are raised after the fact, as they
were in this case, they often fail to gain public attention or prompt
correction of the scientific record.
This is a major issue, one that
extends well beyond one man and his career. Absent public scrutiny, journals
have been consistently slow to act on allegations of research falsification. In
a field dependent on good faith cooperation, in which each contribution
necessarily builds on the science that came before it, the consequences can
compound for years.
When we first went to Dr.
Tessier-Lavigne with questions in the fall, a Stanford spokeswoman responded
instead, claiming the concerns raised about three of his publications “do not
affect the data, results or interpretation of the papers.” But as the
Stanford-sponsored investigation found and he eventually came to agree,
that was not true.
Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s plan to
retract or issue robust corrections for at least five papers for which he was a
principal author is a rare act for a scientist of his stature. It seems
unlikely this would have happened without the public pressure of the past eight
months; in fact, the report concluded that “at various times when concerns with
Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged — in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-16 and
March 2021 — Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct
mistakes in the scientific record.”
The Stanford investigation did not
find that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne personally altered data or pasted pieces of
experimental images together. Instead, it found that he had presided over a lab
culture that “tended to reward the ‘winners’ (that is, postdocs who could
generate favorable results) and marginalize or diminish the ‘losers’ (that is,
postdocs who were unable or struggled to generate such data).” In a statement,
Dr. Tessier-Lavigne said, “I can state categorically that I did not desire this
dynamic. I have always treated all the scientists in my lab with the utmost
respect, and I have endeavored to ensure that all members flourish as
successful scientists.”
Winner-takes-all stakes are,
unfortunately, an all-too-common occurrence in academic science, with
postdoctoral researchers often subject to the intense pressure of the need to publish or perish. Having a paper
with your name on it in Nature, Science or Cell, the high-profile journals in
which many of the papers reviewed by the Stanford investigation appeared, can
make or break young careers. Postdocs are underpaid; Stanford recently
purchased housing that was intended to be affordable for them, then reportedly
set minimum salary requirements
for living there higher than their wages. They are also jockeying to stand out
in a field with limited lab positions and professorship openings. And senior
researchers sometimes take credit for their postdocs’ work and ideas but brush
off responsibility should errors or mistakes arise.
What isn’t common, of course, is the
“frequency of manipulation of research data and/or substandard scientific
practices” in the labs Dr. Tessier-Lavigne ran, the Stanford report concluded.
Falsification, the technical term for much of this conduct, involves “violating
fundamental research standards and basic societal values,” according to the National
Academy of Sciences. In his statement, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne said that he has
“always sought to model the highest values of the profession, both in terms of
rigor and of integrity, and I have worked diligently to promote a positive
culture in my lab.” Despite the report’s characterization of what went on in
his labs as rare and irregular, lessons from this case apply across the field,
especially regarding the importance of correcting the scientific record.
A 2016 study by a handful of
prominent research misconduct investigators — including the well-known image analyst and microbiologist Elisabeth
Bik, who helped identify a number of the manipulations in the work
coming out of Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s labs — showed that around 3.8 percent of
published studies include “problematic figures,” with at least half of those
showing signs of “deliberate manipulation.” But only approximately 0.04 percent
of published studies are retracted.
That gap, which shows a lack of accountability among both individual
researchers and the scientific journals, is a profoundly unfortunate sign of a
culture in which admitting failures has been stigmatized, rather than
encouraged.
“My lab management style has been
centered on trust in my trainees,” Dr. Tessier-Lavigne said in his statement.
“I have always looked at their science very critically, for example to ensure
that experiments are properly controlled and conclusions are properly drawn.
But I also have trusted that the data they present to me are real and
accurate,” he wrote.
Science is a team sport, but as the
report concluded, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne, a principal author with final authority
over the data, was responsible for addressing the issues in his research when
they were brought to his attention. In the judgment of the Stanford
investigation, he “could not provide an adequate explanation” for why he had
not done so.
To his credit, he began the
correction process for a few of these examples of data manipulation in 2015,
when the first allegations were made publicly. But when Science failed to
publish the corrections for two of those papers, the report found that after “a
final inquiry on June 22, 2016, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne ceased to follow up.” He
was made aware of the allegations once more when public discussion resumed in
2021. The report found that he drafted an email inquiring about the unpublished
corrections but did not send it. He will now retract both those papers.
In another case — in which there was
no public pressure to act — he was made aware “within weeks” of an error in a
2001 paper, according to the Stanford report. Although he wrote to a colleague
that he would correct the scientific record, “he did not contact the journal,
and he did not attempt to issue an erratum, which is inadequate,” the report
concluded.
In the past few years, the field has
made great strides to combat image manipulation, including the use of resources
like PubPeer, better software detection tools and the prevalence of preprints
that allow research to be discussed before it is published. Sites like Retraction Watch have also furthered awareness of
the problem of research misconduct. But clearly, there is still progress to be
made.
The shake-up at Stanford has already
prompted conversations across the scientific community about its ramifications.
Holden Thorp, the editor in chief of Science, concluded that the
“Tessier-Lavigne matter shows why running a lab is a full-time job,”
questioning the ability of researchers to ensure a rigorous research
environment while taking on increasing outside responsibilities. An article in Nature examined “what
the Stanford president’s resignation can teach lab leaders,” concluding that
the case was “reinvigorating conversations about lab culture and the
responsibilities of senior investigators.”
This self-reflection in the
scientific research community is important. To address research misconduct, it
must first be brought into the light and examined in the open. The underlying
reasons scientists might feel tempted to cheat must be thoroughly understood. Journals,
scientists, academic institutions and the reporters who write about them have
been too slow to open these difficult conversations.
Seeking the truth is a shared
obligation. It is incumbent on all those involved in the scientific method to
focus more vigorously on challenging and reproducing findings and ensuring that
substantiated allegations of data manipulation are not ignored or forgotten —
whether you’re a part-time research assistant or the president of an elite
university. In a cultural moment when science needs all the credibility it can
muster, ensuring scientific integrity and earning public trust should be the
highest priority.
Theo Baker is a rising sophomore at
Stanford University. He is the son of Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent
for The Times."
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