4 ms·
How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
- DonsDiscountGas 4mo agoConcerning but not really surprising. They offer about hundred thousand antibodies, a few hundred frauds is likely the tip of the iceberg. > “Similar image” searches using Google Lens, Bing Images or DuckDuckGo betray hundreds more that we have yet to document In my experience these would return any image of an antibody (edit) Western blot, not just the exactly matching background. Would be curious to hear others thoughts.
- Amorymeltzer 4mo agoWithout engaging in your point, small nitpick: These are images of Western blots[1], not PCR. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_blot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_blot
- boxed 4mo agoFrom the comments on the article by the author it looks more like 10% so far and they haven't systematically looked. That means ~10% if a probable floor of how much fraud there is.
- sgc 4mo agoNot according to the complete comment: More like 10%, but my search has not been systematic. I am mostly looking where I know I will find image issues based on image filenames and “Find Similar Images” searches. They are clearly saying they think this is likely above average.
- noodlesUK 4mo agoExactly what is the "data" that's being shown here? Is it essentially some kind of marketing material showing "this sort of thing is what you should expect to see" or is it actually data or for compliance? If it's essentially marketing material or an instructional example that isn't meant to be representative it being magically clearer than real life doesn't seem like a great sin (unless it's being claimed it is representative). If it's something to be relied upon for compliance or as data to be used, that's pretty damming.
- voidUpdate 4mo ago> "This image is supposed to demonstrate that the antibody being sold works as intended. It is labeled as “Advanced Verification” data on Thermo Fisher’s site" (links to https://www.thermofisher.com/uk/en/home/life-science/antibodies/invitrogen-antibody-validation.html https://www.thermofisher.com/uk/en/home/life-science/antibod...) I think it is technically marketing material, but if you have to fabricate your marketing material, that's not a good sign that the material is accurate. If I buy a car based on an advert where it shows the car going at 300 mph, and in real life it maxes out at 30mph, that's misleading advertising and something should be done about it. Given that "at Thermo Fisher, a single vial containing a 0.1 mL aliquot of antibody solution typically costs 400 to 500 USD", you'd want to have accurate marketing material before buying it
- noodlesUK 4mo agoIt definitely isn't a good look but I'm not entirely sure where this lands on "the line drawing on my IKEA instruction manual doesn't look like the furniture" to "VW diesel emissions report" spectrum. I'd appreciate if any bioscientists in the audience could clear that up a bit.
- flobosg 4mo agoFrom the article: > This image is supposed to demonstrate that the antibody being sold works as intended. (…) Antibodies are near-ubiquitous but notoriously fickle laboratory reagents in biomedical research. For many applications, it is absolutely crucial that the antibodies that you use are selective (i.e., the antibody binds strongly to the target protein) and specific (i.e., the antibody binds to the protein of interest and little else). Antibodies showing a different picture (Western blot) than what is expected can drastically change the interpretation of the results as well as the conclusion of a study, for example. It may also encourage scientific fraud by authors by forcing them to unknowingly/coincidentally make to a blot image the same (or similar) fraudulent modifications performed by the vendor. Now I’m curious about how much of the blot photoshopping present in retracted papers can be attributed to these misleading verification data.
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- arcade79 4mo agoI have no idea about this catalogue, however, looking at the article and how the image manipulation has happened - it looks very much like "repro" work back in the day. Anything that large companies published in/as magazines, etc, back in the 80/90s first went to a design company. Then to a repro company for the "finishing touches" to make it look nice. Faces were touched up, photo artifacts was removed, everything was to look neat and tidy. This looks so much like that. I wouldn't be surprised if Thermo Fisher still ran everything that is to be published through a marketing/repro cycle, who has tampered with this without realizing what it looks like. It'll be interesting to see if any actual data has been changed, or just the presentation of the data.
- pu_pe 4mo agoNo marketing or design company would duplicate a band from another experiment (taking care to rotate it to make it look different nonetheless). Even in that unlikely scenario, Thermo Fisher is still responsible for the scientific data they publish.
- rcxdude 4mo agoThe background painting could maybe be explained like this (depending on what was hidden), but I don't think the duplicated blobs have a good explanation, especially because some were rotated to try to hide the manipulation.
- codedokode 4mo agoI disagree. If you look at the photos the painting used to make black blobs shorter. As I understand, black blob vertical position is the weight of a molecule, and they want to hide the fact that there are heavier or lighter molecules. So originally there was a long blob, and they made it look shorter.
- 20k 4mo agoIn some of the experiments, the same random noise background exists with different black blobs superimposed at where you expect the correct value to be. Ie they took a fixed realistic-ish looking background, and drew in the 'correct' values Its hard to argue that that isn't fraud as a result. It isn't touching up existing data, its fully fabricating data
- pu_pe 4mo agoThis is systematic fraud, and anyone trying those antibodies with falsified data will waste money and time. A lot of papers have been retracted for similar issues. Thermo Fisher is a major worldwide supplier of antibodies, so this has quite a big practical impact.
- SubiculumCode 4mo ago1. Obviously unethical and fraudulent behavior. 2. It should be determined whether the fraud was just the display image (imagine a sales manager making a bad call when images are not available) or involved the underlying research (more systemic and worrying). 3. It would be interesting to examine occurrence of faked images along with apparent unreliability/irreproducibility of research that has used those products.
- gopher_space 4mo agoThere aren't any display images in science. Manipulating images for presentation is an automated process unless you're ripping someone off. The changes would be uniform across whole sets. The problem with trying to pass off a fake image is that you need to be more knowledgeable in each dimension of the effort than the recipients are in just one. If anyone remembers the folks identifying East German video from background hum it's kind of like that.
- adampunk 4mo ago"a sales manager making a bad call when images are not available" It seems nearly impossible to imagine that to be the case. I'd have to disregard the kinds of manipulation entirely. What sales manager would create a whole western block sequence by copying, rotating, and flipping a single element?
- SubiculumCode 4mo agoSomeone else here mentioned proofers, people that prepare marketing materials, as a potential source. I am in no way defending Thermo here. I just meant that the extend of the fraud needs to be determined, from some non-scientist making a decision for short term profits, frustrated that no one saved the picture, or because the pictures showed how ugly the western blots actually are, versus wholesale fabrication of the research from the bottom up.
- eig 4mo agoThe only reason I think biotech companies are not yet raising hell (and invoking the False Claims Act) is that Thermo Fisher's antibodies are already known to be notoriously bad, and everyone serious seems to have to validate everything themselves.
- chromatin 4mo agoWe noticed this years ago when looking at -- IIRC -- ikaros antibodies. They were clearly faked. Lacking any sort of platform to gain attention we moved on to Abcam and our lab just sort of maintained a mental map of who not to purchase ANYTHING immuno- from.
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- LastTrain 4mo agoHave the samples found so far, in general, been edited in a way to increase value or potential sales volume? Or are they just more pretty?
- BoredPositron 4mo agoSome are just completely fabricated so it's hard to say if they have equivalent uglier images with real data...
- Faaak 4mo agoMore pretty, which would signify that the sample has less impurities -> better value
- voidUpdate 4mo agoSomeone call bobbybroccoli, they've got a new video to make :P
- 0-_-0 4mo agoAnd this is just fraud that was done with incompetence, so easily caught. How much is done competently?
- cing 4mo agoThere have been efforts to standardize antibody reagent testing that are sorely underfunded/undervalued, https://ycharos.com/ https://ycharos.com/ (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-024-01095-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-024-01095-8)
- fp64 4mo agoMy most generous interpretation would be: the marketing/website team didn't get the pictures in time from the respective teams, so without much thinking they edited some. Like those print-on-demand t-shirt websites that don't have real models wearing the real shirts but crappy photoshop composites.
- meindnoch 4mo agoWhat would happen if I drank these antibodies?
- wizzwizz4 4mo agoProbably not very much, same as if you ate agar, grass, a pencil eraser (rubber), or candle wax. But why would you?
- antonvs 4mo agoYou'd become a new character in the MCU: ImmuneMan
- analog31 4mo agoAn antibody is a protein. The acid in your stomach will break down the molecules into their constituent amino acids, which would be absorbed into your bloodstream. The chance that the antibody would have any biological effect before being broken down is slim. Still there are other reasons for not drinking it such as whatever else is in the solution such as preservatives etc.
- meindnoch 4mo agoWhat if I injected it?
- analog31 4mo agoYour insurance will probably deny it, and you'll get a bill. ;-) My guess is possibly not much, but it could vary greatly from one antibody to another. If the antibody isn't specific to any human protein, then it'll probably end up in your pee eventually. On the other hand, there are therapeutic proteins that are given by injection, so I could hardly suggest that it's intrinsically safe. And antibodies made for medicinal research stand a good chance of existing because of possible human interaction.
- biofox 4mo agoHoly shmoly... I'm a biologist who has used Thermo antibodies before, and this is seriously disappointing to see.
- mklyachman 4mo agoReminds me a lot of the Schon scandal. TLDR is (now-obviously-a-fraud) generational physicist kept publishing breathtaking work about semiconductors, was caught because two of his error distributions were identical
- shevy-java 4mo agoQuite shameful of Thermo Fisher. Therapies are based on accuracy. Did they damage people by lying to them? Also, how many other scientists just bought into that and used this for their own "analysis"?
- vikramkr 4mo agohttps://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/antibodies/invitrogen-antibody-validation/image-transparency-frequently-asked-questions.html https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/antibod... > Moving forward, where an original image is not present or available, the Company will ensure that website users are informed that antibody images may have been optimized for presentation and clarity on the website. wut. Bro if you don't have an original valiation image then the answer is not to say "oh we'll make sure we communicate that we're making up a random image" - it's to say you don't have the damn image. It's validation data wtf. It's not a pretty background image it's validation data if you don't have the data wtf are you "optimizing for presentation?" This faq is unreal - pure CYA except by someone who doesn't seem to know what they're trying to cover. If you've got cut and pasted/rotated bands that's just fake data. Not "optimized for presentation." Yes labs should and usually do always validate new antibodies as well. It's a waste of time and taxpayer money for them to spend their time on bad antibodies they purchased based on fake validation data. And just fundamentally - don't make up validation data. If it's not there it's not there. What are you optimizing for presentation if there's no original!? What does that say about the rest of your process?
- doctorpangloss 4mo ago> 6. Did Thermo Fisher manipulate or fabricate antibody data? > No. Listen to these guys. What assholes.
- atlas1j 4mo agoMy first, second, and third instinct here is to say this is pretty obvious and sloppy fraud. But it did remind me of the famous case discovered by David Kriesel where Xerox scanners changed documents in surprising ways. The caption on the YouTube video linked here is entertainingly accurate. https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres... "On the scale of things too horrible to contemplate, "document-altering scanner" is right up there with "flesh-eating bacteria". Since 2006, Xerox scancopiers literally are making stuff up. They, for example, replace digits with others in scans. The replacement digits are layouted perfectly into the page, so the errors are hard to see. Sounds unbelievably insidious, but it's true. Drug prescriptions, construction plans, just anything can be affected. "
- CodesInChaos 4mo agoAnd now practically every phone camera "enhances" the image via AI that might invent details. Most famously Samsung adding details to photos of the moon.
- Terr_ 4mo agoI'm scared that the "AI" marketing will make it much harder convincing non-technical coworkers and execs that "garbage in, garbage out" is a real concept, that not all "data" is good, and that our systems need to keep track of which kind is going where. "All data is useful, the more the better! Just put it all into the AI and it'll sort it out."
- rootusrootus 4mo agoIs this really pervasive? E.g. To my knowledge the "AI" enhancement that iPhones do automatically is limited to the usual sorts of post-processing for contrast, color, etc. There is an AI editing mode that leans more into generative fill capability that would be analogous to the Samsung incident but I don't think it's happening automatically to every photo you take.
- 4mo ago
- FL33TW00D 4mo agoThe guy who uncovered this, Sholto David, is basically just awesome? Watch him cycle from Wales -> China in 90 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgHZPfivVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgHZPfivVA This isn't his first fraud rodeo either. For his discovery of serious fraud by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2024, he received $2.6 million. Be more like Sholto, exercise your free will!
- morley 4mo agoI didn't realize whistleblowers could recover part of fraud settlements: > The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Sholto David. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. David will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dana-farber-cancer-institute-agrees-pay-15m-settle-fraud-allegations-related-scientific https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dana-farber-cancer-institute-...
- stevehawk 4mo agohttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/marine-sarah-feinberg-whistleblower-booz-allen-69-million-rcna102098 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/marine-sarah-fei... $40m for this person in the US
- stronglikedan 4mo agoworth it for a lifetime of looking over your shoulder? maybe...
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo agoIf you believe the conspiracy theories, that Boeing whistleblower “took his own life” before testimony and any potential payout.
- helsinkiandrew 4mo ago
- stivatron 4mo agoWestern Blot is a hideous technique
- feverzsj 4mo agoIt's like 90% biomedicine papers are like this.
- dennis_jeeves2 4mo agoTrue.
- stebunovd 4mo agoApparently, the authors of the original paper haven't yet learned to use AI. Their successors, however, will almost certainly do a better job of it.
- mjg59 4mo agoWhat paper? This is about several hundred datasheets.
- airstrike 4mo agowhy isn't their stock tanking
- 0xWTF 4mo agoI have already forwarded this to a number of senior pathologists and industry leaders. People who are in charge of either developing these things or validating them for clinical use. We'll see what they say. But I suspect a great many of them will actually continue using the implicated products because they passed clinical validation at many institutions. TBD.
- gwerbret 4mo agoUnfortunately, the equipment and reagent vendors in the very unregulated life sciences/biomedical research world constitute a racket. Serial buyouts over the last 10 - 15 years have led to a ridiculous degree of consolidation -- the sort that wouldn't fly in a regulated industry, or even one in which regulators are paying any attention at all -- so it's now dominated by two players: Merck (through its MilliporeSigma arm), and Thermo Fisher. The existence of this cartel means that they can essentially get away with murder, both from a fraud angle (which is exactly what the Western blot manipulation is) and by fixing prices to whatever degree they please. Also unfortunately, biomedical scientists are not known for their tendency to collaborate to face a mutual enemy (the mild pushback against the Elsevier/Springer Nature publishing cartel has come less from scientists and more from university systems whose libraries have to foot most of the bills). From their perspective, it's "What am I gonna do? Raise my own antibodies? Start blowing my own glassware?" So they grimace and bear it. For reference, here's how their workflow for research antibodies goes (and it's been like this for decades): 1. Produce an antibody the research world needs. Do no QA, that's expensive and unnecessary. 2. Claim with usually no evidence (and apparently by forging evidence) that the antibody works in certain applications. 3. Let researchers buy the antibody and do your QA for you. Even if the antibody doesn't work, only a tiny percentage of buyers will go to the effort of getting a refund. 4. Profit. Keep selling the antibody even when the rare scientist with time on their hands demonstrates beyond doubt that your antibody clearly doesn't work. 5. When sales start drying up because enough people are catching up to the scam, discontinue the antibody. Give no explanation. 6. Repeat from 1.