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Comment on 2015 mRNA paper suggests data re-used in different contexts

(pubpeer.com)
159 points picture | 1 comments | 16 Jan 25 17:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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5mk ◴[16 Jan 25 18:45 UTC] No.42729195[source]▶
I've always wondered about gel image fraud -- what's stopping fraudulent researchers from just running a dummy gel for each fake figure? If you just loaded some protein with a similar MW / migration / concentration as the one you're trying to spoof, the bands would look more or less indistinguishable. And because it's a real unique band (just with the wrong protein), you wouldn't be able to tell it's been faked using visual inspection.

Perhaps this is already happening, and we just don't know it... In this way I've always thought gel images were more susceptible to fraud vs. other commonly faked images (NMR / MS spectra etc, which are harder to spoof)

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fabian2k ◴[16 Jan 25 19:20 UTC] No.42729655[source]▶
Gel electrophoresis data or Western/Southern/Northern blots are not hard to fake. Nobody seeing the images can tell what you put into each pocket of your gel. And for the blots nobody can tell which kind of antibody you used. It's still not totally effortless to fake as you have to find another protein with the right weight, this is not necessarily something you have just lying around.

I'd also suspect that fraud does not necessarily start at the beginning of the experiments, but might happen at a later stage when someone realizes their results didn't turn out as expected or wanted. At that point you already did the gels and it might be much more convenient to just do image manipulation.

Something like NMR data is certainly much more difficult to fake convincingly, especially if you'd have to provide the original raw datasets at publication (which unfortunately isn't really happening yet).

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dxyms ◴[16 Jan 25 19:48 UTC] No.42729974[source]▶
Or from my own experience, suddenly realize you forgot to make a picture of the gel (or lost it?) and all you have are the shitty ones.
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1. jpeloquin ◴[17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC] No.42732732{3}[source]▶
Shifting the topic from research misconduct to good laboratory practices, I don't really understand how someone would forget to take pictures of their gels often enough that they would feel it necessary to fake data. (I think you're recounting something you saw someone else do, so this isn't criticizing you.) The only reason to run the experiment to collect data. If there's no data in hand, why would they think the experiment was done? Also, they should be working from a written protocol or a short-form checklist so each item can be ticked off as it is completed. And they should record where they put their data and other research materials in their lab notebook, and copy any work (data or otherwise) to a file server or other redundant storage, before leaving for the day. So much has to go wrong to get to research misconduct and fraud from the starting point of a little forgetfulness.

I mean, I've seen people deliberately choose to discard their data and keep no notes, even when I offered to give them a flash drive with their data on it, so I understand that this sort of thing happens. It's still senseless.