Spotting ethical misconduct in scholarly research: The STAP case

By Satyajit Rout | March 11, 2014 - Under Publication Ethics, Industry news



The STAP stem cells situation, as I write this down, represents a can of worms whose lid has been
pried open by scores of scholarly commentators, most of them active researchers in the field, on
social media over the last few weeks. Researcher forums like PubPeer and blogs like that of Paul
Knoepfler are rife with chatter on the minutiae of the case, Nature and RIKEN have announced
investigations into the matter, and some of the STAP authors have released a protocol exchange
document (on March 5
th
) for public perusal.
It is arguable that the STAP story is a shot in the arm for post-publication reviewtheres no such
thing as too many heads when it comes to assessing the validity of science. In this case, it may very
well be that riding on a string of successful replications by independent labs worldwide, proof of
the findings is incontrovertibly established. This is not entirely unthinkable. However, is it good
practice to rely on post-publication correction to right the wrong? Authenticating experimental
protocol needs time and resources. We cannot always wait for such exercises to run their course.
What if it wasnt about stem cells? Not all research domains draw scientific attention on this scale.
What if the study pertained to a field with a lesser appeal?
There is a view emerging from industry quarters that the main concern with the STAP articles may
not pertain to the replicability of the methods after all. Even if the results are reproduced
elsewhere, questions on the integrity of the research will remain because of issues of textual
similarity and image duplication. Now plagiarism and image manipulation are practices that are
best identified and flagged before research enters the public domain. It is much easier to spot
textual borrowing today than it was a decade ago. Yet if a journal of the stature and means of
Nature cannot police plagiarism in all its submissions, what does it say about the chances that
lesser titles will pick out instances of textual borrowing and image manipulation?
Evidently, there have to be checkpoints before a research article enters the publication cycle. Such
checks can lessen the burden on overworked journal editors and reviewers pre-publication, not to
mention save expenditure of intellectual resources and public money on fraudulent science post-
publication.
It is for outlining and implementing these checkpoints that the industry needs to show initiative. At
Editage, we run plagiarism checks on manuscripts opting for publication support and notify authors
in cases of textual similarity. Detecting image manipulation, however, has not proved to be as
straightforward a process. Currently, we follow available guidelines, like those
of Elsevier and Nature, to spot instances where images could have been more than just cleaned up
for clarity. Plans are afoot to curate a comprehensive set of guidelines that any reviewer can use to
verify image integrity. None of these steps guarantee comprehensive protection against ethical
misconduct, yet without them we run the risk of being labeled careless and callous to the cause of
science.
PS: Heres a dramatized take on the issue of protecting research subjects and avoiding research
misconduct by The Office of Research Integrity. The free video, called The Research Clinic, is
expected to be out on March 28
th
.

ARTICLE PATH: http://www.editage.com/insights/spotting-ethical-misconduct-in-scholarly-research-the-
stap-case

TAGS: reproducibility, replication studies, STAP stem cells, research integrity