Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship

Update: Science provides an overview of this case as well.

As reported in Chemical & Engineering News, “A CHEMIST IN INDIA has been found guilty of plagiarizing and/or falsifying more than 70 research papers published in a wide variety of Western scientific journals [n=25] between 2004 and 2007.”

The unprecedented fraud by Pattium Chiranjeevi of Sri Venkateswara University was discovered by Purnendu Dasgupta, the US editor of Analytica Chimica Acta, when a reviewer noted that a Chiranjeevi submission was similar to a published paper from a Japanese group. “In fact, Dasgupta says, but for the change in the name of the chemical being measured, the papers were identical.” Elsevier has retracted the 13 Chiranjeevi’s articles published in its journals.

In addition to trying to blame his students for the plagiarism, Chiranjeevi “was charging students a fee to award them degrees” - not sure if this means in addition to the University tuition or what, but maybe it was for the bonus lessons in scientific misconduct: “some of them [his students] were aware of and participated in the fraud he perpetrated.”

Dasgupta reported using eBlast, which is used to develop/maintain the Deja Vu database, to find reviewers but, interestingly, seems only after the fact to have considered it as a means to flag potential plagiarism.

In Nature Nanotechnology, we find a commentary by Philip Moriarty that notes “the increasing empahsis on commercialization and market forces in modern universities is fundamentally at odds with core academic principles.”

I like the quote from The Lancet’s conflicts of interest policy: “academics have a choice - to develop their entrepreneurial skills or to maintain a commitment to public-interest science - and we do not accept that the two options are mutually compatible.”

Dr. Moriarity forcefully states that “the focus on market-driven wealth creation within publicly funded academic research … is morally bankrupt.” Well then.
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Update: The Chronicle now reports Columbia has fired Dr. Constantine, a tenured professor, for plagiarism.

The Chronicle reports a remarkable case of plagiarism at Columbia University: “The investigation, which was conducted by a law firm hired by the university, found that Madonna G. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia’s Teachers College, was guilty of plagiarism in at least two dozen instances, borrowing passages from both colleagues and students without attribution.” Try telling these folks that plagiarism is a “victimless” crime. No help from Deja Vu in this case apparently.

Lots of grant-making data from the Office of Extramural Research. One big Powerpoint, or lots of little pieces organized by interest:

NIH Budget 2007 and 2008
Research Project Grants
Research Centers
R01 Equivalent Grants
Research Grants by Mechanism: Percent Share
Targeted Research
First-Time Investigators
Training and Fellowship Trends
Career Development Trends
Modular Grants
Women in Research

And separately … the latest recommendations on “enhancing peer reivew“.

I like Jeremy Berg, who heads up NIGMS. I also like Mario Capecchi, who graced our institution with not just a talk but a day full of mentorship and collegial networking the week he received his Nobel. Dr. Capecchi’s response in Science to Dr. Berg’s comment about the fateful 1980 study section that doubted his gene-targeting project in mammalian cells is worth a quick read. But I must concur with Dr. Berg … Mario - a priority score of 139 is, by definition, outstanding! (though, admittedly, not perfect, like your other scores apparently)

Update: Yusuf Hannun from MUSC has a thoughtful letter in Nature regarding unaddressed (& not likely to be studied) potential pitfalls of the recommended changes.

Update: Science offers their take on the planned changes.

Update: On Thursday, February 21, 2008, the ACD Working Group on Peer Review made its recommendations to the full Advisory Committee to the Director (i.e., the Great Zerhouni). Larry Tabak went through the PowerPoint slides pretty much verbatim, and Nature has posted their recap. I was pleased to hear about the possible demise of the A1/A2 status and efforts to limit the number of awards per PI - and the NRR designation (not recommended for resubmission). Read the rest of this entry »

First, an early casualty of Deja Vu as reported in Nature: “A review article written by a rheumatologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, has been retracted after the journal, Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology, learned that more than half of the paper may have been plagiarized. The 2004 article, by Lee Simon (Best Pract. Res. Clin. Rheumatol. 18, 507–538; 2004), was manually checked after surfacing in an automated trawl through 7 million biomedical abstracts for possible plagiarism (see Nature 451, 397–399 ; 2008). The retraction was announced on 29 January. Harvard Medical School has formed a committee to review the matter but has not launched an official investigation, says spokesman David Cameron. Simon declined to comment, saying only: “I’m very sorry that I’ve been so targeted for something like a review article.””

This week’s Nature also includes a commentary on double-blind peer review of journal articles drawn from the Publishing Research Consortium survey results that “also highlight that 71% have confidence in double-blind peer review and that 56% prefer it to other forms of review. Support is highest with those who have experienced it (the humanities and social sciences) or where it is perceived to do the most good (among female authors). The least enthusiastic group is editors.”

Considering that so many manuscripts include referenced comments such as, “We previously showed …”, I have to wonder how blindable journal articles can be. Indeed, as Nature notes, “The editors at the Public Library of Science abandoned double-blind peer review because too few requested it and authors were too readily identified.”

Nature invites your comments on this commentary.

As noted in our earlier discussion of street versus classroom RCR (responsible conduct of research) training, The Scientist has a refreshing piece by two non-biomedical scientists — C. Neal Stewart, Jr., professor and Ivan Racheff Chair of Excellence in Plant Molecular Genetics, and J. Lannett Edwards, associate professor and graduate director in the Department of Animal Science (UTenn, Knoxville) — on their adventure in teaching research ethics (inspired by personal encounters with less than ethical behavior). Their tips and syllabus get right to the heart of the matter. Nothing pretentious or holier than thou business here. Sounds like everyone learned along the way: Read the rest of this entry »

Someday, in my spare time (tee-hee-hee), I’ll create a dynamic resource page similar to the one for Paylines that provides links to the various IC cleared concept clearinghouses. Or maybe I’ll just add these links to the Paylines page. Done (links added to Paylines page, that is). In the meantime, please remember to go see what your favorite IC council has been up to (besides approving your application for funding, of course). For example, NIAID just cleared concepts for several ambitious programs.

Lynn Morrison, President of Washington Health Advocates, a Washington lobbying firm that represents the American Federation for Medical Research et al., has published a commentary entitled “The CTSAs, the Congress, and the Scientific Method” in the current issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine.
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