In December 2024, Elisabeth Bik noticed irregularities in a few papers by a highly-cited bioengineer, Ali Khademhosseini. Ended up she flagging about 80 papers on PubPeer. A handful of other volunteer science sleuths found more, bringing the total to 90.

Khademhosseini told Nature that investigations into his work have been carried out and have found no evidence of misconduct by him. To get a sense of the severity of the image-related issues, Nature’s news team analysed the 90 papers flagged on PubPeer in consultation with four image-integrity specialists.

Six papers had issues unrelated to images, such as authorship disputes or complaints about reported conflicts of interest. Of the remaining 84, 41 were classed as ‘level I’: containing minor issues, such as an accidentally duplicated image that could easily be corrected with raw data. Another 20 papers had more substantial problems, falling into level II. And 23 papers considered level III had more serious issues, including multiple manipulations that directly affect the interpretation of the data. Khademhosseini disputes the Nature news team’s analysis, saying it contains “substantial inaccuracies”.

Source https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03870-3

Another high-profile case has interested scientists. Read now